This town has been blessed with the powerful tourist attractor called «tunnel of love».
This town has been blessed with the powerful tourist attractor called «tunnel of love».
It is so potent that the tourists started to appear here as early as 05:00, perhaps, due to the train schedule. It was not enough light for photos so early, but people were already trying to make some. All of that applied to me, too.
An info panel stood near the entrance.
Important notice for new tourists: arm yourself with anti-mosquito spray, if you are travelling here during the warm time of year. There were tonnes of them airborne. My visit would have been spoiled if I hadn't taken a can of a strong one.
People left stripes at the entrance to the tunnel. You must tie stuff if you are in love and near some place of love, be it a tunnel or a bridge, mustn't you.
The locals have noticed the tourist flow and started to make moves in the direction of harnessing it. A slowly rotting information panel about proposed improvement of the area was standing near. It proposed a small row of kiosks for trade to be installed, among other things. The anti-mosquito spray will be selling good!
While the area improvement project was still on paper, there were simplest trash bags on two sticks standing near the rails. It was not very convenient, but better than nothing!
An absolutely not lovely piece of dirty linoleum was spoiling the impression at the tunnel's entry, until area improvement plans come into fruition.
Of course, the tunnel wasn't built neither for the tourists, nor love. This railway spur is going to a military area and to a woodworking plant in the next village.
Enough with the tunnel. We decided to look around the town, and headed towards the second sightseeing point of Klevan, looking at what we were passing by. They made their attempts at graffiti:
🤘An old home improvement shop sign had one letter missing.
A few apartment buildings stood along our way, floodlit by the morning sun.
True, horrible cobblestones were found on some side streets.
Passed by the territory of a legacy part of the educational system called «НВК» that is so indigenous to our post-soviet lands that I only can translate it literally as «educational and production complex». It was something overlapping the school but placed between the school and after-school education, often located at some distance from schools. It was more about real-life application of technology, starting with the internals of the internal combustion engine, for example. Who cares, anyway, it is not event the same century already.
We passed through the park near house of culture.
We saw the following in the morning park: a squirrel busy foraging, a war memorial, and long shadows.
One of few main streets.
The center of life in Klevan was situated on the regional highway, around the place where the regional buses stopped. The road was going down and up here, crossing the valley of river Stubla.
The library.
View from the bus stop: some shops, eateries, regional marshrutkas, a coffee kiosk. Somebody had bought many old cars called Barkas B1000, painted them pink or green, and gave them their second life by using them as coffee shops all over the Rivne region. Unfortunately, the coffee sucked. It would have been so much better if it did not. But it did.
There was a catholic temple a hundred meters away, walled, and its gates closed.
It had this bell tower.
Long story short, we reached the so-called castle. It does not deserve the «castle» title. Not more than a fortress. Too boxy for a castle.
The ukrainian Wikipedia article about the castle has a phrase left by some editor: «simplified provincial architecture». The english one doesn't have it.
Caution must be exercised while walking here. Stuff can suddenly fall on you, under you, or it is your own self who can turn into stuff falling somewhere — including these holes of the ancient pit latrine.
It was a place where urban decay lovers could take more photos of the matter.
The thing I liked here was this viaduct — short, but looking good amidst the leafy branches.
I tried to walk around the castle using the old ground road, which had to be a ring. But the ring was broken by private houses built right at the bottom of the castle hill. The castle could not be seen from the road because of trees, anyway.
Well — I made myself a folder of urban decay photos. Can leave Klevan now.
A footbridge over the Stubla river can be found near the castle.
The river is a small one.
It was time to leave for Rivne.
