Good evening altogether,
I recently spent two full weeks in Kharkiv, Eastern Ukraine. Want to share my impressions and opinion, also because some fellow forists asked about Kharkiv in the Ukraine III-thread recently. Will put all this info in a separate thread, so it can be found more easily by everyone willing to go and not to "lose" it in a 150+pages-thread.
In two words: beautiful and relaxed. Honestly, Kharkiv right now seems to me THE best place to lay low on a ridiculously low budget in Europe, especially when you're interested in cities with 1+million people and in the part of Eastern Europe that's reachable visa-free for most guys (in contrast to Russia for example).
Kharkiv is an 8-hour train ride (night train) respectively 5,5-hour IC+ ride (daytime train) from Kiev, and that's how I went there - by night train in the luxury 2-bed sleeper compartment for around 20 Euros from Kiev. You'll arrive into the 1952-built, Stalinist architecture railway station that's stunning because of it Soviet times wall and ceiling paintings in the main hall and in the side tract waiting hall.
The arrival by night train in the morning is beautiful because the city starts its day together with you.
Firstly, about security. Yes, Kharkiv is only 2 hours from the Eastern Ukrainian frontline that is still active with fighting and shelling every day. You'll see many military in uniform walking around in the city, especially around the railway station where they seem to meet to go to/from the front, for example when they get their vacation leave or new recruits are going to the front for the first time. Other than that, there's not a single sign of the city being so close to the only currently active European warzone. You simply don't notice it. The city is clean (especially the extremely well-kept centre), everything is working normally, everything is available in terms of food etc., people are going about their daily lifes (work, studying, going out, traveling) just as they would in Munich, Rome or any other city in Europe. No protests on the streets, no unrest, no power shortages or anything. It was sadly different some time ago, when in early 2016 a bomb exploded in open street during a pro-Ukrainian protest march, killing some people, and when the pro-Ukrainian mayor was severely wounded during a gunattack in open street, but since February 2016, nothing "bad" in these terms happened in the city anymore. Which is why I decided to go for 2 full weeks this May and completely fell in love with the city.
Kharkiv is not one of the most well-known or most-visited cities in Europe, but that's exactly what makes it so interesting. It's one of the few remaining 1+million people-cities in Europe that didn't become a tourist disneyland in their centres, and where 80% of people that you'll see walking around in the centre are tourists, Middle East/African refugees or, in general, foreigners. The city seems to have a 95% to 98% homogenic Ukrainian/Russian white population, and while you see some Africans and Middle Easterners on the street (they're mainly university students), as well as Turkish/Arab/Middle Easterners tourists mainly walking around in male groups, the sheer number of them is just so small in comparison to any other major European city. It took me 3 full days of roaming Kharkiv to hear the first 50 years+ tourist couple speaking French with each other in the open street, and during my entire two weeks there, I only saw/heard 3 obviously Western guys speaking English while walking hand in hand with their Ukrainian girl in the city centre. In comparison to Kiev, it's nothing.
The city centre itself is very compact and walkable, with several beautiful squares that all seem to have been recently renovated and repaved, lots of parks and fountains, many benches for sitting, with beautiful views of Orthodox churches and monasteries that are illuminated beautifully in evenings. It's an extremely green and well-kept centre; I found 8 squares of different sizes within a 10-minute walking radius around the central subway station on Constitution Square.
There is no real pedestrian zone, but two main roads that are the most important walking/shopping/entertaining/daygaming venues: Sumska Street, and Pushkinska Street, with Sumska Street being a little more important and full with people than the still-busy Pushkinska Street. You'll find most restaurants, stores, coffee shops, bars, and everything else along these two streets and their side streets respectively.
Traffic is nowhere as bad as in Kiev. While the main streets do get clogged during rush hours, real traffic jams are limited to some roads, and the traffic seems to be gone mostly at 8pm, after which the city centre belongs to the pedestrians and after 10pm, it gets really quiet and empty everywhere in the city. Same goes for the metro that has three lines just as in double-sized Kiev, sometimes it can get crowded during daytime and rush hours, but nowhere near as bad as in Moscow or Kiev. Also people are noticeable less hectic, angry and indifferent than in Kiev's daily life. Here, you do get smiles from store and restaurant personnel, but maybe it has to do with me speaking fluent Russian I can't say.
