The Rich Got Richer

"The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer..."  In Ukraine, a proverbial land of bread and honey, there was never a truer adage.   In a single day, we experienced both the high life, and the low.   It being a Saturday evening, we thought it a good opportunity to experience the Kyiv nightlife as much as possible.  Walking through some of the most affluent Kyiv neighborhoods, Bentleys and Rolls Royces line the streets, while long-legged women stroll arm in arm with their well-to-do husbands.   Dance music emanates from the opulent and lavish parties these professional socialites attend on a regular basis.  Needless to say, we felt quite out of place in our sweaters and track pants.

On another end of the city, far away from the social epicentre, Saturday evenings are enjoyed with much less pomp.  We decided to attend an open-air festival taking place far into Livoberezhzhya, the part of Kyiv on the left side of the Dnipro.  Despite only vaguely knowing where the festival was taking place, we set off around 11 pm, map in hand.  Exiting at Chernihivska stantsiya, we walked in the direction indicated by the poster we initially saw, hoping to come across the party.  The longer we walked, the further we descended into the bowels of Kyiv that many tourists likely never see.  The never-ending apartment buildings along the main roadways stand in typical Soviet fashion, flanked only by decrepit tin booths that sell basic necessities.  Stray dogs rule the streets at night - another city-wide problem that has yet to be resolved.  This truly is a land of the derelict, the neglected.   The demographics of these two social castes are staggeringly polarized.  And the most surprising thing is that the poor live right under the noses of the wealthiest people in Europe. 

We never found the festival.  After two hours of walking, we gave up to retreat back the the tourist haven in downtown Kyiv, where we couldn't feel guilty for having three square meals a day, and a comfortable bed to sleep on.  We told ourselves at the outset we would go to Livoberezhzhya to experience it at least once... And once turned out to be enough.