Kiev

Kiev is big, and I'm almost out of time at this internet cafe, so this will be short.

It is full of brightly colored Orthodox churches, dripping with gold and icons, onion domes shining gold or silver against the sky.

Mummified monks are sealed in glass cases below the ground, and babushkas kneel and kiss the cases, and pray, gnarled hands holding dripping beeswax candles.

Giant shiny buildings rise from enormous boulevards.

Parks full of unabashadly communist monuments are everywhere.