Most restaurants and stores close between 9 and 11pm in the evenings, though you have some businesses working 24/7, such as two sandwich stores at Constitution Square, a coffee shop along Sumska street, a McDonald's on Pushkinska, and money exchange booths and small food/drink minimarkets scattered throughout the centre.
While Kharkiv is not a city that will keep you busy with a huge bunch of "tick-the-box-sights" such as in Paris or Rome, I enjoyed simply relaxing and laying low in this city for 2 weeks.
I had a daily routine of walks, relaxing at squares at fountains just reading, doing nothing, enjoying the fresh air and freedom from my daily grind at home. If you want to be in a place where doing nothing is completely okay, while at the same time having all the amenities of a large city, it's simply perfect. The price level is ridiculously low. A metro ride is 13 Euro cents, a full breakfast with eggs, sausages, vegetables, salad and bread comes to 1,10 Euros at the Ukrainian fastfood place Pusata Chata, a night at a centrally located 4-star hotel will be 30 Euros; fridge magnets starting at 25 cents, a litre-bottle of mineral water for 50 cents.
So - what about the girls. They're as plenty and as stunningly beautiful as they've always been in Ukraine, and since I had luck with the weather during my stay, the dressed have been short and summerly as well. To be honest, I did not have any luck with girls this time, but I also didn't put as much work into it as in the past years when I visited other cities of Ukraine. This trip was mainly for me relaxing and calming down, and not for meeting girls.
I tried pipelining through Tinder and Mamba some weeks before I went. The usage rate of Tinder is ridiculously low in Kharkiv, in comparison to Kiev but also in comparison to any other large city worldwide. I think if you'd swipe all girls in the age range 18-35 in 30 kilometres around Kharkiv (which I did), you'll have 100 girls to swipe a maximum. That's it. Not exactly heavily used there.
As for mamba, which was a goldmine some years ago, especially in Kiev: it is also less frequented now, at least in Kharkiv. I filtered all the girls in Kharkiv city in the age range 18-35 speaking English, and there were only 50 of them that have been active on the site in the past week.
Reply rates on both Tinder and Mamba are slow to zero. Nothing much comes of it. I didn't have one single date in the end. I do get more dates and respones in Munich, which already is a tough city for the average ugly guy like me.
I wrote about this phenomena in the large Ukraine III-thread some weeks ago, Ukrainian girls now seem VERY wary about any foreigner, especially if the foreigner just "travels" (such as me) or doesn't have any work business there. While command of English is very bad to non-existent in Kharkiv daily life (such as with the young girls working store registers and at cafes), even the girls that can speak English don't reply to foreigners. It doesn't help top open them in Russian either. My observation of only seeing and hearing 3 mixed Ukrainian girl/Western foreigner-couples in two entire weeks, in which I roamed Kharkiv streets for probably more than 150 hours altogether, speaks for my thesis that Kharkiv is just not a city where it's easy for the average foreigner to pull. I did not try any daygame since I just wasn't in the mood of cold approaching girls on the street and in no mood for possible rejections, but I'll tell about daygame spots where I saw lots of girls a little further down.
And last but not least, vk: it is actually blocked now in Ukraine because of the beef that the Ukrainian government now has with anything Russian. So they simply decided to block the social media site that young Ukrainians used the most, because it's a Russian site. So even if you could still access vk from Western Europe/the US, it wouldn't be any use, since Ukrainian girls can't access it anymore - except for maybe they use a VPN, but hey, how many average chicks will do that?
If you get bored in the city centre after some days, there's some stuff to disover in the outer parts of Kharkiv as well. You can take the blue metro to the hughe Barabashova market, which is said to be the largest market in all of Europe (the same is said about the infamous "7km market" near Odesa, Ukraine, by the way), and while I don't know if it's really the largest one, the Kharkiv Barabashova market is just so huge and so interesting that I went two times and spent several hours there, just soaking in the atmosphere and watching people and the stuff they sell.
The zoo is closed until 2018 for a complete renovation, but you still have the delfinarium open in the centrally located Shevchenko Park.
