Travel to Belarus And Ukraine

Ukraine: The Bradt Travel Guide

Format: Paperback
Author: Andrew Evans
ReleaseDate: 01 March, 2004
Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides
Rating:

Great text for anyone interested in Ukraine
Ocasionally, one of my relatives had this book with him. I am Ukrainian myself and have done a trip around Middle and Western Ukraine last summer. It looked "sceptically" at the first sight - modest size, no much colored pictures in it. I then opened the book at random point of interest and was immediately "glued" to it by authors competent and at the same time humorish, fresh style. The more I read this book, the more I was amazed by author's in-depth knowledge of Ukraine, its people and culture. In fact, we used this book every day during our trip, and indeed it does contain very practical and precise information. Only very minor number of insignificant deviations was noticed when using this book as practical travel guide, which can be understood : Ukraine has been a country of rapid change within last couple of years. After coming back from our trip I have spent a couple of days more reading this book for fun and knowledge, including history of Ukraine overview and some destinations in Ukraine I have not yet visited. Excellent job, Mr. Evans! Even though tourism in Ukraine is developing rapidly and probably more and more details from this book get outdated to some extent, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone visiting Ukraine as solid and reliable guide to the country, its history, culture and travel basics.

Mixed : Lutsk / Mykolayiv
An appendix gives some basic vocabulary in Russian and Ukrainian. Lots of helpful infomation covering history, religion, language and many cities, not just the capital. I visited Lutsk and Mykolayiv as well as Kiev in September of 2005.

Information regarding Lutsk was helpful, however the review of Mykolayiv was unduely negative. I found the people there very hospitable and it was as nice as any other Ukrainian city. Mykolayiv has an excellent shipbuilding museum, some great musical talent, and the best zoo in the country.

The book has only a few color photos, and the maps are B&W. Color would have been nice on the Kiev metro transit map (which features a red, blue and green line). A future revision should identify the sites of the 'Orange Revolution' last winter (2004/2005). .

Best guide to Ukraine (reviewed by Ukrainian!)
He evidently did some in-depth study and managed to capture the essence of the Ukrainian culture in a short space of the first part of the book. Having done some travelling before and being familiar with a usual "average tourist" style of travel guides available on the market I was pleasantly surprised by the refreshing style of Andrew Evans' writing. I particularly enjoyed a brief overview of the Ukraine's history in the second chapter. I also liked the way Andrew presented Ukrainians with some witty comments in the third chapter of the book and could not agree more with him about the importance of getting to know the local people wherever one is travelling to. The second part of the book ("The Guide") provides concise information on pretty much all major destinations in Ukraine with some very practical advice on transport, accommodation etc. Being born in Odessa and living there for 20 years I enjoyed reading about my birthplace and hope that the positive outlook given by Andrew in his book will encourage many more tourists to visit this beautiful city. I hope very much that with the increasing number of visitors to Ukraine the word will spread about the hidden corners of this East European country and that this will generate a much deserved positive coverage for Ukraine in the Western media. I see this book as a pioneer in this area paving the way for other publications about Ukraine. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is travelling or consider travelling to Ukraine. Those who are particularly interested in Ukraine's capital city - Kiev, may find very useful to read a separate Bradt's city guide due later this year. See their website for more information - www. bradtguides. com.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Belarus And Ukraine travel books.

	Ukraine (Lonely Planet Travel Guides)
	Kiev: The Bradt City Guide (Bradt Mini Guide)
	Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine
	Language and Travel Guide to Ukraine