The weekend, Part 1

Okay, WOW. This is the kind of weekend I want to have every weekend! To begin.... you know I've been feeling tired of work lately, so I made up my mind to explore around the маршала жукова metro stop on Friday. Why this stop? Who knows?! Sometimes fate just nudges you. We hopped on the metro and got off here, the furthest I'd ever been on the metro's red line. My secretive snapshots of the metro stations continue, especially now that the city is doing away with the old wall-lettering and putting up new plastic signs for Euro 2012. The city hasn't gotten to this stop yet, ha!

Marshal Zhukov was a famous Soviet general. He was one of the heroes of the Red Army back in WWII and is still a name that everyone here knows.

The entrance to Marshala Zhukova

It turns out that this metro stop is next to Target, a gigantic superstore. We'd just been talking about the lack of parking spaces in Ukraine (except for makeshift let's-park-on-the-sidewalk spots) and then lo and behold, Target appears, surrounded by a gigantic underground parking lot. I was able to resist the temptation to go in... this time. Most shops here carry identical stuff so I always like to explore new shops, just in case they have something like cheddar cheese or chai tea. *sigh* Someday.

We veered off to the left, crossed train tracks, and explored a residential area with a village-like feel.

See the ремонт (remodeling) piles?

Cow manure for sale

D didn't enjoy this part of the walk much, because everyone was burning garbage.







We made it past several dog packs, back to the city streets.

We found this big yellow landmark. Does anyone know what it is?

Coming soon: "on this spot there will be a monument in honor of those who suffered at Cheronobyl- defenders of the Motherland."

a city park

Sports mural near the "Palace of Sport"

At this point we'd been wandering for about 3 hours and were walking back toward the metro when we ran into Dima, one of D's friends. He offered to take us on a spontaneous tour and show us all kinds of cool things. Who can resist that?!

Peacocks and chickens kept by a church, because "they are God's creations."

A factory. One day Dima saw a man lying on the ground here. The temperature was dropping and everyone walked past the man except for Dima, who stopped to make sure the man was okay.  The man was intoxicated but okay, and as a reward showed Dima a shortcut that Dima then showed to us.

Taking the shortcut.

Based on several pieces of evidence, it appears that many people have lost their shoes while taking this shortcut. They also lost a lot of beer bottles (but that's another picture!)

The sign says ""Warning: vicious dogs." If you click on the picture to enlarge, you'll see a dog hidden in the little cave on the right. There were a lot of dogs here but luckily none of them were vicious.

I think they're clearing scrub off the ground? For spring?

Man + child, nice car, smoldering fires, litter. No one ever said Ukraine wasn't a land of of contradictions.

Another dog pack. This one was bark-y.

Leaf buds! Spring!!!

We finished our excursion with a walk through the Alley of Glory. I've written that experience up here. Finally it was time to part ways with Dima, after a couple awesome hours of hanging out and speaking Russian. Thank you, Dima! :)
And that was just Friday...

[If you're interested, I've stashed a couple more photos over on Facebook.]