Springtime in Kiev.

We have been sightseeing during the last weeks before we leave on May 15th and plan to spend 3 months in Canada. We have visited some of the Kiev tourist spots with students from two of the three classes that we have worked with. We went to the Museum Pergova with students from the linguistics class. The museum is a pioneer village with buildings and windmills collected from various parts of Ukraine. It is a large area and took several hours to walk around. We had a picnic lunch with the 9 students and Julie the teacher was there with her two boys as well.
We visited the Botanical gardens with 5 Math students from Taras Shevchenko University. The lilacs were at the peak of blossom time, it is the largest collection of lilacs in Ukraine. Kiev is known as green city as it has many trees and the most common is the horse chestnut tree. They are in bloom now and these large trees are spectacular when the large blooms cover the trees. The bloom is called a candle in Ukrainian. There are a number of magnolia trees in the botanical gardens, unusual in this northern climate. They too are currently in full blossom.

The city has come alive in the spring with bushes, trees and flowers all coming into leaf and blossom. The grass is being cut in the schoolyard near us and the river cruise boats are in operation on the Dneiper.