If you're a fan of Soviet-time propaganda murals and architecture with the Soviet red star, sledge and sicle on many buildings and in the decoration many metro stations, Kharkiv is the city that has fully conservated it all in great numbers throughout the entire city. Never seen anything like it in quantity and quality, not in Moscow or Kiev or any other Ukrainian or Russian city I visited. If it weren't for all the recently renamed/de-sovietizied street and metro station names, you might feel like in Soviet Union sometimes.
You have many different and quite interesting-to-watch street buskers in the city centre, as well as a Latin/salsa dancing group on Constitution Square that seems to meet there every evening in nice weather.
There is even a small copy of the Eiffel Tower in one of Kharkiv's outer parts now - when you explore the city thoroughly enough to see this one for the first time, you can consider yourself a Kharkiv expert![[Image: wink.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/wink.gif)
So, a little bit about daygaming spots - I did not do any active daygaming, but if you're looking for cold-approaching girls, you have plenty of locations to try.
1. The city centre core - Constitution Square including the metro station complex and the start of Sumska Street
This is probably the one spot in the city where you see the most girls if you count all hours of the day together. It's where two of the city's three metro lines drop off everybody who has business in the centre or needs to change trains, it's where people come for shopping, leisurely walks, coffee, culture or events. There is one pedestrian street crossing and if you post yourself between the traffic light and the subway steps, you'll have hundreds of beautiful girls of all ages walking by you within one hour, in groups or alone. Just choose any girl you might want to like and talk to her. Many people seem to wait here for each other anyway, it seems to be a popular and easy-to-find meeting spot, so you can just blend in into the waiting crowd while scanning the girls. Free music background from street buskers come free and the sandwich store behind you has a free restroom and free, fast WiFi.
2. Pushkinska metro station north exit, next to the universities
One of the two spots in the city that will have the most girls during daytime university hours. Directly next to Pushkinska station, there are several huge universites, such as the law faculty and the technical university. You can freely roam the backyards of the university buildings and hidden back there is even a "Kulinichni"-coffee shop/cake store where you could take girls on an instadate.
3. Karazin university main building, between University metro station and Shevchenko Park
The other large university spot in the centre, I accidentally walked by during one early afternoon and there were so many girls coming out of the high-rise university building that my eyes simply couldn't take them in all at once. Take girls on an instadate into Shevchenko park Delfinarium or into one of the many cafes, ice kiosks throught the park's corners.
4. Barabashova market
As mentioned before, this market is simply huge. I have a really good sense of orientation, but I've never ever seen such a confusing maze of wide and small, straight and crooked alleys, steps up and down and even areas, four metro exits and public toilets scattered in between, of so many goods of all kinds and so many impressions to soak in.
This is where all "normal", lower middle-class and lower-class girls of Kharkiv seem to do their clothes and accessories shopping who can't afford the expensive Western chains in the shopping malls, let alone the small high-end stores in the centre. You'll get lots of eye candy here any time of day. It's where the cute, Russian-only speaking girl living in a cramped Soviet apartment with her parents on the outskirts of the city, that serves you your dinner in the restaurant at night or works the cash register of a supermarket in a residential district of town, will go to buy a new summer dress, some earrings or shoes when she has her time off. If you want the sophisticated, better-educated, probably English-speaking girls try the two main university spots; if you have decent Russian and wanna find a lower class (but still cute, feminine and beautiful) girl who possibly never has been hit upon by a foreigner before, and possibly spends most of her life outside the city centre, come to Barabashova market.
Those are the four main daygaming spots that I would recommend. Of course you might try other places as well, as in any large city the central railway station, the shopping malls etc. (including Ave Plaza on Sumska Street near Constitution Sqaure), but nowhere will the concentration and sheer numbers of girls be so large as in the four aforementioned places.
So, to put it short: if you want a cheap, safe, beautiful, compact and tourist-free city to lay low for some time and just be with yourself and your thoughts (while at the same time possibly dating and fucking beautiful girls if you have your looks and game and possibly Russian together, which I don't at the moment due to several reasons), Kharkiv might be worth a try. I thouroughly enjoyed my time there. Since I mainly stuck to the Ukrainian fast food place Pusata Chata for my breakfasts, lunches and dinners, I did not spend more than 70 Euros on food in two full weeks - and I ate as much as I wanted and could.
