Bilokuzmynivka. The Cliffs of Two Landscape Parks

I never compare our stunning landscapes and astonishing, spectacular panoramas with foreign natural monuments. The fawning turns of phrase heard in every region of Ukraine towards foreign curiosities, with invented names like "Rivne Iceland", "Donetsk Maldives", "Ukrainian Venice", "Zhytomyr Switzerland", and the like, are surprising. Perhaps our picturesque mountains and cliffs, lakes and rivers have not won worldwide fame, but they arouse no less admiration and are quite well known to the Ukrainian traveller. So let us cherish and popularise the tourist gems of our own country — the unrepeatable landscapes with their own peculiarities, history, and national colour. Ukraine will always remain Ukraine, without obsequiousness or servility, and in every region there are exotic places, wondrous locations that one wants to tell about and to show to guests and travellers.

In Donetsk region, one of the most inspiring landscapes, where you can draw a reserve of energy, opens out across the steppe expanses 10 kilometres south-east of Kramatorsk and 13 kilometres east of Druzhkivka.

 

The "Kramatorskyi" Regional Landscape Park. The Bilokuzmynivka section

Sloviansk. The Salt Lakes. Rest and Restore Your Strength

One of the most popular medicinal places in Ukraine, where people rest, restore their strength, and take the cure, can be considered the group of lakes in Sloviansk, Donetsk region. A priceless gift of nature — the only salt lakes of natural origin in Ukraine, located far from the sea's expanses, in the basin of the river Siverskyi Donets.

Glasswort. It Is Not as Simple as It Seems

It is not very well known, hardly ever used, grows underfoot, and has a simple name that defines its habitat — the glasswort. It has found its place in the sun where other plant species could not take hold, because of the high concentration of salt. It grows on salt marshes and sea shores, where the layer of humus is entirely absent.

 

The Avdiivka-Chaplyne Suburban Train

The suburban train is not a luxury but a means of transport. The electric train does not always keep to the schedule; one has to wait for it. Sometimes the train is uncomfortable, cold, or crowded, but for many of us the suburban train is vitally necessary, and there is no doing without it.

The Pokrovsk-Pavlohrad-Lozova Suburban Train

Suburban trains are not only a transport link between towns, but also a fascinating chance to travel to interesting places on a day off, to feel the union of nature and the steel highway. Trips by electric train have their own features: no crowds, no traffic jams, and the fare is cheaper. The Pokrovsk-Pavlohrad-Lozova suburban train links three regions - Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv.

 

Pokrovsk railway station. The Pokrovsk-Lozova suburban train

Avdiivka. Your home is where your heart is

The home of each of us is not only walls and a roof, it is a place of permanent residence, a quiet harbour, the native hearth where a person feels protected. Our home is the family nest, the domestic fire, the reliable rear in which the history of a family and even of whole generations is made. We say "My home is my castle", meaning the settled way of life and family traditions, a father's admonition and a mother's blessing. We hurry home after work, study and holidays, knowing that within our own walls we are loved and understood. The residents of front-line Avdiivka have a special attitude to their home, one suffered through and lived out in losses and partings.

 

Avdiivka, 15 Vorobiov Street. A long-suffering building

The Oak. Patriarch of the Forest and Natural Monument

A mighty oak, an age-old oak  

Stands there beside the ravine. 

It has flung out its leafy forelock, 

Its brow touches the cloud.

Its boughs have been bent since time began, 

Its bark is as if of steel. 

In the forest, from afar, to the grandfather 

The trees are bowing down. 

(Mariia Pryhara) 

In the forest, among birches and poplars, it stands out with its mighty trunk, its curly crown and its carved leaves.

Lviv. Enerhetychna Street. A monument oak. Trunk girth 5 m

Where the Kazennyi Torets river begins

"A river begins from a small stream" - everyone knows the lines from the children's song. So where does the Kazennyi Torets river, an important blue highway of the Donetsk land, take its beginning?

 

The Kazennyi Torets gully. A pond in the bed of the Kazennyi Torets river. Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region

Avdiivka. The Worked-Out Sand Quarry, a Recreation Zone

In the industrial Donbas, not rich in water resources, a worked-out sand quarry on the eastern side of Avdiivka has become a popular place of rest.

Avdiivka. The sand quarry

Lozova. The Druzhba Arboretum, a Green Friend

In modern towns, wholesale construction leaves less and less space for the green islands that produce oxygen and create saving shade. Ukraine has 57 arboretums, most of them created 20-40 years ago on the site of old forest parks. The Druzhba arboretum in the town of Lozova, Kharkiv region, was founded in the 1930s, and over its almost 100-year history it has changed its structure, its name, its status and its popularity.

 

Lozova, Kharkiv region.  The Druzhba arboretum