How to Be the Discoverer in the 21st Century
And how to lose it all
We were born too late to explore the Earth. We were born too early to explore the Cosmos.
In some sense, it’s the bitter truth of our reality. But not completely. Imagine a pretty big but not densely populated country with not too developed internal tourism and low population loyalty to tourism. It is my Ukraine. It’s easy to prove the first two facts with numbers. The other two are subjective, but I don’t doubt them.
Before moving to my current city, Vinnytsia, I extensively researched it and its surroundings online. I admired one traveler who made geographical discoveries there. I’m not exaggerating.
It’s an essential moment that he isn’t some legendary chronicler from the past. He’s a guy about my age with a similar profession and loves to wander. In his example, I could prove that it’s possible to discover exciting things here and now. Around any point you live.
I won’t deny that envy was one of the driving factors of some of my trips. With the right motivation, envy can be helpful. I started to discover the country around me step by step — too late regarding its size, too late considering what awaited us ahead.
I didn’t shy away from either big cities or forgotten villages. But in popular places, I tried to step away from trodden paths, visit non-touristic districts, and see doubtful points on the outskirts.
It is worth mentioning that I don’t have a car, so I was limited by public transport, my legs, and my bicycle. Occasionally, I think that I’d see hundreds of times more with the car. But simultaneously, I’d skip many details I could notice only at a leisurely inspection.
So I saw a few wildernesses but got enough impressions from them. Entering the village populated by 69 people without a bus connection and feeling its atmosphere was a valuable experience. My legs especially remembered this—they didn’t always forgive my adventures.
Old villages can have cemeteries with works of local masters. The primitivism of their sculptures looks gorgeous in the context of the surrounding places.
I found a lovely century-old railway station in one such village. Rails still lie near it, although the trains didn’t go for a long time. There was only freight traffic earlier. Now, the station is used as a residential building. I couldn’t find photos on the Internet that were older than mine.
Such villages often have masterpiece churches worthy of the capital. All of them are close to my city, and how many similar hidden gems can be around other cities?
My legs can’t forgive me for foot trips of about 30 kilometers per day, and my eyes can’t forgive hours of surfing satellite images and maps. I found many curiosities using them. Cemeteries and churches are well-visible, but not only. One of my most pleasant discoveries is this lake in an abandoned quarry. My region has a few kaolin lakes with similar colors, but this one is the least known.
I was proud of the moment when I brought an unfamiliar wooden mill with photos and coordinates to the community of mill connoisseurs (where there are many experienced locals and travelers).
And I’ve not yet established the purpose of this building. Possibly the mill as well? One day, I’ll look into this or take this secret with me until somebody discovers it again.
Sometimes I saw villages like museums, formed of huts from the Century before last. Of course, they aren’t the museums, really, just old huts. They’re abandoned because who wants to live in them now? They’re going away, and I caught the moment to look at them when possible.
Just as the shtetls are going away, too. They were compact districts of Jews who mostly had gone to Israel. We have a few town-shtetls; I selected photos of the least known.
Of course, such searches often lead to disappointments — when ruins of castles or palaces are only a few stones in the weeds, when no tombstone remains in the old cemetery, or when a waterfall marked in the navigator appears to be an ordinary water flow from a pond (navigators are a funny theme in general — sometimes they can show an observation deck… in the bushes).
But disappointments are usual for discoveries. You never find something exciting without regrettable mistakes and wasted time.
Russia took away this all. Many people lost their lives, relatives, or homes. I’m lucky: I lost only the ability to discover the world around me.
I don’t even talk about a war zone. It is not about forests and fields mined so densely that a few generations are required to clean them. Not about cities and villages; nobody will see in the future because Russians razed them to the ground zero by mass bombings.
Traveling inside the country at war is dangerous, especially if you love to take photos as much as I do. It is suspicious. People are incredulous; previously, I could have sent them to hell, but now I can’t. Some objects are prohibited from taking photos of (like bridges and railway stations). Educational institutions, hospitals, etc., aren’t strictly prohibited, but interest in them would cause questions. However, such objects are often exciting architectural monuments. We have many former palaces turned into schools, hospitals, etc.
Wandering in deserted places, trips to forgotten villages, taking photos — this is suspicious and dangerous now.
In the past, I paid little attention to top tourist points like Kyiv or Lviv, and I paid little attention to my city. Now they all rescue me. Sometimes, they allow me to forget that my life is irrevocably destroyed. Maybe it’s only thanks to them that I still haven’t gone mad from awareness of this fact.
All objects I’ve shown above are on forgotten paths and thickets. But what about discovering a city with a population of 220,000? Let me introduce you to Kropyvnytskyi, which is almost in the center of Ukraine.
Of course, there is a mass of information and photos on the Internet. But to find it, you need to know what to look for. Even most Ukrainians don’t know what a beautiful city waits for them in the very heart of the country. Even its citizens are always surprised about tourists. They’re sure that there’s nothing to see there.
This feeling of inferiority is the main thing about what we should fight after the war (if it’ll ever finish). If I survive, I’ll possibly have to emigrate. But wherever I go, I promise myself not to be ashamed of my origin like a lot of former Ukrainians did and do.
As a quick example, I can recall Victoria Kulheyko, known as Congresswoman Spartz. Our person in the U.S. Congress could do so much for her motherland, but she isn’t our person. Her speeches during the vote for aid for Ukraine are good for understanding this. What is Ukraine, and where is it? No, I’m not aware, I’m American. Let’s better concentrate on the defense of the southern border, but don’t think I’m not an American. What a shame.
I realize how little I can do to return to a peaceful life, but I continue to do so. Maybe, one day, my main troubles will be surfing maps and public transport schedules. Maybe, even in my own country.
We were born too late to explore the Earth. We were born too early to explore the Cosmos. We were born exactly in time to see the decay of Russia.
