This was my first visit of the city in twelve years. This time I saw the old city, Desna river, the river port and the Boldina hill. Passed by a musical fountain, which was not present twelve years ago, but did not take photos of it.
We came by semi-official bus from Kyiv's Lisova metro station. The ticket price was UAH 30 back then. The private bus operating on the intercity route had to put out a «special transportation» sign complete with a fake name of a contractor's entity, humorously named «Shark of Business». This was enough to keep the discontent officials at a distance during that time.
After no more than two hours we stepped at the CHervona square in Chernihiv. Things change — political map, for example, but wedding cars still were circling the square and honking as if it was 1985.
Walk any direction from the square to see something nice.
Layers of history on a number plate: «Kyrponosa» over some years of October.
The entrance into the museum of Ukrainian writer Mykhaylo Kotsiubinsky boasted a disclaimer banning network marketers from the territory.
A house sparrow had its nest under the museum's roof. It was lots of fruiting apricot trees around, and the sparrow was full and singing non-stop because of that.
We took a shortcut from the museum to the Boldina hill, using an old-school paper map of the city. It was an not very interesting area of private houses.
There were three of us and we all were atheists, however, a decision wa made to spend some time inside the Trinity monastery. I think this was my first time in it. I went into the bell tower, the women stayed on the ground — to sniff flowers, perhaps.
There were holes in metal floors, but it wasn't scary.
These windows looked like placeholder avatars of the web: kind of simplified heads and shoulders.
The bells.
One of the things that could be seen from the tower: a power plant, which looked huge. The steam was coming out of its high pipes.
These buildings reminded an ancient fortress, which they weren't. These were industrial buildings.
This lake was called simply Zemsnaryad (meaning «dredger»). Here's the view obstructed, or we can say «framed nicely» by the grate of the bell tower's window.
And here is the unobstructed lake view.
Cracks in an old wooden beam remind of the age of this monastery, and of the antenna animation on the website of Kraftwerk musical band.
An old and blue trolleybus brought us to the park, from where we headed towards a place with a colloquial name Pyatykyty, which means «Five corner-shire». It is called so because several streets meet here in one traffic circle. It is actually more than five corners on that circle. We stayed for one night in one of living blocks at Pyatykuty. I have nothing interesting to tell about this place.
Went outside to see the Catherine's church in the illumination. There were lots of mosquitos here, coming from the Desna river. Next time, I'll have the spray with me.
We saw an old pre-rebranding logo of one of the main cellular operators. Before: UMC, after: МТС. There it is, on some dull building.
A fountain was installed in Popudrenko park near the main square. People jokingly called that park «a graveyard» because of the guerilla memorial here. The fountain played Enya's Only Time, and the water actually spoiled the music: the problem was that it was the moment of water's emerging from the pipe which was synced, not the splash when the water falled back. I didn't take photos of it.
We went to the river port next morning. A nice decay was going on there.
A lot of photos of nice rust and decay could be taken if I could get into the port territory.
Here's a photo of a decaying Voskhod 24 passenger hydrofoil.
The mouth of the river port looked like there was not enough depth for sailing. But that was not the case — I saw at least one leisure steamboat «ПТ-150» operating, carrying bored tourists over Desna for one hour or so. They were attracting passengers usina a loudspeaker, and sold tickets for UAH 15.
It was rather hot by Ukrainian climate standards. The beaches on Desna were crowded over the limit; it looked like all the locals were here in their beachwear, getting red under the sun.
A rusty «quayside or riverbank ahead» traffic sign. It was both in this case.
The Nova («new») street was part of the crowd's path to the beaches. The little disctrict of private houses was called «Kavkaz» (Caucasus) jokingly by the locals.
Some old enterprise was seen from the pedestrian bridge. It looked tidy and old, and very interesting inside this natural room made by the impressive surrounding trees.
Youtube search for the fountain videos: чернігів фонтан.