olechko

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.