Customer Reviews

Ukraine, 2nd: The Bradt Travel Guide

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having done some travelling before and being familiar with a usual "average tourist" style of travel guides available on the market I was pleasantly surprised by the refreshing style of Andrew Evans' writing. He evidently did some in-depth study and managed to capture the essence of the Ukrainian culture in a short space of the first part of the book. I particularly enjoyed a brief overview of the Ukraine's history in the second chapter. I also liked the way Andrew presented Ukrainians with some witty comments in the third chapter of the book and could not agree more with him about the importance of getting to know the local people wherever one is travelling to. The second part of the book ("The Guide") provides concise information on pretty much all major destinations in Ukraine with some very practical advice on transport, accommodation etc. Being born in Odessa and living there for 20 years I enjoyed reading about my birthplace and hope that the positive outlook given by Andrew in his book will encourage many more tourists to visit this beautiful city. I hope very much that with the increasing number of visitors to Ukraine the word will spread about the hidden corners of this East European country and that this will generate a much deserved positive coverage for Ukraine in the Western media. I see this book as a pioneer in this area paving the way for other publications about Ukraine. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is travelling or consider travelling to Ukraine. Those who are particularly interested in Ukraine's capital city - Kiev, may find very useful to read a separate Bradt's city guide due later this year. See their website for more information - www.bradtguides.com

It is rare to find a really great travel guide. As a genre, they are as a general rule, pretty weak. Yet as a general rule, Bradt publishes pretty good travel guides. Most include some cultural and historical info on the locations, and have well researched suggestions.

Amongst these above-average guides, Andrew Evans' Ukraine Guide is exceptional, as it is a truly outstanding piece of work. Evans clearly spent a lot of time in the country, and understands its diversity, rich history, and geopolitical significance. And--more importantly--he knows a huge amount of relevant info for travelers.

Evans seems to really care about the reader, and wants to ensure not only that they eat well and travel comfortably, but that they see what they need to see. Whether you are in Kiev or Crimea for 2 days, or spending a month exploring the nation, The Bradt Guide is all you will need to navigate the right route. You'll have plenty of relevant background and cultural info for wherever you go--be it to the beach in the south, to a coal town in the mountains, or to the capital city.

The Bradt Ukraine guide has plenty of key info--like a travelers' phrasebook in both Russian and Ukrainian (and guidance on where to speak which), good maps and stunning pics. This guide is a must-have for any Ukraine traveler.

Lots of helpful infomation covering history, religion, language and many cities, not just the capital. An appendix gives some basic vocabulary in Russian and Ukrainian. I visited Lutsk and Mykolayiv as well as Kiev in September of 2005.

Information regarding Lutsk was helpful, however the review of Mykolayiv was unduely negative. I found the people there very hospitable and it was as nice as any other Ukrainian city. Mykolayiv has an excellent shipbuilding museum, some great musical talent, and the best zoo in the country.

The book has only a few color photos, and the maps are B&W. Color would have been nice on the Kiev metro transit map (which features a red, blue and green line). A future revision should identify the sites of the 'Orange Revolution' last winter (2004/2005).

This was my first experience using a Bradt guide and I was pleasantly surprised by how informative and well-written this book is. Used this book on a 2-week trip to Ukraine and found it immensely helpful. The historical and cultural information is very detailed and informative, very well-researched. There is coverage of the entire country, which is lacking in the Lonely Planet Ukraine book. The restaurant recommendations are excellent, and they are nicely broken down into categories based on price and type of food (there's even a listing for Kosher restaurants in Kiev!). The author has a positive, upbeat perspective about the country.

Great book, glad that we had it with us. A must if you're going to Ukraine.

Too often these days, guidebooks are written by someone who drops into the country, visits a few key cities in a few days and offers little in the way of insight. This guide is written by someone who knows what's what and where to find it. Because its coverage is broad and insightful, Bradt Ukraine is the guide that foreigners who live in Ukraine rely on.

Want proof that Bradt's got Ukraine figured out? Look at the relative absence of other travel guides for this fascinating country. Lonely Planet does one, but then again, they'd probably publish a guide to the Moon. Rough Guides, Fodor, Frommer, Cadogan, Footprint... nada. Bradt's got the market on Ukraine, and there's a reason for that: This guide is really good.

It is a travel guide in the truest sense of the word. There's a definite emphasis on pragmatic travel information, at the slight expense of cultural and historical context that some readers particularly enjoy. It's not a text-rich cultural guide, a la Rough Guides, but a directory of good places to spend your time and money. The best part? It's accurate and authentic. You have the locals in your hand with this book, and you're armed with the kind of information that will make your visit to Ukraine rich, rewarding and real. The book leaves most of the historic context for you to discover on your own, but it points you in the right direction so you're not overwhelmed. There's a 100-page introduction to the country that is particularly good. The authors have written this section as something of a "culture shock" essay intended to give you the real, irreverent portrait of the country, with plenty of concise information that makes you feel like you're ready to relocate to Ukraine. They've painted the picture perfectly.

