In the
beginning of December we hosted our first guest – little Victor. After seeing
our lovely Vinnitsya on first day, we felt like discovering some other places.
After some discussions and analyzing all possibilities and time which we have,
we decided to see small town Medzhibizh (we saw the pictures of old fortress
and it assured us to travel there).
We started
our journey quite late in the morning, but all was fine until we didn’t leave
on wrong stop. It was my fault as I didn’t make sure its proper stop, just
influenced by Daphnee saying that it looks like description of our stop. I
admit it was very stupid, but it also brought us some adventures and I’m sure
thanks to this mistake we will remember it long :D
After
leaving the bus, and we asked one (“very willing to help and give information”)
local where is our destination (Меджибiж), we got very informative answer – quite far. So we tried hitchhiking,
I must say it’s quite easy, but when you are only two – track drivers can only
take two people, but they stop very often, so its possible to hitchhike in
Ukraine (for sure it’s much easier than in UK, where it’s almost impossible
that someone will stop, even tracks). Anyway, we were lost as we were three,
and separating was impossible. In this way we had quite long walk to next bus
station (I don’t remember the name of the town). On the way we had one
proposition of a lift to this station for some ridiculous amount of money, and
after refusing we were called niggardly Jews. Finally we reached the station on
foot and catch the bus to Меджибiж, this time we set off on good stop and were instructed how to get to
the fortress by few nice ladies, and one even walked with us half of the way.
Before visiting the castle we went to see one church, which we noticed near the
road. It was closed, but after few minutes batiushka came to us and offered to
open it for us. He talked a lot about history of the church and other facts
(actually I think that Victor’s beard and looked helped us to see this and had
such a good guide, because batiushka said that he was sure that Victor was a
monk :D), Victor was even that lucky that he could see the altar (in orthodox
church altar is hidden behind the iconostas, and only men can enter this part).
Batiushka seeing we are cold and a bit tired already invited us even for tea,
but we had to refuse as we wanted to see a fortress in daylight, we only got
pictures of Bogorodica.
Trying, trying....
Меджибiж is very old town, famous from its fortress and Hasidic movement. In
this town in XVIIIth century lived the founder of Hasidism – Israel Baal Shem
Tov. Jewish community existed there from XV-XVI century, and became one of the
biggest in Podole. But town started to
be “famous”, when the Hasidic movement started and it became the place of
living many known “cadyk” (Hassidic leader). Jewish people were more than 50%
inhabitants, and in the beginning of XX century 10 synagogues were working and
6 cheders ((traditional religious school). Nowadays there is old Jewish cemetery
(which we didn’t manage to see, because it was too late and getting dark). From
80s Меджибиж became the place of mass pilgrimage
for Jews – there is still the grave of Baal Shem Tov.
The fortress gave the town its name as it’s
built on half-island between two rivers-Buh and Buzhok (the name means between
Buhs). The castle is huge, making great impression when you are inside, and
when you only approaching and admiring the view outside. We climbed on one
reconstructed tower, or rather Victor climbed, Daphne and I gave up on the way,
too scared to continue. In the courtyard there is old church, but unfortunately
closed, we saw also the old palace part, totally devastated and destroyed, but
despite of this beautiful. Whole castle is still under restoration, so in the
palace part you walk on some wooden planks, which aren’t very stable. From this
part you can also come into old tower (perhaps) and the view from there is
unbelievable. Some magic added the fact that it was already sunset when we
reach this place. Pink-violet lights playing on the old white-grey wall, and
the river at the feet of the castle were amazing. This very place had some kind
of power, hard to describe, but I wanted to stay there for long.
After so full day we came back to Vinnitsya late
in the evening and finished our day in Georgian restaurant, exploring some new
tastes.
Our paparazzi was very active even when we were already a bit freezing waiting on the empty,dark road for our marshrutka :P
The last day
we spent walking again in Vinnitsya and visiting the churches. Especially
interesting is the oldest little church in Stare Misto (by the way it’s the
only old part of this district, in the past here the first town was created,
but now it’s more like a village).The Saint Nicolas Church was built in XVIIIth
century in the place of old church existing there since about XIIIth century. What
is interesting, cerkva was built without using any nail, wooden logs are
connected like puzzle but in 3D (it isn’t good comparison, but the construction
is very interesting).
I’m always
astonished by orthodox churches, I find them more interesting than catholic,
each is different and always so beautiful and the atmosphere is more spiritual
(it is of course just my subjective impression). I’m not religious person, but
I like visiting churches very much. I won’t write here long descriptions of
architecture of orthodox churches, uncle google will help the interested ones
to find a lot of information; I will just limit myself with few facts about
visited church. It’s typical three-part orthodox church, Ukrainian type in
baroque style, , on the plan of 3 octagons, painted in bright blue, which make
it more vivid and a bit like fairy tale,
the construction seem very light and indoor is very cozy. Picture will
tell more:
Our little mushroom;)
And the last part of the post. Our lovely weekend wouldn't be so good without some bitter humour of our Spanish guest. Generally I want to say thank you Victor for good time, we know perfectly what is under your sarcasm and I hope we will have a chance to meet in the future:)
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