After a good sleep, I say “hello” to my last day in Kyiv. After breakfast, it is time to leave the hotel. I will arrive to the bus terminal by subway and take the bus to Uman. The transportation is very cheap in Kyiv. You can buy your tickets from the machines like in ours. You may need some loose cash while buying your tickets. Subway tickets costs 2 Grivnis and the machines only accept 5 Grivnis at most. I arrive to the bus terminal by the subway and buy my bus ticket for 65 Grivnis. There is still 15-20 minutes remaining for my bus’ departure. The bus is not very comfortable but not that much bad. But I can’t say the same thing for the road, it is terrible. It is dented even before we left Kyiv. We try to zigzag on the road but are still unable to avoid the holes. The bus stops 2 times for 5 minutes. The WC costs 5 Grivnis in the stopever. Apparently for truck drivers especially, there are some shower cabins. You can take a shower for 25 Grivnis.

After a 3 hour trip, we get off in the city center of Uman. Before going to Odessa from Kyiv, I will visit my friend in Uman and stay with them. Olga lives with her family and before we go to their house, we buy some wines and cakes. They prepared some food for us. Uman is a small city. It does not have many places to visit. There are a nice university and a very big and clean park. Its name is Sofienski Park. I will have the opportunity to see how the people in Ukraine live.

After buying something from the market, we take the bus and go to their house. Olga’s family knew that I’m coming, so her father and neighbours make barbecue in front of the door. They thought that I don’t eat pork meat, therefore they bought chicken. We get to know eachother at the entrance and I go upstairs. Her family and neighbours are really friendly. We directly begin to eat and we move into a deep conversation. They ask me everything they wonder about Turkey. They want to know how the lifestyle is and they also say that Turkey is a beautiful country. I also ask them everything I wonder. We talk for hours. Her family prepared Borsh soup especially for me. It is made of pork meat generally, but they prepared it with chicken for me and it was delicious.

Olga’s family is a happy family which lives in a small town and stands on its own feet. They live in a house which was given for free by the government during the Kommunist regime in 1980. It has 1 living room, 1 bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Her parents sit in the living room at daytimes and they open the chair and sleep on it at nights.

They talk about the difficulty of life in Ukraine and they admit that it is very difficult to earn a living even 3 of them have a job. Olga studied economy in the university. Now she is an accountant in a food factory. Her wage is very low. It is about 240 dollars. Her mother works in the same factory. But these people have a big and loving hearts. I feel like home by a family that I have seen first time in my life.

After the breakfast in the morning, we go out to tour the city. First destination is the university and Sofiyivsky Park. Sofiyivsky Park is an arboretum (a kind o botanical garden) which was built on a 179 hectare field. It is the scientific research institute of Ukraine National Science Academy. The park is located near Kamianka river and northern part of the Uman city. Some parts of the garden reminds me an English garden. Today, it is a popular park which has 500.000 visitors annually.

Sofiyivsky was a natural turning point of the garden designing at the beginning of the 19. century. There are more than 2000 tree types (local and exotic) in the park such as swamp cypress, Weymouth pine, tulip tree, platanos, ginkgo and others.

I buy my ticket for the bus which will depart from the city center at 14:40 and  go to Odessa. That costs me 90 Grivnis. The trip takes nearly 3 hours. During the trip, tea, coffe and water are free in the bus. Let’s see what’s next in Odessa, my third stop in Ukraine. :)))