UA – Ukraine

When to go
In Ukraine, the climate is temperate continental in the interior and Mediterranean in the southern coast of Crimea: along the Black Sea, winter is relatively mild, while in the interior, January temperatures are much lower, with peaks below – 20 ° C. Annual rainfall varies considerably from area to area: while in western Ukraine, 1,200 mm of rain per year fall, in Crimea this value drops to just 400 mm. The average January temperature in Kiev is −6 ° C.

Territories and tourist destinations:
      Central Ukraine – Furrowed by the Dnieper River, the central region welcomes Kiev, the country’s capital. 100 km north of Kiev and 16 km from the border with Belarus, Chernobyl stands, marked by the disastrous explosion of the nuclear reactor on April 26, 1986. Pripyat, the city closest to the nuclear station, was evacuated and today is a ghost town with abandoned Soviet barracks. Quite singular, the ghost town of Pripjat ‘has become a tourist destination, visited by a growing number of tourists despite the restrictions represented by special permits and strict controls to access and exit it. Day trips are organized by Kiev agencies.
      Western Ukraine – Includes the cities of Lviv and Uzhhorod.
      Eastern Ukraine – heavily industrialized, the eastern region is home to the major centers of Dnipropetrovs’k, Zaporižžja and Donetsk. Mariupol is the port of Donetsk on the Azov Sea and the center of steel production.
      Southern Ukraine – Odessa, port on the Black Sea with a scenic staircase that served as a backdrop to the scenes of the famous film “The battleship Potemkin” by the director Sergei M. Ejzenštejn (1898 – 1948).