Ukraine’s tourism dilemma can be boiled down to this: cheap but scary.
While devaluation of the hryvnia has devalued the lifestyle for many Ukrainians, it makes the nation a price paradise for foreigners who come to Ukraine with dollars or euros in their pockets.
A combination of low prices, Ukrainian hospitality to foreigners and no visa requirements for Westerners should, in theory, make Ukraine an attractive place for tourists.
But Russia’s ongoing war, even though it is taking place only in the eastern Donbas, is scaring people away.
The number of foreigners visiting Ukraine dropped almost by half in the last year, marked by Russia’s March annexation of Crimea and April instigation of war in the east. Only 147,000 tourists came in 2014, compared to 232,000 in 2013.
Foreigners are afraid to come. Most don’t know Ukraine well, so because of the news they associate the whole country with hostilities, while the war is being fought only on 7 percent of Ukraine’s territory.
“We have to inform foreign guests that the rest of Ukraine is quiet, comfortable, safe,”says Halyna Malets, the head of the tourism department of the Lviv City Council.
Those who dared to come say they are rewarded with arguably Europe’s cheapest tourism destination. And they’re happy about it.
One of them was Simone Lautenbacher, a German citizen, who came to see Ukraine in March out of curiosity. It was nothing like she had pictured it from the news.
She was surprised by the modernity, good service in restaurants and variety of nightlife.
“You have everything we have in Western Europe, but it is so much cheaper and nobody knows it,” she says.
Lautenbacher’s friend, David Lieber, a UNICEF worker from Germany, was transferred to Ukraine from Kenya, and found the prices here ridiculously low even compared to Africa.
“The hotel prices here for us, Westerners, are a real joke. You should advertise this,” he says.
Accommodations are, indeed, heap even in Kyiv, the country’s most expensive city. Here a tourist can live on just $35.16 a day, according to Numbeo, a user-generated cost-of-living statistics website. The sum includes meals in inexpensive restaurants, public transport and cheap hotel.
The same package in Oslo will cost at least $90, in London $66, in Berlin $54.31 and in Moscow $50.
Even Thailand and Bali, destinations well-known for their affordability, are expensive compared to Ukraine. Rent, beer, and transport are twice cheaper in Kyiv than in those Asian getaways. However, dining out is still slightly cheaper in Asia.
Besides the low prices, foreign tourists name other advantages of Ukraine: friendly locals, cuisine, architecture of Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa, the nature of the Carpathians, a variety of nightclubs and shops.
A shopping lover, Christian Bec, from the U.S. couldn’t hide his delight with the wide variety of stores and the quality of souvenirs. The Kyiv Post met Bec at Andriyivskiy Uzviz, Kyiv’s main souvenir market, in early March.
Bec came to Ukraine as a tourist after her friends visited it and found it interesting and safe.
“I knew Kyiv was safe,” she said. “I’ve already been to the countries where there was war. And I know that just because there is war in one place, it doesn’t mean there is war everywhere.”
She was astonished with the prices. She visited the Kyiv Circus and paid $7 for the ticket.
“In United States it would cost $40-$50 and not for those good seats we had,” she said.
Still, it is now hard to find a foreigner on Andriyivskiy Uzviz. Souvenir vendors complain about the lack of foreign tourists, but add that Westerners usually buy cheap things, while the real moneybags were Russians. Now with the decreased flow of both, the sellers only count on domestic tourists.
Lieber from Germany agrees.
“When you think about Ukraine in Europe, you think about war,” he says. “But when you stay in Kyiv you do not feel anything of what is going on in the east”.
At the same time he points out other difficulties that foreigners face in Ukraine, such as low penetration of English.
Kyiv Post staff writer Victoria Petrenko can be reached at [email protected].