I recently spent two full weeks in Kharkiv, Eastern Ukraine. Want to share my impressions and opinion, also because some fellow forists asked about Kharkiv in the Ukraine III-thread recently. Will put all this info in a separate thread, so it can be found more easily by everyone willing to go and not to "lose" it in a 150+pages-thread.
In two words: beautiful and relaxed. Honestly, Kharkiv right now seems to me THE best place to lay low on a ridiculously low budget in Europe, especially when you're interested in cities with 1+million people and in the part of Eastern Europe that's reachable visa-free for most guys (in contrast to Russia for example).
Kharkiv is an 8-hour train ride (night train) respectively 5,5-hour IC+ ride (daytime train) from Kiev, and that's how I went there - by night train in the luxury 2-bed sleeper compartment for around 20 Euros from Kiev. You'll arrive into the 1952-built, Stalinist architecture railway station that's stunning because of it Soviet times wall and ceiling paintings in the main hall and in the side tract waiting hall.
The arrival by night train in the morning is beautiful because the city starts its day together with you.
Firstly, about security. Yes, Kharkiv is only 2 hours from the Eastern Ukrainian frontline that is still active with fighting and shelling every day. You'll see many military in uniform walking around in the city, especially around the railway station where they seem to meet to go to/from the front, for example when they get their vacation leave or new recruits are going to the front for the first time. Other than that, there's not a single sign of the city being so close to the only currently active European warzone. You simply don't notice it. The city is clean (especially the extremely well-kept centre), everything is working normally, everything is available in terms of food etc., people are going about their daily lifes (work, studying, going out, traveling) just as they would in Munich, Rome or any other city in Europe. No protests on the streets, no unrest, no power shortages or anything. It was sadly different some time ago, when in early 2016 a bomb exploded in open street during a pro-Ukrainian protest march, killing some people, and when the pro-Ukrainian mayor was severely wounded during a gunattack in open street, but since February 2016, nothing "bad" in these terms happened in the city anymore. Which is why I decided to go for 2 full weeks this May and completely fell in love with the city.
Kharkiv is not one of the most well-known or most-visited cities in Europe, but that's exactly what makes it so interesting. It's one of the few remaining 1+million people-cities in Europe that didn't become a tourist disneyland in their centres, and where 80% of people that you'll see walking around in the centre are tourists, Middle East/African refugees or, in general, foreigners. The city seems to have a 95% to 98% homogenic Ukrainian/Russian white population, and while you see some Africans and Middle Easterners on the street (they're mainly university students), as well as Turkish/Arab/Middle Easterners tourists mainly walking around in male groups, the sheer number of them is just so small in comparison to any other major European city. It took me 3 full days of roaming Kharkiv to hear the first 50 years+ tourist couple speaking French with each other in the open street, and during my entire two weeks there, I only saw/heard 3 obviously Western guys speaking English while walking hand in hand with their Ukrainian girl in the city centre. In comparison to Kiev, it's nothing.
The city centre itself is very compact and walkable, with several beautiful squares that all seem to have been recently renovated and repaved, lots of parks and fountains, many benches for sitting, with beautiful views of Orthodox churches and monasteries that are illuminated beautifully in evenings. It's an extremely green and well-kept centre; I found 8 squares of different sizes within a 10-minute walking radius around the central subway station on Constitution Square.
There is no real pedestrian zone, but two main roads that are the most important walking/shopping/entertaining/daygaming venues: Sumska Street, and Pushkinska Street, with Sumska Street being a little more important and full with people than the still-busy Pushkinska Street. You'll find most restaurants, stores, coffee shops, bars, and everything else along these two streets and their side streets respectively.
Traffic is nowhere as bad as in Kiev. While the main streets do get clogged during rush hours, real traffic jams are limited to some roads, and the traffic seems to be gone mostly at 8pm, after which the city centre belongs to the pedestrians and after 10pm, it gets really quiet and empty everywhere in the city. Same goes for the metro that has three lines just as in double-sized Kiev, sometimes it can get crowded during daytime and rush hours, but nowhere near as bad as in Moscow or Kiev. Also people are noticeable less hectic, angry and indifferent than in Kiev's daily life. Here, you do get smiles from store and restaurant personnel, but maybe it has to do with me speaking fluent Russian I can't say.
