Lviv and steam

 Lviv, the last of my sketches, an old steam locomotive, at the main station.

Lviv, chickenlegs

Lviv, a woman selling chickenlegs on the street. Old local farmers will arrive in towns like these with small busses, and try to sell their home grown products on the street. This was drawn early mornig, about 7.00.
 

Lviv, foodmarket

Lviv, foodmarket. There was a large foodmarket just 5 minutes from our hotel. I went there in the early morning, at 6.45, before breakfast with my collegues. The merchants were building up their stalls. There were covered parts (where most visitors had their masks on due to Corona), and outside alleys. These got more crowded during the sketch. This is at the entrance of the (covered) meatpart, they mainly sold bread and cakes here.

Lviv Cathedral

Another one of my businesstrip to Lviv. The Cathedral in the centre of town. I made the linework on location, while my colleuges went to see the OPera house. Painting later that night at the hotel room.
 

Lviv Hotel Nota Bene

 

I just returned from a businesstrip. It seems like years ago that I went abroad on business.

In this case the Ukraine, Lviv, on western part of the country, near the Polish border. A really beautiful city, lovely architecture, friendly people, good food and drink, and fine collegues. This is the view from my hotel room, Hotel Nota Bene. An excellent hotel.

Crash MH17

Driving home from work I heard the news from the plane MH17 Malaysian airlines which was shot down above the Ukraine. It started from Amsterdam and had a lot of Dutch on that plane.
Horrible images on the internet, had to rework them in this drawing.
I mean, I have been to the Ukraine a few times, know how the country looks like. I've flown over the area a few times to Asia, and we often travelled with the travel agency that had Dutch passengers in this plane. It suddenly comes near.

Kiev, Tebodin

View from a window at the Tebodin Kiev (Ukraine) office.

Kiev, last week

I also made some sketches on the trip. The first ones are of the Metro station Poshtova square and the cooridors near Traktove station. Further below a left alone building site cabin near the Hotel. Schetsen van de trip naar Kiev. De Metro van station Poshtova en schetsen van de gangen van het Traktova station. Ook een schets van een verlaten bouwkeet naast het hotel.

Kiev, Christmas

I was in Kiev last week: the town was still in christmas lights. Some impressions.

Ik was in Kiev vorige week: de stad was nog vol Kerstversiering: enkele impressies.

Kiev, last week

Like said in my last post, I was in Kiev again. I attended an othodox mass in the monastry uphill from the Hotel (the a capella choir music was great) and made some sketches of the monastry and a stalin style war monument on the river bank.

Alweer Kiev. Bezocht een Russisch-orthodoxe mis en maakte schetsen van een Stalinistisch oorlogsmonument langs de rivier.

Gotham city or Kiev?

No, this is not Batmans house in Gotham city, but just a transformer house on the other side of the road from the presidents residence in Kiev, Ukraine...

Dit is niet Gotham city of het kasteel van Batman, maar een transformatorhuisje recht tegenover het huis van de president van de Ukraine. Ik was dus weer eens in Kiev.

This is an beautiful art nouveau house, also located opposite to the presidents house. It has kinds of animal sculptures over it, frogs, fish, elephants, tigers, dragons, rhinos, deer. A regular Zoo. Story goes it was built by an architect who sold prefabricated building parts, and he wanted to show the possibilities of using concrete, some 100 years ago.

Kiev, last week

Kiev last week. No churches this time, there were none near the Opera Hotel. But there were a few beautiful artnouveau houses near: look at this fabulous door. Never thought they had that in the Ukraine.

Kiev, afgelopen week. Er waren enkele prachtige Jugendstil huizen vlakbij het Opera hotel: zie schets. Dat verwacht je niet in Kiev.

Kiev, 2 weeks ago

Visited Kiev again. It was hot, and in the late evening we made a nice walk along the riverbank of the Dnieper, drinking lukewarm beer out of a bottle and listening to young people singing Karoake on the sidewalk.

