There are so many places to visit in Ukraine that you’re never sure where to start. Considered the jewel of the Crimean peninsula, Yalta is one of those cities you have to experience for yourself. It’s a seaside resort town on the Black Sea that is surrounded by steep mountain peaks and beautiful blue waters. It was also the home of famous writer Anton Chekov. With beaches, resorts, museums, and a friendly population of about 80,000, you can see why it has been compared to Carmel, California, Greece, and the French Rivera.
If the name Yalta is ringing bells in your head but you’re not sure why, think back to your World War II history lessons. Yalta was the city in which Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt held their ‘Big 3’ conference to discuss the war that they were all involved in. Livadia, the Romanov vacation home that was used for the conference, is open to visitors, as is the home turned museum of Anton Chekov. The Nikitsky Botanical Gardens located just outside the city is beautiful with their 1,600 rose varieties and you could enjoy a good meal while looking out over the sea and the gardens from this elevated location.
If you are going to tour Yalta, take a two day, three night trip so that you can enjoy everything the city has to offer and the beautiful beaches to relax on.
For me the school history lessons were themselves a contradictory fact – on one hand they teach you Ukrainian history, on the other hand they kill all your love for this history. So, where was I? Telling you of the facts one could contradict!
1. The Holodomor
Continue reading ’3 Contradictory Facts of Ukrainian History’
Between 1932 and 1933 the country of Ukraine experienced ‘Holodomor’ or Great Famine that was said to cause by ‘Joseph Stalin’s agricultural collectivization policies’, the perfect example of what happens under a totalitarian regime. This genocide is getting ready to mark its 75th anniversary and the General Assembly of the United Nations has been asked by Ukraine to commemorate this dark time in Ukrainian history.
Says Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations Yuriy Sergeyev, “The Holodomor, which literally meant killing by hunger, had been caused by Joseph Stalin’s agricultural collectivization policies, because human life [meant] nothing compared to the gigantic economic and military plans of the regime.” Of course there is strong objection to the request coming from Russia as a tactic of the country to direct attention away from Ukraine’s current political situation.
Sergeyev, like many Ukrainians, feel that the event was important enough to warrant a commemoration in an effort to help show the cruelty of this type of regime and to prevent something similar from happening in the future. More than 10 million people from Ukraine and other areas of the Soviet Union died of starvation in Volga Region, the Northern Caucasus, Kazakhstan and other parts of the Soviet Union. The countries request is not unusual and there has been precedence set for this type of commemoration in Spain and other European countries already.
You can read more about the Great Famine at circleof13.blogspot.com
