Ukraine Observations

Mother and I so fascinated about the fashion and customs of the Ukraianian people I thought I would share some observations. These do not hold true of everyone we see or meet.

Women wear high heel black leather boots. Most are Stiletto high but not all.
Designer jeans that are fitted and snug on their long pencil legs.
Coats with fur collars and cuffs, mostly black but not all.
Large purses mostly black leather, all quite fancy and expensive.
Younger women do not wear hats, I think they do not want their hair messed up.
They usually have only 2-3 outfits that they wear over again.
Popular colors of clothes are black, brown and gray. We have seen one long red coat and one lady wearing a light blue coat, but that is very unusual.
Manicures are also popular with all kinds of designs.
I have not seen hardly anyone wearing glasses, they either have very good eyesight or they are wearing contact lenses. They do want to look good.
Most stores that we see are clothing, shoes and purses only.
Shoes seemed to be just as important as their clothes.

Men want to look us as good as the women.
Their shoes are black leather dress men’s shoes.
The men designer jeans or pants
They also wear leather black jackets or coats.
You also see men in suits or coats and striped trousers and overcoats carrying suitcases.

Many Ukrainians walk everywhere they want to go. Cars even used cars are very expensive. So the people walk, take the bus, subway or train. Ukrainians walk very fast, even the women with high heel boots. They remind me of runway models walking fast down the runway. We feel we should be in the slow lane because we will get run over by the other people passing us by. We also noticed that when there are two women walking together whether friends or family will link their arms together.

Ukrainians like to bargain. We have slowly got the hang of it. This doesn’t apply to the food markets and maybe the clothing stores but on the street definitely.

Taxis do not have meters and it is best to agree on a price before getting in the car. For instance we took a taxi from the large mall last Thurs. and he charged us 60H. Yesterday before we got in the taxi at the same place after showing him the address – we had 40H on the card and he said “no 50H” and we accepted.

There are several main highways through Kiev. Since there is so much traffic there are underground walk ways for the people to walk to get to the other side of the street. In these underground areas which are quite large are vendors selling food, flowers, clothes, jewelry, etc . We have also seen mostly women with a cup held out to ask for money.

The traffic in Kiev is very hectic but the drivers are fairly considerate of one another. There is very little horn blowing. Because of the traffic, parking is a problem. The Government allows the people to park on the sidewalks, which in some areas leaves just enough room for one person to get by. When the driver wants to go the opposite direction,(do a u-turn) he just waits patiently, maybe slightly toots his horn and proceeds onto the street. The other cars then wait till he has gotten out then continue on. We would not have seen this in New York. The people seemed to also have the right-0f-way on small streets . The cars have to stop to allow them to cross. Most streets do have a place marked for pedestrians to cross and cars will stop for you.

On Saturday and Sunday they close one of the main streets near Independence Square that have eight lanes to all automobile traffic. This is great so that if you want to cross the street at any time you can. Also the weekends are very quite without a lot of people around at least earlier in the day.

Cigarettes are very inexpensive here and many people smoke. The Ukrainian government has passed a law that forbids indoor smoking of any building, unless they have a dedicated smoke area. The restaurants usually do have dedicated smoking areas. We are of course happy for this law. Mall food court fast food serve beer except McDonalds like they would serve any other beverage.

More to come…..