Picking original Christmas presents, particularly on a tight budget, is never easy. For those who want to avoid handing out sweaters and ties, the Kyiv Post prepared a list of Christmas gift ideas and tips on how to pick the one that suits you best.
Handmade gift
Nothing says time and thought like a handmade present, and Kyiv offers several places that will teach you how. The master class on paper quilling, for instance, is a nice opportunity to learn how to make unique Christmas cards. This craft first became popular in 14th century France and Italy, and revolves around the complicated process of coiling and shaping narrow colorful paper strips.
Techniques for decorating New Year toys and candles can also be learned, like decoupage, the French art of pasting cutouts to an object and then covering it with varnish. There are also master classes on soap making and felting, although these are only available in Russian or Ukrainian. Organizers will typically provide all the materials, allowing you to take the masterpieces home.
Samodelki
69 Volodymyrska St.
067-951-9418
Hr 250 ($30)
http://samodelki.com.ua
Velour
13/21 Taras Shevchenko Lane
Hr 200-1140 ($25-140)
http://velour.kiev.ua
Greeting from Father Frost, Snow Maiden
Who says Father Frost and Snow Maiden don’t exist? They do and it’s easy to hire them for a Christmas celebration at work or at home in Kyiv.
From traditional New Year performances to ones featuring well-known cartoon characters, there are plenty of event agencies offering such services for any taste and budget.
Prices start at Hr 80-200 for a half hour and top out at Hr 800-1,100 for a long party. Some services are quite inventive, like having the Christmas couple come to your house on horses.
This kind of New Year service became popular in Ukraine in the 2000s, according to Maryna Kuzmenko, who has been running the event agency Jevjek since 2006. “The amount of orders has grown rapidly (since 2006) and that goes for all the event agencies offering such services,” she says.
Here are some useful links for more information and contacts
http://vokal.kiev.ua/ru/catalog_yslygi_centra/rubric_2865/ (greetings in English, Russian and Ukrainian)
http://jvj.com.ua/ (in Russian and Ukrainian)
Gifts for active leisure
For those who want to take out a friend or loved one out, there are plenty of active leisure options. Most can be ordered online. An hour of roller skating or ice skating for two will cost Hr 120, while the chance to learn skiing and snowboarding techniques in Protasiv Yar in Kyiv costs Hr 200. An hour of horse riding for two costs Hr 650. And this is not the end of the list. Rock climbing and figure skating classes are among a huge variety of activities available for order.
Note: Emozzi tends to offer more affordable prices compared to Bodo
For more information go to
http://www.emozzi.com.ua or www.bodo.com.ua
Book posters
Modern intellectuals should love this one.
A variety of world classic literature, including Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” or Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “Le Petit Prince are now available in a handy format. Called Knigli, the project of making book posters was launched several months ago and has already become very popular among Kyivans, who buy about 400 Knigli posters per month, each at a cost of Hr 200 ($25).
To fit a whole book into one poster, an extremely small font is used. Some Knigli posters use 4.5 font.
