CHERKASY – Stretching along the lazy, wide Dnipro River, the city of Cherkasy has an amazingly pastoral feel for its size. Despite being home to 286,000 people, it seems more like a holiday resort, courtesy of its lavish parks and its long embankment.
If you’re looking for a place to spend a weekend on the wheels, the city of Cherkasy is a comfortable, two-hour drive from Kyiv. There is also a bit of sightseeing along the way if you choose a detour route via Kaniv, where Ukraine’s bard Taras Shevchenko is buried on a hill overlooking the Dnipro, as he requested.
If you’re not driving, the city can be reached by minibus, which departs from the central railway station every 35 minutes, starting at 6 a.m. The return trips are just as frequent.
Cherkasy is located 189 kilometers south of Kyiv along the Dnipro river. Founded in 1284, it used to have a castle, but now offers other attractions, including a buddhist temple.
The temple is called The White Lotus, and was built in 1988 by local Volodymyr Skubayev. Adorned with dragons and boasting a pagoda-like roof, it looks spooky in the middle of a Cherkasy neighborhood that features your ordinary gated private houses and trashed roads with missing manhole covers.
Skubayev runs schools that teach martial arts and yoga, skills he apparently acquired while traveling in Laos. He is revered by his black-clad sporty pupils, who bow in his presence and freeze in a humble gesture with one hand resting on a fist until he disappears out of sight.
The temple offers tours every Sunday, which are free for children. Adults are welcome to contribute what they can.
There are also conventional attractions, including St. Michael’s Cathedral on 212 Ilyin Street. Built in 1994-2002, it’s supposed to be the biggest Orthodox cathedral in Ukraine.
The city is also home to a Motherland statue that seems to be a smaller version of Kyiv’s very own metal lady on the hill. It stands on Glory Hill and presides over the spot where 3,500 defenders of the city were buried during World War II.
There is a fair share of nice historical buildings to walk by, as well. But the greatest fun can be had by exploring the lush parks, with all their creeks and twists, and a sculpture garden at the 50th October Revolution Anniversary Park (sometimes simply called The Anniversary Park).
Featuring many themes from Shevchenko’s works, among other types of characters, the sculpture garden is worth a jaunt. And if you decide to take a detour through Kaniv along the way, you can compare it to a similar Shevchenko-themed sculpture garden at the foot of the poet’s grave.
Cherkasy’s biggest park was created in 1967 and stretches over 49 hectares in area, providing plenty of space for strolling and jogging. In fact, in this city I came across more joggers in one weekend than I normally do in Kyiv during the whole year.
Cherkasy has a handful of hotels to choose from, both in and out of town, but I decided to stay at Bochka Hotel. Sprawled on the river bank, it has its own beach and restaurant, and is basically a collection of wooden bungalows next to each other – just right for a single night away from home.
Top that with shashlik and grilled suluguni cheese from the restaurant, and plenty of tables to choose from on the pontoon summer terraces, it seemed like I hit the jackpot.
But there were a few discoveries to make. It turned out that every evening the hotel provides entertainment that was described in the menu as “professional vocalists.” That, apparently, means a man and a woman singing loudly from stage to pre-recorded tunes. And some people even danced to it.
This makeshift karaoke disco, unfortunately, lasts from 7 p.m. till way past midnight and, even more unfortunately, gets quite popular later in the night. All visitors are charged Hr 20 on weekends, and Hr 15 on weekdays for this curious form of entertainment, although I was quite ready to pay 10 times that much just to make it stop.
The quality of disco might have been one reason why the minibar in my hotel room offered four full-sized bottles of vodka (on top of other types of alcohol), and just as many energy drinks.
But instead of taking advantage of the minibar’s contents, I chose to escape back into the night time parks and was rewarded by a fairy tale sight of the local Lovers’ Bridge. Appropriately, the bridge looks a lot more enigmatic and impressive at night. And if you’re coming with your loved one, don’t forget a padlock – just like in Kyiv, lovers here lock them onto the bridge for luck.
How to get there:
189-kilometer drive by car directly or 232 km via Kaniv
Or take a minibus from the central railway station for Hr 60
Where to stay:
Bochka hotel
1/3 Gagarina St.
(380472) 383045
Hr 400
Selena Sports Hotel
21 Dakhnovska St.
(38067) 6173333
Hr 720, Kozyrna Discount Card accepted
Orange Hotel
145 Frunze St.
(380472) 37461
Hr 430
Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at[email protected]
