Take 2. 2014. The route to Kyiv. Or the holiday that was On then OFF then ON then OFF then ON then OFF then ON.

So, we decided that we would like to try and see the Chernobyl site again.  This time we would go as a family, Patrick and Billy are to travel with us.

At the time the media was reporting on protests taking place on Independence Square, Kiev, but after a bit of research, we were happy that the demonstrations were localised to the Independence Square area and the Stadium and were on the whole peaceful.  With the date agreed, we booked our flights.

That's when this happened:







This concerned us.  It's not the sort of images you see in a holiday brochure.  The following link is to the blog, from which I must credit the above photos: HERE  Bizarrely it is this blogger's account of the protests that first started to give me confidence to travel.  Also a thread I started on the Kiev forum of TripAdvisor: HERE Cora on the TripAdvisor forum was (and still is, we have kept in touch via private message) quite insistent that the rest of Kyiv was normal.  It was months before we travelled, and like the London riots, I expected things to calm down.  So we decided to book our accommodation later, and see if things did calm down.

And things did calm down, the Prime Minister resigned, the anti protest laws were annulled and the arrested protesters were released.

And then in mid February, in what initially appeared to be an attempt to disperse the protest, people got killed.  Soon there were reports of snipers on the roof tops, picking out protesters.  88 people lost their lives over 48 hours.

The holiday and whether we made it became less important to me, but I needed to know more about the crisis and why people were losing their lives, seemingly at the hands of their own.

Things then moved very fast, the President Viktor Yanukovych disappeared, a interim President was appointed, Yanukovych appeared in Russia, and a date for an election was set.  The mood seemed to change, the country was in mourning, yet the people were also celebrating a new freedom.  And things started to calm down again, it began to look like we would have the experience of seeing a country in transitional change for the better.

Then in the final days of February troops wearing uniforms "a bit like" Russian ones started to appear in Crimea.  Putin gets the Kremlin to approve the use of force in Ukraine.  The almost Russian troops start to surround Ukrainian military bases all over Crimea.  Then they start to take over the bases.  Crimea declares a referendum.  The referendum takes place, the results are heavily suspect, but unsurprisingly in the favour of Crimea joining Russia.  Putin denies any involvement..

The G8 counties were quick to start calling themselves the G7 countries as they start to impose sanctions on Russia for the annexation of Crimea, and Russia was to all intents and purposes kicked out of the G8.

All through this, Kyiv remains calm.  The Russian troops on the Eastern Ukraine border reduce in numbers. We start to plan the trip, it's now March and we go in April.  Then the government buildings in the Eastern cities of Donetsh, Luhansk and Kharkiv were stormed by pro Russian protesters.  The new Ukrainian government were quick to react, and it soon started to look like a small minority (possibly actual Russians) were trying to destabilise the East.  But we still got our regular reports of the calm in Kyiv, so we are going in TWO days.

The first four months of 2014 have been complicated for Ukraine, my understanding is limited, there's much more behind it, Gas supplies (for Ukraine and Europe), a new Cold War, other former Soviet states wanting to join Russia and much more.  But I wanted to give a bit of background to our trip, we have no worries about safety, I wouldn't be going if I did, I am sure however we will see things that are the result of the changing Ukrainian politics.