Hey dear friends
If you have followed our blog since the beginning
you will know that we are now almost traveling for 2 months now and this
without anyone having killed one of our friends! It’s magnificent how we are getting
along. I’m really glad that I’m here with my best friends. Our 8th
country that we will visit is Ukraine.
Ukraine is situated in the central and Eastern part of Europe. It
borders to Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, the
Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. I think you already know that this is quite a
big country. It has an area of 603 628 km² which makes Ukraine the second
largest country in Europe after the Russian Federation.
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During the Middle Ages in the 12th
century the East Slavic state disintegrated. By the 14th the area
was divided by 3 external powers: the golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. After the great Northern war Ukraine was
divided in a number of regions each with their own power but in the 19th
century the largest part of Ukraine was integrated in the Russian Empire and
the rest was under the Austro-Hungarian control. Then a very chaotic period
ensued with the First World War and then a Russian civil war.
In 1991 Ukraine became independent again
when the Soviet Union Dissolved. They started a transition to a market economy
but Ukraine had an eight-year recession. Then they had a really high GDP growth
but in 2008 Ukraine was also stricken by the worldwide economic crisis. After
this the worst years till now were over and as of 2011 Ukraine is the world’s
third biggest grain exporter.
The capital city of Ukraine is Kiev, we
have already visited this city, and the second largest city is Sevastropol. I
would like to visit this city as well but first I will have to discuss this
with my friends.
Till now Ukraine was nice, hopefully it has
still some secrets that we can discover. Please comment!
Matthias Denys
Week 8 Ukraine (in general)
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