Most restaurants and stores close between 9 and 11pm in the evenings, though you have some businesses working 24/7, such as two sandwich stores at Constitution Square, a coffee shop along Sumska street, a McDonald's on Pushkinska, and money exchange booths and small food/drink minimarkets scattered throughout the centre.
While Kharkiv is not a city that will keep you busy with a huge bunch of "tick-the-box-sights" such as in Paris or Rome, I enjoyed simply relaxing and laying low in this city for 2 weeks.
I had a daily routine of walks, relaxing at squares at fountains just reading, doing nothing, enjoying the fresh air and freedom from my daily grind at home. If you want to be in a place where doing nothing is completely okay, while at the same time having all the amenities of a large city, it's simply perfect. The price level is ridiculously low. A metro ride is 13 Euro cents, a full breakfast with eggs, sausages, vegetables, salad and bread comes to 1,10 Euros at the Ukrainian fastfood place Pusata Chata, a night at a centrally located 4-star hotel will be 30 Euros; fridge magnets starting at 25 cents, a litre-bottle of mineral water for 50 cents.
So - what about the girls. They're as plenty and as stunningly beautiful as they've always been in Ukraine, and since I had luck with the weather during my stay, the dressed have been short and summerly as well. To be honest, I did not have any luck with girls this time, but I also didn't put as much work into it as in the past years when I visited other cities of Ukraine. This trip was mainly for me relaxing and calming down, and not for meeting girls.
I tried pipelining through Tinder and Mamba some weeks before I went. The usage rate of Tinder is ridiculously low in Kharkiv, in comparison to Kiev but also in comparison to any other large city worldwide. I think if you'd swipe all girls in the age range 18-35 in 30 kilometres around Kharkiv (which I did), you'll have 100 girls to swipe a maximum. That's it. Not exactly heavily used there.
As for mamba, which was a goldmine some years ago, especially in Kiev: it is also less frequented now, at least in Kharkiv. I filtered all the girls in Kharkiv city in the age range 18-35 speaking English, and there were only 50 of them that have been active on the site in the past week.
Reply rates on both Tinder and Mamba are slow to zero. Nothing much comes of it. I didn't have one single date in the end. I do get more dates and respones in Munich, which already is a tough city for the average ugly guy like me.
I wrote about this phenomena in the large Ukraine III-thread some weeks ago, Ukrainian girls now seem VERY wary about any foreigner, especially if the foreigner just "travels" (such as me) or doesn't have any work business there. While command of English is very bad to non-existent in Kharkiv daily life (such as with the young girls working store registers and at cafes), even the girls that can speak English don't reply to foreigners. It doesn't help top open them in Russian either. My observation of only seeing and hearing 3 mixed Ukrainian girl/Western foreigner-couples in two entire weeks, in which I roamed Kharkiv streets for probably more than 150 hours altogether, speaks for my thesis that Kharkiv is just not a city where it's easy for the average foreigner to pull. I did not try any daygame since I just wasn't in the mood of cold approaching girls on the street and in no mood for possible rejections, but I'll tell about daygame spots where I saw lots of girls a little further down.
And last but not least, vk: it is actually blocked now in Ukraine because of the beef that the Ukrainian government now has with anything Russian. So they simply decided to block the social media site that young Ukrainians used the most, because it's a Russian site. So even if you could still access vk from Western Europe/the US, it wouldn't be any use, since Ukrainian girls can't access it anymore - except for maybe they use a VPN, but hey, how many average chicks will do that?
If you get bored in the city centre after some days, there's some stuff to disover in the outer parts of Kharkiv as well. You can take the blue metro to the hughe Barabashova market, which is said to be the largest market in all of Europe (the same is said about the infamous "7km market" near Odesa, Ukraine, by the way), and while I don't know if it's really the largest one, the Kharkiv Barabashova market is just so huge and so interesting that I went two times and spent several hours there, just soaking in the atmosphere and watching people and the stuff they sell.
The zoo is closed until 2018 for a complete renovation, but you still have the delfinarium open in the centrally located Shevchenko Park.