Weer eens in Kiev. Het was nog altijd warm, en 's avonds maakten we een mooie wandeling, bierfles in de hand, luisterend naar de onuitspreekbare liederen van de jonge stelletjes in de karoake bars.

Kiev, last week

I visited Kiev again last week. Great weather in a beautiful city. I tried my new camera on this statue for the bond between Ukraine and Russia, a remembrance from the soviet era. There was a childrens fair just behind it.

Afgelopen week in Kiev: warm weer, en een foto van een beeld uit de soviet tijd.

Kiev, last week

Here are the sketches of st. Andrews church, on top the hill, as seen from the waterfront.

Also, we were walking through the town on Thursday night, and there were a lot of girls who were drinking beer and jumping into the fountains (the sketched one is on the central orange square). I was told it's a tradition to dress in these short black skirts and white blouses when you have finished your exams.

Kiev, schetsen van St. Andrews church, gezien vanaf het riviera hotel. Ook een schets van meisjes die in korte rokjes door de fonteinen dansten. Ze waren geslaagd voor het eindexamen.

Kiev, last week

Back to Kiev again last week. It was warm (37 degrees) and humid. We had some thunderstorms there, as you can see on the picture I took out of my hotel window (it's the Christmas church, I sketched already in my post of May 1st). I made some sketches of the Andeiivska church, but I will post them later.

Kiev, last week (3)

Last week I was in Kiev again. We were in another hotel, the Riviera at Poshtova square (called after the stagecoach and postal service which used to be here). It's near the riverbank, next to the funicular railway, and the view from my window looked like this.
On the backside the office for riverauthorities, a nice constructivist building. I did not know about the church but I was helped by Natalia, the architect of the Tebodin Ukraine office:

"The Church is called "Christmas Church" and was built in 1809-1814, in 1930 the church was destroyed. When in 1861 a coffin with the corps of T.Shevchenko was transported from Saint-Petersburg to Kaniv, it stayed in this church on May 6th and 7th. Here was a mass for the poet.
Since that day the residents of Kiev began to call this church “Shevchenko’s church”.

Vorige week weer eens in Kiev.Mijn hotelkamer keek uit op het Poshtova plein; genoemd naar de postkoetsen die hier vroeger arriveerden. De kerk is gebouwd voor de herdenking van een oekrainse held. Ik weet alleen niet hoe de kerk heet. Achter de kerk het kantoor van de rivierautoriteiten: een prachtig voorbeeld van constructivistische architectuur.

During the time we were there, we saw a lot of people walk up the hill each morning to the main squares; bearing blue and red flags. One square had tents for the red-blue ones, the other square was occupied by the orange.

Elke morgen liepen een groot aantal demonstranten naar de bovenstad. Er was een plein met een aantal tenten voor de rood-blauwe vlaggen en een plein voor de oranje vlaggen.

Fastiv artist impression

Grappig: mijn schets, voorzien van onleesbare Oekrainse bijschriften...

Funny to see one's sketches with some cyrillic writing...

Last week in Kiev (2)

Another sketch of Kiev.

The first night we had dinner at a fishrestaurant called "Avalon".

I had a nice Lobster, which I named Arnold, the terminator.

Halfway dinner, much to our surprise, we saw movement in the second aquarium....

Maandag 26-03-2007: Een bezoek aan het restaurant Avalon in Kiev, Ukraine

Last week in Kiev (2)

Yes, I was in Kiev (Ukraine) again, from monday May 26th, to wednesday May 28 2007.

Spring was coming up, it was fresh but still nice to walk around the city. Actually it is has a nice downtown.

We were staying in a hotel called "Opera", which was (as you may guess) near the Opera house.

So I got up early and made this sketch on the spot.

Also a picture of a woman sleeping in the plane, when I was flying to Kiev.


See also my earlier post on Kiev of february. http://refsketch.blogspot.com/2007/02/kiev-last-week.html