Warm drinks, cool coats, stylish umbrellas and places to go for when the weather heads south.
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If you’ve never experienced the soothing effects of a steaming hot toddy – whiskey, rum or brandy combined with one of several warm mixers – try this Ukrainian version, which is said to cure the common cold, and is simple to make. Brew a pot of standard black tea and fill a tall glass 3/4 full. Mix in one tbsp. of honey and two shots of your favorite brandy. Garnish with a lemon slice. If you’d rather go out for a drink than mix one up at home, the Hairy Lemon and Opera Cafe serve these delightful beverages, called simply Carpathian Tea, for Hr 15.
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Coffee and liqueur cocktails are a no-brainer when it comes to staying warm on a cold autumn day. Magic Coffee on Esplanadna (opposite the Sports Palace; tel. 220-4949) offers a unique selection of coffee drinks, and this cozy little cafe is just the place to relax with a special someone over your favorite warm beverage. Call ahead, though, as this casual coffee house has only eight tables. Try the German Coffee – a cocktail of coffee and Marie Brizard Cherry liqueur, garnished with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry (Hr 12.20). The Elephant is another feel-good dessert drink of coffee, milk, chocolate and Uzhgorod brandy topped with whipped cream and finely chopped lemon rind for Hr 12.10.
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The Massandra winery, located outside Yalta, gained international recognition in 2001 when a private collector purchased a 19th century bottle of Andalusian Sherry from its cellars at a Sotheby’s auction. The 31,000-pound sale price set a new world record. Contemporary Massandra sherry (called Heres in Russian and Ukrainian) is a good local equivalent to the Andalusian wine. Massandra’s 1986 Crimean Sherry, which has won 15 international awards, varies in color from light gold to dark amber. Massandra Heres can be purchased in Kyiv at the Massandra store, located on Naberezhno-Kreschatytska in Podil, or by the glass at the adjoining Massandra cafe.
Poor-Weather Friends
Five Places to Hang When All the Leaves are Down (and the Skies Are Gray) The view from up here is quite splendid, really. The top of Volodymyrska Hirka Park offers incredible views of the Dnipro River. (Post photo by Oleksiy Boyko
1 Celluloid Heroes
Nothing’s better than watching a movie when it’s raining – a good movie, not another lame Hollywood import. The National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy’s Movie Club program is great, with movies by Chaplin, Bergman, Bunuel, Wenders, Sergei Parajanov, Kira Muratova and others. Not exactly “Van Helsing,” is it? See the full program at www.ktm.ukma.kiev.ua. The Movie Club runs daily except for Sunday. Screenings are at 6:30 p.m., and it’s best to come ahead of time.
Monday through Friday, screenings are at 9 Ilyinska, third floor, in the big hall of the Center for Culture and Arts. Tickets are a mere Hr 1.
On Saturday, films play at 27 Naberezhno-Kreshchatytska, room #13. To get in, you need a copy of Kino-Teatr magazine, which is available for sale on the spot.
2 Museum of Russian Art
One of the best city museums. Check out the pictures by Russian master Ilya Repin, along with work by Mikhail Vrubel, Viktor Vasnetsov and Isaak Levitan. The gilt interior will warm your soul.
(9 Tereschenkivska, 234-6218). Open Tues, Fri-Sun from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m.; Mon from 11 a.m. till 5 p.m. Admission Hr 3.
3 The Zoo
Kyiv’s zoo features several indoor pavilions. There’s the Animal Island, where lions, tigers and leopards live during the winter; the Bird House; and the terrarium with all the snakes, lizards and crocodiles. Parts of the Zoo are under construction, to call ahead.
(34 Peremohy Prospect, 236-6054). Open daily from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. Hr 5 for children 5-16; Hr 9 for adults.
4 Flower Children
Both Kyiv botanical gardens feature great greenhouses, but they’re not always open. The rest of the time drop by Green Home, the glass-enclosed nursery. Enjoy the flowers and the greenery, and score a potted to enliven your own place. (57-B Polkova, 433-1591). Open daily from 11 a.m. till 8 p.m.
5 Watching the River Flow
The big covered ark at Volodymyrska Hirka Park has spectacular views of the Dnipro. It’s a great place to sit in the fresh air on a rainy day. The ark keeps the rain off you, so all you have to do is bring your friends and some beer and relax on one of the benches, chatting and watching the river flow be. The park’s between Mykhailyvska Ploshcha and Volodymyrsky Uzviz. (Poshtova Ploshcha metro; take the funicular up, and the park’s on your left)
When it Rains, it Pours
The tea was terrible: bitter, alkaloid slop.
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The dark, meditative interior of Shanti at Bessarabska Square: Soothing colors and a tea ceremony at a great Kyiv place to ride out a nasty day. (Post file photo) |
We were sitting in Shanti, that warm hutch of an Asian tea-room and restaurant tucked away atop Bessarabsky Market, and drinking a nasty pot of tea.
Everything else was great. Outside the afternoon rain was pouring down, but we were insulated from it, sitting shoeless on cushions, trip-hop lulling us, warm in the brandy-colored light. Yet the tea was undrinkable.
And it had taken such beautiful effort to make. We’d marveled over the intricacies of the waitress’s tea ceremony. What’s the meaning of it all? It has to do with making sure the tea “lives” and sheds its flavors, but to us it just looked cool: all that splashing of water from cup to cup, and the flowing of tea along the tray’s channels. It harmonized with the situation outside the big windows: water washing with the traffic down Kruhlo-Universitetska, where headlights diffused through the gloom.
But the tea sucked. It tasted like lemon-flavored soap. Green tea, that most pure of substances, shouldn’t taste like that. With a shy smile, the waitress made it disappear.
Then the tea ceremony again. The white-noise hush of traffic in the rain. The trancey music. I felt myself nodding.
Shanti is the best restaurant I can think of in which to spend a rainy afternoon. Recessed lights shed a Zen glow across the beige and wood and dark-green color scheme. The tables on their raised platforms look, with all those cushions, like the heaps of pillows you used to make on wet days when you were a kid. On a screen, soothing images play in loops: psychedelic cellular morphings, like the mystical planet at the end of Tarkovsky’s “Solaris.”
What food we ordered was all right. Run of the mill sushi rolls, nothing to write home about – but, then, not expensive either. We both ordered the business lunch (lanch in Ukrainian), and got out for about Hr 100.
You feel purified in here, and in harmony with the wet October outside. Rain lashes the windows. And eventually, the tea’s really good, too.
