Our New City

I found some shots of the city of Kerch, Ukraine, where we will be moving in December. Admittedly, it will not look like this when we get there, but I am excited to be there. Wikipedia has an interesting entry on the city and its history.

Kerch is an ancient city that began as a Greek colony and has been populated by a variety of people for over 2500 years. The painting above is from 1839 and shows a bustling shipping town. The high ground is Mount Mithradates topped by the harbor lighthouse.

This is a view of the harbor from the top of Mithradates. The stairs run down to the center of the old town.

This is the top of the aforementioned Mount. This is one of the nicer Soviet-era monuments to the Great Patriotic War, which we Westerners call WWII. Since the Soviet Union only spanned 3/4 of a century, they have very little to celebrate other than the victory over fascism and protection of the Fatherland (Ukrainians use the paternal form instead of Motherland like Russians).

Another shot of the monument atop Mithradates. The cannons are not reproductions. 2 of the 3 have patches on the "gunner's shield" where bullets had passed through the armor during their active use.

This is the standard, grey, depressing Soviet type of monument. Between the two carved concrete slabs lies the entrance to the catacombs that run under Kerch where 15,000 Ukrainians hid and continued the resistance to the Nazis for 6 months with virtually no food or water. Little is known about life underground as there were no survivors.

This is the beach about 1/4 mile from the gates of the camp and Speedos notwithstanding, I plan to spend a good deal of time here.

Another shot from just above "our beach" looking northeast across the channel. Through the haze you can see just a slight outline of the Russian coast in the upper right-hand corner.

This is a great example of the booths at the market across the street from the camp. All are the same color and roughly the same size. Most day-to-day items can be bought here though the "normal" food selection is limited. There is also a small grocery store just behind the market itself.

To zoom in a little closer to our new home, this is a great shot straight down the center of camp. The light spot on the concrete about halfway down is the patch that replaced a massive, yet unusable fountain that was the bane of every one's existence for the first half decade of our ownership.