olha pryymak

It got warm enough to go outside today for a quick sketch directly in oil. The result is pretty shaky (still just 4C above zero here). It’s my parents’ back yard – complete with nationalistically painted bee hives and the power plant at the back – yuck. It’s environmentally clean, and papa gets organically certified honey from these bees, if you can believe it.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, nfs

Discovered a fantastic set of Soviet posters on women’s theme on artpages .

Looking for a fine dining experience, Yuri Uzzband and me came to Korona Vitovta – the best restaurant in Lutsk, standing right at the door of the Lubart castle.  It  all started well, the funnest part came with the bill. at the dinner.  We had one glass of wine each,  and the bill modestly displayed six of each ?! ‘Funny,” thought I and went asking about this number 6. “The foreigner (Yuri) asked for a “big” glass of wine,” explained Luda (our waitress).

By now you (who spent some time in Ukraine) all know  that Ukrainian menus like to trick you with items priced by grams, and then the waiters take the liberty at judging how many of those grams your wallet can handle.   Luda’s stab at this problem exceeded all expectations: 6×50=300 grams of wine. “Why didn’t you bring us the whole bottle in that “big” glass?” we asked, very annoyed. “You should have declined the glass when you saw it was 300 gram”. “Forgot my measuring cup at home,”  I defiantly thought. The worst part was that the wine in question was flat. Be on guard if you see too many kinds of wine by the glass in the menu. It could have been sitting open for months, like ours did.

Appalled at this Luda’s lame attempt to trick us, we demonstratively payed the $25 per glass, promising we’d tell every expat to avoid the place. So now you now.  Btw, with the quick poll via blackberry among his “high-flying” friends Yuri Uzzband concluded, that $25 per glass could  cost at only other place in the word – the Beverly Hills Hotel bar!

Since I am spending so much time in Lutsk, we went checking out the local pub scene. Incidentally, I came across Noven’s pictures that perfectly show the decor of Obolon pub, the locals lovingly call it “Korablik”. Btw, the photographer has much more nice stuff on his site here. If fact I like it so much, I may have to put out his illustrated profile later here.

The pub offers sumptuous interior, styled to look like a pirate hide out. A band of an accordion, a guitar and a contrabass either wanders around the pub or performs at the stage the typical local favorites. The kitchen serves typical Ukrainian hearty meaty fare. The address is Voli prospekt ? (ask the driver for further directions :0)

Maidain is the well-established older brother pub of Korablic. Its decor is equally exiting, done more in ethnic Ukranian colyba kind of style. All major indie musical acts that come to town perform in the pub’s 2nd hall.

I am home for New Year’s – in Lutsk. The town is tiny and cozy, and has an old town that’s worth checking out. We picked a very gray and cold day to explore it, feels cold just from looking at pictures:

This is a residential street with old small houses leading up to the catholic cathedral. An old German cathedral on the very left now houses a baptist church, I think.

This is the Lubart castle in Lutsk – dates back XV c. or so and is comparatively well preserved. The pretty building up font is the local fancy restaurant Korona Vitovta that’s worth stopping by at (not any more! see my review above). The tree on the left is called Lesya Ukrajinka tree (Lesya was a prominent Ukrainian poet in nineteen hundreds and may have planted it).

Inside the castle there is a museum of bells in the tower on the left, museum of first book printing in the handsome building next to it and a gallery of art – in the white building on the very right. There used to be a cathedral in the middle where you see excavation works roofing now.

Besides a new place for drining good beer opened at the beginning of main pedestrian street – Bravyi Shweik. The decor is solid, full of tv screens showing the oddest videos: this time it was extracts from bad Elvis movies, where he’d always play the singer of the band. It is the season for mulled wine (usually called Glutwein in Ukrainian on the menu). As well as great time to meet my college girlfriends who all live out of town and come home just for holidays.