Tag Archives: Hammered & Sickle

Dnipropetrovsk Episode One: The Northern Menace.

It seems a million years away reading our last post about Kiev and even from the point in time when we were writing it! So it seems we have been brought back a billion years to getting off the night train in Dnipropetrovsk. Despite the horrendous hour of 6:30am, Sexy Jill (as she is now named to avoid confusion with our half a cup Jill) and Stuart had dragged themselves out of bed to come and meet us so we were treated to the most joyful welcoming greeting ever. We were impressed with Sexy Jill’s adopted Eastern European grim demeanour, fur coat, high heels and full make up even at that hour. We were escorted through the wide almost empty streets of Dnipro, trying not to smile at people as apparently it makes them jealous that you are happier than them, enjoying some strange looks for wearing vests in what apparently was -1 but we don’t believe it was, and can now understand “What are you doing! Put your coat on, you’ll get sick!” in both Russian and Ukrainian. We arrived at Jill’s lovely apartment – aka The Hammered and Sickle – where she proudly displayed the amount of alcohol she had bought for our visit, a challenge we were afraid to accept in our delicate condition, but we did manage a refreshing breakfast Sommersby over a nice catch up before poor Sexy Jill had to go off and teach her nursery class. Put the rest of this in your face