Saturday, June 30, 2007
Viewing the Past
For some reason my favorite place was the first one we visited. It was just ruins of a beautiful home, probably a palace of some sort. The place—Denyshi. I am including several pictures of it here.
During this stop we found a tower--part of an old church--on the property of an Orthodox church. The young priest told us to look for icons that had mysteriously appeared on the wall. A boy working on the property showed them to us. Yes, we could see two faces but what they looked like to us were faces from a previous picture painted on the wall at some time in the past. You can decide that for yourselves.
We stayed in what we would call a B & B in America but without the Breakfast. It was very clean and we had two rooms on the upper level, the third room housed the owner's granddaughters. I believe we had their usual rooms. We had a nice bathroom with a shower on our floor. It was very clean and only cost us $12.00 each a night. Actually, it was much nicer than some of the hotels we have stayed at in this country.
Because I want to do a thorough job telling about the castles in Kamianets and Khotyn, I will continue this in a week after our return from Uhzgorod. So good-bye until then.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Bila Tserkva Park
Recently some friends from YWAM invited us to accompany them on a trip to Bila Tserkva (Ukrainian)—Belaya Tserkov (Russian). This city is 80 plus kilometers south of Kyiv. By the way, were you aware that a few months ago the United States changed the official spelling to Kyiv (Ukrainian) from Kiev(Russian)? I guess the Ukrainian vs. Russian language issue here is a discussion for later blog. It was a trip that we are very glad we did not miss. There is an absolutely beautiful park on the outskirts of the town. The following information is from the Welcome to Ukraine website:
The park was laid out by Duchess Oleksandra in 1797 close to the river called Ros. The land for this landscape marvel was given to her as a gift by her husband, Count Ksaveriy Branytsky, a Polish aristocrat. Their estate was bringing in good profits. Besides, Oleksandra, a lady-in-waiting of Empress Catherine the Great, was the niece of Prince Gregory Potyomkin, the Empress’ favourite, and received generous gifts of money from the Imperial Family. In other words the Branytskys were wealthy enough to afford a park. In fact, they spent four million roubles in gold on turning a piece of land with meadows, a wood and a field into a masterpiece of landscape art. For that much money one could build in those times an immense palace worthy of an emperor.
http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20064/68 This website tells a lot about the park.
Yura, Tanya and their sons spent Friday night with us and then we were treated to a ride in their “new” VW van. We are very happy for them—this is their first vehicle. They definitely deserve it after 14 years of marriage (27 or more moves), a lifetime of using public transportation or the organization’s vehicles, and 14 years dedicated to working for God with YWAM.
Our picnic lunch by the Ros River was great fun. I enjoyed watching the many dragonflies playfully doing loops, dives, and flips in the reeds on the river’s bank. Frogs, many birds, ducks, geese, and other small creatures were active. A tree full of huge beetle type insects—some of them four inches long—caught our attention. I think one of the things that impressed me the most was the variety of trees in the park. Cedars, firs, pines, birches, spruce, larches, you name it—they were there. This diversity shows up in some of the pictures I am sharing here.
Ice cream, brides, dragonflies, good company, beautiful scenery, good friends—all in all, it was a very special Sabbath day and a little taste of the beauty heaven holds in store for us.