Ukraine: Fireworks - close & personal

(This is a re-post from a travel blog May 2008 - Ukraine)

We are celebrating May 9th, the Victory Day in Kiev. It's a huge celebration with a parade and fireworks. A few nights earlier, I made friends with a few knowledgeable locals and got the scoop on the best places in the city to watch the fireworks. The consensus was that it was Slava Park, which is on the banks of the river Dnepr, high up, with visibility all across the city. Sounds great, right?

Well, before the fireworks, we stopped to have dinner with our friends. While there, and after quite a few rounds of Vodka (this is a true Russian dinner), the friends had other suggestions for the fireworks. We are happy, belly full, and drunk, so it all sounds good to us. We grab a taxi, and as we are heading to Vladimirskaya Gorka, instead of Slava Park,.. I'm thinking.. how come there is no traffic this way? How come the streets aren't blocked off? And how come the driver doesn't know where we are going.. isn't the whole city going to watch the fireworks? Turns out they were... in Slava Park ;)

So we get there.. keep asking people which way to go, since there is no crowd to follow. Eventually we come to this park.. with some people here and there, and a big area roped off with policemen in front of it. I figured, hey, they would know. Looking all cute and "lady-in-distress"-like, I approach one.

"Excuse me nice policeman, would you be so kind as to tell me where the fireworks are going to happen?"

He looks at me like I had just escaped from somewhere where they have nice ladies in white coats speaking in soft calm voices. Then turns and points to a cannon about 100 ft behind him.

"Here's the cannon..."

I'm slowly starting to understand.

"Hmm.... and when are the fireworks?" I ask him.

He is probably again wondering where I escaped from.

"At 9pm" he says.

I look at the watch, it's 8:57. Then I look at him, look at the watch, and look at the cannon... and say ..

"I should run, shouldn't I?"

He says, "yeah."

With that, I put about another 200ft distance between me and the cannon, when I jump and grab my friend at the first BOOM. I can't complain that were were too far to see the fireworks :) And here's the 12 seconds of proof,