You're reading: ‘Getting away' doesn't have to mean going far

Kyiv offers some great spots to escape the city

you are looking for a place to cool down and hang out for an hour or so, you know what to do: Go to any of the myriad of outdoor cafes, restaurant patios or kiosks for a tall cold one. But if you are looking for a place to beat the heat that is off the beaten track but close enough to get to in an hour, try meandering beyond Khreshchatyk and Zoloti Vorota for a change of scenery. There are plenty of green spaces in or near the city where you can breathe fresh air and get away from the bustle of the city.

Here are a few of our favorite places:

 

Pushcha Vodytsia

This small wooded village northwest of Kyiv is just a tram ride away. With eight lakes dotting the area, Pushcha Vodytsia lays a strong claim to being the best place for shashlyk and the best place for swimming within a day’s hike in any direction of Kyiv.

You can get to Pushcha on the #12 tram from Kontraktova Square – it takes about an hour. By car, it’s about half an hour from the center along the Hostomel highway.

The two most accessible lakes are reached by taking the first road to the left as you enter the village on the Hostomel highway.

The lakes are surrounded by woods so it is easy to find kindling for your shashlyk fire. But remember that it is illegal to cut wood from live trees for fires.

There is an especially big and beautiful lake near the Pushcha Ozerna sanatorium. To find it, you follow the tramline to the last stop and then turn right.

Feeling ambitious? Forget the tram and ride a bike out there. There is a great trail in the forest that parallels the tramline.

Blue Lake

Located well away from the bustle of Kyiv about 25 kilometers south down the Novo‑Obukhiv highway, serene and tranquil Blue Lake has been growing in popularity as a picnic spot for Kyivans in recent years. What draws them is obvious – the combination of a crystal‑clear lake great for swimming and fishing and woods with plenty of kindling for whipping up a fire.

The fresh, clear water is what makes Blue Lake so special. Fed by underground streams, it is refreshingly free of the stench and algae that often mar the smaller forest lakes.

As the lake’s fame has spread, so it has lost some of the isolation that made it so attractive in the first place. Now it is surrounded by dachas, and last summer some cafes popped up around the shore as well as a couple of marked beach volleyball areas.

You’ll have to pay a couple of hryvna to park in the picnic area, but if you bike it or hike it, you get in free.

 

Vyshgorod

Besides being the base of the Kyiv Windsurfing Club, the Vyshgorod area has some of the best beaches around. The main highlight is the clean water.

Located about an hour’s boat ride north of Kyiv, the Vyshgorod area is dotted with small bays and isolated sandy beaches that make it a great place to go on that company booze cruise. The water is visibly much cleaner in this area of the Dnipro than lower down around Kyiv. Your ship captain should know of some good beaches.

If you have more time to kill, the shore round Vyshgorod has plenty of places offering privacy and solitude to pitch a tent and spend a couple of days and nights battling the mosquitoes.

To get there, take the Vyshgorod highway toward Dymer from Shevchenko Square.

 

The Kyiv Zoo

If you are in the mood for a little monkey business, head over to the Kyiv Zoo at 32 Peremohy Prospekt. Take kids to the petting zoo where they can touch goats, turtles, rabbits and other non‑threatening creatures from the animal kingdom.

No kids?It’s still a great place to roam around

A boy finds a furry friend at the petting zoo, part of the Kyiv Zoo on Peremohy Prospekt.

on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Tickets are Hr 5 for adults and Hr 1.5 for kids. Animal food 30 kopeks per pack.

Kyiv Country Club

Don’t go to the Kyiv Country Club expecting to see golf carts, polo ponies and soccer moms. If it wasn’t for the small driving range, which remains the only place to play golf anywhere around Kyiv, the club isn’t distinguishable from any other random piece of unpopulated riverfront land.

That said, the club, located south of Kyiv in a region of marshy lowland threaded with tributaries of the Dnipro, remains an enjoyable place to spend a few hours – or days – fishing, drinking and grilling meat. If you have a tent, this is certainly one of the best places around to camp.

To get there, follow Stolichnoye highway south along the Dnipro for about 27 kilometers from the city center until you come to the access road marked with a sign for the Kyiv Country Club and the Vashta resort. Follow this road to the end.

 

Pyrohovo

The open‑air architectural museum at Pyrohovo provides a glimpse of the history of rural Ukraine with wooden churches, windmills and village houses from different regions.

But it’s much more than a museum. This is one of the best parks in Kyiv with wide‑open spaces for Frisbee, a forest for wandering and plenty of great trails for bike riding.

You can even rent bikes and go horseback riding. There are also plenty of good spots for shashlyk. But if you aren’t in the mood for doing it yourself, there are tastefully rustic shashlyk huts, restaurants and snack stands to keep you fed and watered.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. Admission is Hr 3 for adults. To get there, you should follow the Odessa road from the National Exhibition Center and turn left after the Odessa bridge. By public transportation, take trolleybus #11 to the last stop and walk 500 meters ahead.

 

Holoseyevo Park

The biggest park near the city center, Holoseyevo in the Moskovsky district spans all the way to Pyrohovo. It offers acres of hilly forest, which is a great backdrop for picnics, cycling and simply hiking.

A nice lake near the northern entrance serves as a picturesque place for a sack lunch for those who work nearby.

Cyclists love the dirt trails that snake through the forest, offering roller‑coaster paths and challenging springboards for jumps.

To get there, take Druzhby Narodiv past Moskovska Square to Sorokrichia Zhovtnia Square. At Holoseyevska Square, you’ll see the lake and nice wide paved paths leading toward the forest.

 

Hydropark

No list of Kyiv green spaces would be complete without mentioning Kyiv’s year‑round playground – Hydropark. This jumble of low‑brow cafes, amusement rides, beaches, snack shacks selling cheap beer and bungee jumping, Hydropark is one of the most popular hangouts in Kyiv.

Sun City, one of the parks newest private beach and recreation venues, is already open for the season. The self‑enclosed complex gives sunbathers the option of paying Hr 20 for access to its clean, sandy beach and volleyball court or for Hr 30 the choice to dip in the pool. Sun City also provides nighttime entertainment of concerts, discos and stripteases.

Not far from Sun City is Uni Oasis, another private beach. No word on when it will open this year – if at all.

To get to Hydropark, take the metro. It stops smack dab in the middle of all the fun

 

Trukhaniv Island

Not as commercial or as developed as Hydropark, Trukhaniv is still a great place for a stroll. The beaches are often less crowded than Hydropark, as are the island’s quickly expanding selection of cafes.

 Trukhaniv is accessible by a footbridge, which is accessible by the tramline that runs below Poshtova Square in Podil. You can also drive over the pedestrian bridge because, after all, this is Ukraine. A small road runs across the island to Moskovsky Bridge.