Start thinking outside of the box and choose Ukraine’s capital as your next travel destination. Acknowledge its beauty and culture through an unforgettable journey.
Being a complete underdog in terms of a touristic attraction, Kiev is a city comparable to Chicago thanks to its population of 3 million, and it is twice as big as Milan, a cultural European centre.
Almost no attention is being brought to this huge city that is so important to the sector. For some reason, there is no desire to live or visit Kiev, even though it is a key city that serves many purposes not only in the Ukraine, but in the Europe as well. We will identify the main reasons for this occurrence, as well as recognize the real cost of living in Kiev, as this might play a definite role in your future decision to visit this breathtaking place.
Kiev does not hold a strong record when it comes to tourism. This phenomenon can be associated with a lack of popularity of Ukraine all together. There are much smaller cities and towns in Western Europe that are being visited on a regular basis. What could be the reason behind such unwillingness to meeting Ukrainian women and men?
A comparison between Kiev and a Western European city will offer a better perception of the current situation. Let’s compare the rate of hotel bookings in both cities and see the difference.
Let’s choose Dublin as our primal example. The results will be astonishing in comparison with capital of Ukraine. It is hard to compare the two capitals in terms of their size; Kiev wins here by a huge margin, being 6 times the size of Dublin. With impressive 9 million bookings Dublin takes the lead over Kiev’s 950.000 bookings per year. Even if we take the capital of Scotland, the statistics will suggest a huge gap in the favour of Edinburgh, with 7 million bookings per year. This is all while Kiev battles hard to reach at least 1 million stays per year.
We don’t even have to mention the Maidan incident, which led to lasting protests and eventual changes in the country’s political structure. This chain of events didn’t play in favour of tourism, adding to the insecurities travellers would feel. The cities’ reputation needed time to be restored. If you’d ask travellers back in the day about visiting Kiev, they would probably have major issues with your suggestion. We think that Kiev doesn’t deserve this lack of enthusiasm for it. The city remains shrouded in an obscure mist of mystery and delusion. At the same time neighbouring countries manage to draw millions of visitors for cities like Budapest, Varna and Wroclaw.
Kiev is shrouded in an obscure mist of mystery and delusion
- The infamous Maidan Square in Kiev, rebuild after protests in 2014
When we talk about the cost of living in Kiev, we need to point out the contrast between the country’s hospitability and protest consequences as things that would serve in the favour of any interested traveller.
Let’s analyze the interaction between the supply and the demand for a particular resource, taking Kiev as our example. What happens when there is a considerable deficit in demand for a long period of time and this situation escalates even further after the infamous protests? The answer to this question is rather simple; you have a great surplus of supply while the demand is kept at very low levels. This circumstances impact the price of living in Ukraine’s capital and make it as low as possible. In the present day, this is where you can see the real difference when you are paying $15 for a beer in Rome or getting a ticket on the New York subway worth $3.
- Low Charge for Living Comes With Certain Difficulties
Few unpleasant things might restrain curious travellers from unveiling the mysteries of Kiev and its suburbs.
Every tourist will run into the difficulties of actually getting to the capital of Ukraine. It all has to do with the location of the city that is situated in the middle of the country and not by the border. Getting to the nearest big cities in the neighbouring countries will take a lot of precious time, as they are all located at least 1000 km away. The quality of highways also doesn’t inspire much confidence. However, there is good news for those who like to travel by air. Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air is your perfect solution for travelling in this region. This flight company is mainly operating through Central and Western European cities. You can get your tickets for a reasonable price of around $360 in case of London-Luton direct flight.
There are no other options but Wizz Air for a traveller to get to Kiev with a low-cost flight ticket. Any other combinations with different airlines would result in a cost that will not satisfy any tourist. Such a disappointing start for a trip would be highly undesirable.
You can rest assured as regular flights to Ukraine’s capital are not exaggeratedly costly. Flight Company Lufthansa provides flights on a daily basis from Frankfurt for around €480. This is already good news for those travellers who are eager to get acquainted with the local culture and meet with beautiful Ukrainian girls on a dancing floor in Kiev as their welcome party.
Let’s get to the next potential issues for tourists. We have deduced for a fact that the cost of living in Kiev is the lowest among other big European cities. This, however, doesn’t mean that the field of housing is supposed to follow the same formula. Rent is not cheap in Kiev and that could result in a major drawback for travellers. Be prepared to pay insane money for your stay in the city.
There is a simple explanation for this phenomenon. It is important to mention that most citizens living in Eastern Europe are owners of the place they reside in. The history behind this situation is quite outstanding.
All the housing had to be transferred into private property once the socialism ended in 90’s. The idea was to sell apartments for a small part of what they were actually worth. It was a no-brainer to invest as much as $500 for the opportunity to get your own property almost for free. There was basically nobody who would be capable of refusing such an offer. Now there are almost no Ukrainian citizens who would have to pay rent.