If you're a fan of Soviet-time propaganda murals and architecture with the Soviet red star, sledge and sicle on many buildings and in the decoration many metro stations, Kharkiv is the city that has fully conservated it all in great numbers throughout the entire city. Never seen anything like it in quantity and quality, not in Moscow or Kiev or any other Ukrainian or Russian city I visited. If it weren't for all the recently renamed/de-sovietizied street and metro station names, you might feel like in Soviet Union sometimes.
You have many different and quite interesting-to-watch street buskers in the city centre, as well as a Latin/salsa dancing group on Constitution Square that seems to meet there every evening in nice weather.
There is even a small copy of the Eiffel Tower in one of Kharkiv's outer parts now - when you explore the city thoroughly enough to see this one for the first time, you can consider yourself a Kharkiv expert
So, a little bit about daygaming spots - I did not do any active daygaming, but if you're looking for cold-approaching girls, you have plenty of locations to try.
1. The city centre core - Constitution Square including the metro station complex and the start of Sumska Street
This is probably the one spot in the city where you see the most girls if you count all hours of the day together. It's where two of the city's three metro lines drop off everybody who has business in the centre or needs to change trains, it's where people come for shopping, leisurely walks, coffee, culture or events. There is one pedestrian street crossing and if you post yourself between the traffic light and the subway steps, you'll have hundreds of beautiful girls of all ages walking by you within one hour, in groups or alone. Just choose any girl you might want to like and talk to her. Many people seem to wait here for each other anyway, it seems to be a popular and easy-to-find meeting spot, so you can just blend in into the waiting crowd while scanning the girls. Free music background from street buskers come free and the sandwich store behind you has a free restroom and free, fast WiFi.
2. Pushkinska metro station north exit, next to the universities
One of the two spots in the city that will have the most girls during daytime university hours. Directly next to Pushkinska station, there are several huge universites, such as the law faculty and the technical university. You can freely roam the backyards of the university buildings and hidden back there is even a "Kulinichni"-coffee shop/cake store where you could take girls on an instadate.
3. Karazin university main building, between University metro station and Shevchenko Park
The other large university spot in the centre, I accidentally walked by during one early afternoon and there were so many girls coming out of the high-rise university building that my eyes simply couldn't take them in all at once. Take girls on an instadate into Shevchenko park Delfinarium or into one of the many cafes, ice kiosks throught the park's corners.
4. Barabashova market
As mentioned before, this market is simply huge. I have a really good sense of orientation, but I've never ever seen such a confusing maze of wide and small, straight and crooked alleys, steps up and down and even areas, four metro exits and public toilets scattered in between, of so many goods of all kinds and so many impressions to soak in.
This is where all "normal", lower middle-class and lower-class girls of Kharkiv seem to do their clothes and accessories shopping who can't afford the expensive Western chains in the shopping malls, let alone the small high-end stores in the centre. You'll get lots of eye candy here any time of day. It's where the cute, Russian-only speaking girl living in a cramped Soviet apartment with her parents on the outskirts of the city, that serves you your dinner in the restaurant at night or works the cash register of a supermarket in a residential district of town, will go to buy a new summer dress, some earrings or shoes when she has her time off. If you want the sophisticated, better-educated, probably English-speaking girls try the two main university spots; if you have decent Russian and wanna find a lower class (but still cute, feminine and beautiful) girl who possibly never has been hit upon by a foreigner before, and possibly spends most of her life outside the city centre, come to Barabashova market.
Those are the four main daygaming spots that I would recommend. Of course you might try other places as well, as in any large city the central railway station, the shopping malls etc. (including Ave Plaza on Sumska Street near Constitution Sqaure), but nowhere will the concentration and sheer numbers of girls be so large as in the four aforementioned places.
So, to put it short: if you want a cheap, safe, beautiful, compact and tourist-free city to lay low for some time and just be with yourself and your thoughts (while at the same time possibly dating and fucking beautiful girls if you have your looks and game and possibly Russian together, which I don't at the moment due to several reasons), Kharkiv might be worth a try. I thouroughly enjoyed my time there. Since I mainly stuck to the Ukrainian fast food place Pusata Chata for my breakfasts, lunches and dinners, I did not spend more than 70 Euros on food in two full weeks - and I ate as much as I wanted and could.
![[Image: smile.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/smile.gif)
