Day 7 - Zhovkva

сьомий день - п'ятницю, 15 Жовтня (7th day - Friday, October 15th)
Today was our last full day in Ukraine. We'd originally booked Alex through Thursday, but since we didn't get to see all of the sites on our itinerary in that time, he gave us an extra day. In the morning, Alex and our trusty driver Oleh took us about 30 km north to the cool little town of Zhovkva. Zhovkva was founded in the middle ages by a Polish nobleman who is kind of a national hero in Poland. He and his family are buried in a cathedral in town just of the main square, and it is a popular place for Polish tourists to visit. The tow was also an important trading center in medieval times, and many of the buildings were designed to allow merchants' carts to drive up under covered porticoes to unload their goods. The ploschcha (square) was rather beautiful and open (i.e., no city hall building in the center). At one end was was a fortress with a set of gates on either side. The town also once had a thriving Jewish community, and the primary purpose was to see the medieval synagogue. Built in the so-called "fortress style," it has incredibly thick walls - so thick, in fact, that the Nazis were unable to blow it up.  The inside was gutted, though. Like Drohobych, this synagogue was in a period of restoration and it was surrounded by scaffolding. Apparently, there are plans to turn it into a museum of Jewish history, but I don't see this happening anytime soon. Also, there was a wooden church that was open & didn't restrict photography, so I took a few shots. 

Zhovkva Castle, with flanking gates

Me, taking a photo

Wooden church exterior

Wooden church interior - chandelier and iconostasis

Zhovkva synagogue

perimeter of the town square

Cathedral

gate

another perimeter shot

historic buildings, public spaces

main gate, Zhovkva Castle

peering inside to the courtyard of the castle...

castle wall

historic commercial buildings around the town square

Dad in front of a shop

Day 6 - Drohobych

In the afternoon, we headed to the town of Drohobych, which, compared to some of the other villages we saw, was more like a small city. It was built on a similar plan to L'viv, with a city hall building at the center of the market square. Here, though, some of the buildings around the perimeter of the square were rebuilt during Soviet time with particularly drab results.

"Welcome to Drohobych"

Market Square

City Hall

The building on the right was once a synagogue, and now it's a boxing gym.

Sholom Aleichem Street.

Street scene

Placard honoring Ivan Franko, a famous Ukrainian writer from this area.

Homeless dog

Bustling street scene

Dad standing in front of a beautiful house.

The main attraction, for us at least, was the enormous Choral Synagogue near the center of town, built in the 1860s. It's a hulk, completely gutted on the inside, but it's still standing. It was apparently used as a furniture store before being returned to the Jewish community. it is in the process of being restored, and people were working on the building. We were even able to go inside, which was really amazing to see, especially the faded Hebrew inscriptions still visible on the walls. I hope that during the restoration, someone will do research to analyze the walls and return them to their former condition. Interesting fact - because there was a height restriction, a lot of the synagogues in Galicia were built with the first floor below ground, so you enter down a set of stairs. That way, you could have the interior space as large as you wanted while still conforming to the height limits.

Synagogue exterior

Interior w/ exposed support beam and another tour group - we were not the only visitors!

vaulted ceiling

Harold and Alex inside the synagoge

wall inscriptions

exterior close-up.

Day 6 - Truskavets

Шостий день - Thursday, October 14, 2010

This morning's drive was a lot quicker than yesterday's, and the road leading south from L'viv was in better condition. I'm constantly amazed, leaving L'viv, how such a beautiful city can be surrounded by so may frightening buildings, but I guess that's what happens when form completely gives way to function.

Day 5 - Berezhany/Buchach

п'ятий день - Wednesday, October 13, 2010


While I was planning for the trip, I read a bunch of books about Jewish heritage sites in the L'viv region. I'd emailed with Alex in advance of the trip about places that I wanted to see. Looking at some maps, I'd tried to group sites together that made sense as day trips. Since Dad left all the research to me, and I was more than happy to do the research, I'd compiled a nice list of towns to visit. Today's trip took us into the Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil Oblasts, to the Galician shtetls Berezhany (partially demolished cemetery, synagogue, and Polish fortress) and Buchach (monument in the forest to victims of another mass execution, an overgrown-but-otherwise intact Jewish cemetery) by way of Rohatyn. It involved the furthest distance to travel to and from L'viv. I hadn't quite realized how long the drives were going to be, and wasn't really prepared to be spending most of the day in the car. Needless to say, I wasn't able to get nearly as many pictures to capture the amazing scenery we drove through. So, after some photos of these towns, I'm going to provide you with a listing of things I saw from the car window as opposed to my usual narrative.

Synagogue in Berezhany, with some evidence of slow restoration

Outside wall of the Berezhany synagogue

recently-constructed fence at the Jewish cemetery in Berezhany

crumbled gravestones

Some of the gravestones were fairly intact

These stones were recently installed by relatives in Israel

repairing the church dome

Berezhany fortress

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In the courtyard of the fortress, you can see a scale model of what the castle will look like once reconstruction is complete.

Harold on the pathway outside of the castle

Monument in the forest, Buchach

Cemetery in Buchach

Aside from the weeds, these stones were fairly undisturbed.

Legible Hebrew inscription

On the reverse side of many stones, the name of the deceased was written in Polish.

Some observations I made of the Galician countryside:

• Small brick houses with painted metal gates and chickens in the yards;
• Farmers leading their cattle along the side of the road, or driving horse carts;
• Babusyas hauling sacks or selling enormous pumpkins;
• Flocks of geese stopping traffic as they cross the road;
• Rolling hills with land divided into rectangular plots of rich, black soil (chornozem);
• Stray dogs roaming through 750-year-old towns;
• Fat cats scrounging for food in a dumptster;
• The stench of a sugar-beet processing plant;
• A coal-fired electrical power plant;
• Autobus stops decorated with tile mosaics and covered in grafitti;
• Glittering domed churches;
• the mighty Dniester river.