How to get to Kiev city center from Zhulyany (IEV) airport by car

How to get to Kiev city center from Borispil airport (KBP) by car

Average taxi total rates are $30-40

English Speaking Club in Kiev

Are you going to visit Kiev? You can find new friends in this city by donating your time to the local residents who are learning English.

If you desire to join any of the clubs and share your ideas or experience in any subject, just send me an e-mail about your schedule at andrew@dta.org.ua and I'll repy with any possible opportunities for you.

If English is not you mother tongue, please mention your language in your e-mail.

Sincerely,
Andrew

Does your business speak English?

You reside in Kiev and your business speaks English? That's great! Kindly send us as much information about yourself as possible and we will publish it at this blog.

E-mail us at kiev@wtu.org.ua

General Information on Kyiv

Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine. This ancient, but ever young city has 1,500 years-old history. Kyiv has spread over the picturesque banks of the Dnieper. Its ancient part is on the high right bank of the river, while the newest is widely spread out on the left bank.
Nowadays Kyiv is a big modern city covering the area of more than 78 thousand hectares, with population of 2,653 thousand people. This is the most important administrative, political, industrial, cultural, and scientific center of Ukraine.
Sophisticated and precision engineering is leading in the industrial complex of the capital. Enterprises that produce aircraft (Ruslan and Mria), excavators, river vessels, and artificial diamonds are all in Kyiv.
A lot of railway, automobile, air and river communication routes meet in Kyiv. The city has two airports (Boryspil and Zhulyany), railway station, 6 coach stations, and a river station. Three subway lines connect different parts of the capital with 37 functioning stations. The historical downtown and the Left Bank are joined with 7 beautiful and original bridges, among them is the first in the world all-welded Paton bridge which is 1,543 meters long.
There are 38 hotels and hotel complexes, 17 theaters, 19 high schools in Kyiv. The centuries-old history of the city is represented by exhibits in 61 museums, and such unique architectural monuments as Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, St.Sophia Cathedral, and St.Andrew's Church.
Kyiv is one of the greenest cities in the world. It is surrounded by a dense forest circle having the area inside the capital of 45.7 thousand hectares. The most beautiful is Khreshchatyk, the main Kyiv's thoroughfare, which is 1.2 km long, while the longest is Peremoha Avenue — 17.5 km.

General Information on Ukraine

Ukraine's area is 233,088 square miles (603,700 sq. km). It is slightly larger than France. In the north Ukraine borders on Belarus, in the West on Poland and Slovakia, in the southwest on Hungary, Romania, and Moldova, in the North and East on Russia, and in the South it is washed by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
Ukraine is mainly a vast plain with no natural boundaries except the Carpathian Mountians in the southwest and the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in the South. The Dnieper River with its many tributaries unifies central Ukraine economically, connecting the Baltic coast countries with the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The mouth of the Danube River provides an outlet for Ukrainian trade with the Balkans, Austria, and Germany. Ukraine has a complex geology with a rich variety of scenery and impressive contrasts in topography. Central and southern Ukraine are primarily steppe (prairie), with fertile black soil exceptionally well suited for grain farming. In the East is the industrial heartland, containing large reserves of mineral deposits; the area is known as the Greater Donbas or Donetsk Basin. Northern and western Ukraine are hilly, forested areas with many picturesque mountain resorts. Enhancing the topography of Ukraine are two mountain ranges, the Carpathian on the western border, where winter sports are very popular; and the Crimean range which divides the Crimean peninsula, creating a semitropical area on the southern most tip. The Crimea is a favorite destination not only for Ukrainian tourists, but also for the people from other states of the former Soviet Union, as well as from eastern and western Europe.
The population of Ukraine is approximately 48 million, of which 73% are Ukrainians and 22% Russians. The remaining population is made up of many minorities, the largest of which are Jews. (1.35%), followed by Belorussians, Moldovans, Poles, Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, and others. The Ukrainian population is 64% urban.

HISTORY OF UKRAINE

On August 24, 1991, the Ukrainian Parliament declared Independence for Ukraine. On December 1, 1991 in a nationwide referendum, over 90% of all the eligible voters confirmed the Act of Independence. In the last years of the Soviet Union, Ukraine produced approximately 28% of the total Soviet GNP. Referred to in the past as the “breadbasket of Europe”, Ukraine has highly developed agriculture, grain, and cotton industries and ranks among the highest per capita producers in the world of iron ore, steel, and coal.
The city of Kyiv, 1,500 years old, was the heart of the ancient Kievan-Rus and the center for trade routes between the Baltics and the Mediterranean. The city of Kyiv and the state Kievan-Rus were divided by the following principalities located in the West and North: Galicia, Volyn, Muscovia, and later, Poland, Lithuania and Russia. Once “the crucible of mighty political conglomerates such as the Scycthian, Sarmation and Kievan realms... henceforth... except for a few brief moments of self-assertion, the fate of Ukraine's inhabitants would be decided in far-off capitals such as Warsaw, Moscow or Vienna”. As a result, modern Ukrainian history, for the most part, has been defined by resistance to foreign occupation.
From the mid- 1500s through the latter half of the 18th century, and inticate political and social infrastructure was developed by the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Sich (military organization in south-central Ukraine). For over two hundred years, the Cossacks provided resistance to the invasions of the Turks, the Tartars, and the domination of the Polish nobility. In 1654, seeking a bilateral agreement with Muscovite Tsar Alexei to provide mutual defense against Polish expansion ism, Cossack Hetman (the chief military leader) Bogdan Khmelnytsky signed the Pereyaslav Agreement. Under the guise of protecting the Sich, Muskovia began a progressive acquisition of Cossack lands. In 1709, Hetman Ivan Mazepa, in an attempt to stop Russian expansionism, signed an agreement with Sweden against Peter I. However, Peter I was victorious and by 1775, under orders of Catherine II, the Sich was completely destroyed and the remaining infrastructure co-opted.
The history of Ukraine in the 20th century has been particularly brutal. In an attempt to break Ukrainians and their resistance to collectivization, Stalin instigated a deliberate genocide, the Great Famine of 1932-33 which took 5-7 million lives in 15 months. During World War II, Ukraine was the front line between the Soviet and German armies as both fought for control of the Ukrainian territory. The majority of that war's so-called "Russian Front" in fact was in Ukraine. Of all the republics on the territory of the Soviet Union, Ukraine suffered the highest number of civilian deaths and the most extensive physical destruction.
Every decade from the 1920s through the 1950s saw a progressive annihilation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, through deportation and assassination. In the 1940s and 1950s millions of Ukrainians were permanently deported to the labour camps in Siberia. In an attempt to create a “Soviet man”, the hegemony of the Russian language and culture prevailed, and indigenous Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox Churches were subsumed under the Russian Orthodox Church; the Ukrainian language was relegated to the status of a “Russian” dialect.