The truly startling city of Lviv, former capital of Polish Galicia, gets special treatment, and should be on every itinerary in Ukraine. Visitors from crystal-clear Scandinavia or baroque central Europe may wonder what all the Lviv hype is about. Here's the thing: It's not just about frilly architecture. It's about recognizing that Lviv was once an enormously diverse, poly-ethnic, Austro-Hungarian frontier town, and it's essentially intact. Prague may be cleaner, but it's also more homogeneous. Lviv's position on the margins, rather than in the center of everything, is the source of its intrigue. Go there.

There's more to this difficult country than Kiev and Chernobyl. Get out and see the places preserved in a pre-communist time warp (such as Lviv) before the word gets out and they become another stop on the expensive Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna tour.

I actually live and work here in Kiev and I purchased The Bradt Travel Guide to help me plan some upcoming day trips as well as to get some updates on places of interest here in Kiev. And while the guide was obviously well researched for the first edition it seems to me that the 2nd edition was a rush job or maybe just lacking in its design.

For example Bradt says that it's possible to travel on $75 a day - okay granted one should assume that amount is closer to $100 a day with inflation in the Euro and the cheapening of the dollar. The problem at least in Kiev - a very cosmopolitan city, is that many of the restaurants mentioned will cost you between $70 and $100 for a nice meal. By the way Georgian wine is very good and is available locally for about $8 a bottle so a glass of wine in a restaurant should not cost more than about $7 - my tip for those who read this! Also the local beers are all very nice and cost next to nothing - about $1 a bottle. There was not an effort to break down restaurants by cost range as was done with the hotels - most other guides I've used in the past do this and I find it really helpful. I was hoping for some new restaurant finds! And any restaurant that accepts major credit cards is in this class so beware if you're using this guide. Also, my specific need was for places to see that are close by but there was very little in that section for Kiev.

Overall, I think there are better guides although not quite as new. One very good point is the availability of apartments at reasonable prices. With public transportation very reasonable - that means cheap!, all you really need to know is what bus/tram to hoop on to get you to either the nearest Metro or somewhere central like Independence Square.

If you aren't sure about coming to Kiev/Kyiv, I want to tell you that I highly recommend it - the city is beautiful and the people are very nice. Ukraine is a big country and also very nice - I've been to the Black sea and to the Carpathian mountains so far and enjoyed them both although for very different reasons.

I am Ukrainian myself and have done a trip around Middle and Western Ukraine last summer. Ocasionally, one of my relatives had this book with him. It looked "sceptically" at the first sight - modest size, no much colored pictures in it. I then opened the book at random point of interest and was immediately "glued" to it by authors competent and at the same time humorish, fresh style. The more I read this book, the more I was amazed by author's in-depth knowledge of Ukraine, its people and culture. In fact, we used this book every day during our trip, and indeed it does contain very practical and precise information. Only very minor number of insignificant deviations was noticed when using this book as practical travel guide, which can be understood : Ukraine has been a country of rapid change within last couple of years. After coming back from our trip I have spent a couple of days more reading this book for fun and knowledge, including history of Ukraine overview and some destinations in Ukraine I have not yet visited. Excellent job, Mr. Evans! Even though tourism in Ukraine is developing rapidly and probably more and more details from this book get outdated to some extent, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone visiting Ukraine as solid and reliable guide to the country, its history, culture and travel basics.

We purchased this book before touring Ukraine in the Spring of 2009. We found it to be the most helpful of any of the guides for traveling through this wonderful country. We planned our hotels, tours, and dining with the help of this book and we were pleased with the accurate information. Mr. Evans gives the readers details that can only be given by someone who really knows the country. What other author gives his personal email address and asks you for comments? (And he does write back!) Great book.

Giana

In general, a good book and was a generally helpful guide with good info on the main sites and destinations. BUT this is a rapidly changing country and I found that in relying on it in October 2008 I had to cope with a fair degree of outdated info. This ranged from the specific (businesses no longer in business) to the general (the roads are much better than when the author wrote -- may seem like a pleasant surprise but we made travel plans based on warning that were no longer accurate). Two other flaws -- the city maps in it frustratingly leave streets out. If you don't speak Ukrainian or Russian, you need maps you can rely on to get you where youa re going, so this is a meaningful handicap. The Lonely Planet guide my buddy had was not much different, but did do one thing much better: in addition to having the Latin spellings of things, the Loney Planet guide provides the Cyrillic along with it. This was invaluable to be able to confirm that the street you thought you were on is where youa ctually are, the resturant in front of you is the one you want, etc. The Brandt guide doesn't do this. So while I am not usually a huge fan of Lonely Planet guides, you might be better off with their Ukraine guide than this one.