De Republiek

The motherland statue in Kiev on a cold and foggy night.

Just a heads up. Very rarely I used to post here about technical stuff concerning WordPress and more. From now there is a new address for that, as not to miss my ramblings in English. So I close the outdated /dev/ section here. Visit www.weblogmechanic.com !

That how people do it in this area!

Bunch of random photos from the last week.

Troyeshchina by sunset

The floor selection of the elevator in our building

Today some images from the district of Obolon. Which is partly a very rich part of town where the president, son of the president, prosecutors and other well-to-do Ukranians live.

Needless to say rents are high here, even much higher than most places in Amsterdam.

This is one of the things I find amazing and so far I only saw this in Kyiv. If you enter a bus you can just sit somewhere, take some
money and tap the person in front of you. Optionally you say for how many people you pay. The money then travels forward by many hands. The front person throws the fare (often) at a small carpet near the driver, or gives it to the driver. After a while your exact change (if any) comes back. This all takes place without anybody saying anything at all.

Even in a crammed bus ( 21 seats, 45 people may stand ) this happens. And the driver -will- notice if you don’t pay. You must be supernatural to check this and in the same time drive through Kyivian traffic.

Imagine this in a Dutch bus and expecting any change back.

We happened to wander into Budapest on the national day celebrating the foundation of the state. Together with Saci, whom I know now for a few years we went to see the fireworks on Margit Hid, looking over the city centre.

A nice walk in a forest nearby.