Cycling Rules in Kyiv
Riding a bicycle is something many people learn in childhood and some continue to enjoy throughout life. However, not everybody will have bothered to find out the simple rules, both official and practical, of biking in Kyiv. Needless to say, violations of the regulations here can lead to a fine, or, in the worst case, to something more drastic. But what exactly are the rules? The official ones are laid out in the traffic code of 1994: get a copy from your local GAI office. In all fairness, they are not particularly bureaucratic, but targeted at making cycling safer for the cyclist. The code states that...

Igor Tkachenko
Giving Mountain Biking a Sporting Chance

What do you do if the sport you love is underfunded and underpromoted in your country? You could do nothing, or you could take up the reins of the national team and get a whole new generation interested...

Magic on Ice!
Learn the art of ice-skating in Kyiv this winter

Before I left the warmer climes of my home sweet homeland, everyone kept bringing me back to the fact that as soon as I reached Ukraine Father Frost would envelop me. But as we all learn through experience, I baked in June, July and August...

Cycling Rules in Kyiv Riding a bicycle is something many people learn in childhood and some continue to enjoy throughout life. However, not everybody will have bothered to find out the simple rules, both official and practical, of biking in Kyiv. Needless to say, violations of the regulations here can lead to a fine, or, in the worst case, to something more drastic. But what exactly are the rules? The official ones are laid out in the traffic code of 1994: get a copy from your local GAI office. In all fairness, they are not particularly bureaucratic, but targeted at making cycling safer for the cyclist. The code states that:
- Cyclists should carry an identification card containing personal info (in case of an emergency).
- All bicycles must be fitted with light reflectors, white on the front, orange on the sides and red at the back, whilst at night, the cyclist should always use lights on the front of the bicycle.
- You may legally cycle on public roads as soon as you turn 14.
- As for those people who manage to take their bikes on trains, the metro and the funicular - what they are doing is strictly prohibited.
Infringement of the traffic code may result in a fine of anything from 8.5 to 170 hrv, depending on the harm you have caused! However, certain people report that if you pay an extra 50 kp. you can get your bike onto the funicular!
Your bike should always be in good condition. Worn brakes or broken pedals might lead you straight to hospital. A helmet plus elbow and knee protection are a must and it is also very good if you have a blinking flashlight at the rear, to warn cars of your presence.
So, whether you're a Tour de France hopeful or just out for some gentle exercise, enjoy your ride! Always remember that you are part of the traffic, and you have responsibilities to other road users.
Information by What's On

Igor Tkachenko
Giving Mountain Biking a Sporting Chance Impossible? Just ask Igor Tkachenko, Ukraine's Mr. Mountain Biking... You know, it's amazing the things you can find tucked away in the Kyiv massivs if you only know where to look. Take Igor Tkachenko's Mountain Biking and BMX centre in the heart of Kyiv's sprawling suburbs. In anticipation of this week's National Mountain Biking Championships in Kyiv, we sought out leading mountain biking figure Tkachenko to give us the low-down on the current scene in Ukraine, and he invited us to come and visit him in the Teremki II district. It would be my first time in Teremki II, and if my initial scepticism at visiting a region which sounded like a planet from a Star Trek spin-off series was a little unjustified, I certainly wasn't expecting much as we chugged out along 40-Lyet Oktabrya.
True to form, the tenement topography of Teremki II was much like in any other massiv, but perched above an apteka in a little two-storey building was a big sign reading 'Mountain-Bike Centre.' Innocuous is not the word.
In the absence of a lift inside, packs of boys were clogging up the stairwell ferrying bikes up and down from the centre but Igor squeezed past to welcome us and give us the guided tour.
Mountain biking is still relatively new to this part of the world, of course. Having said that, though, Ukrainians have been pretty quick on the uptake. Indeed, when an embryonic Ukrainian national team (including that man Tkachenko) took part in the 1992 Mountain Biking European Championships in Austria, they were the first East European nation to do so. It would be a year or so before even the likes of Poland and the Czech Republic would follow suit.
Tkachenko looks back on those early days with the understandable pride of a successful pioneer, and since then he has personally been at the helm as Ukrainian mountain biking has grown in stature both domestically and on the international scene. "In the early days when the USSR had just collapsed people didn't even know what Ukraine was," he laughs, "so half the struggle was being recognised as a nation!" Ukraine has now wedged itself into the world's top thirty nations and has its sights on a top twenty position in the next couple of years.
Back at our tour, Tkachenko led us to his pride and joy, which is a room he's managed to convert into a little bike track full of mini-ramps and jumps. It's a tiny little space but somehow the riders manage to make it feel almost spacious as they ride around at speed.
The Ukrainian national team were also in the centre at the time, going over details and assessing their performance in the recent regional championships in Poland. Igor himself explained that this surprisingly young team is the nucleus of a new generation of mountain-bikers he himself has nurtured and that has only just begun to bear fruit for Ukraine in international competition.
The initial wave of youths trained up after 1992 by Tkachenko are now starting to slowly make their mark on the international scene with the talented Sergiy Rysenko having just jumped from a languishing 1000th place in the world rankings to 150th place after his recent debut in adult competition.
For Tkachenko it's the continuation of a project he undertook long ago. Interestingly, though, his route to mountain-biking is somewhat curious, to say the least. He was in the former Yugoslavia in 1990, training as a cyclist in what is now Slovenia when the first of the regional Balkan wars broke out, forcing him to evacuate. By the time he returned with his Ukrainian colleagues in 1992, there was no longer any possibility to continue training, but his Slovenian partners pointed them towards mountain-biking as a viable alternative. After a few appearances in Slovenian competitions, the original three took part in the 1992 Euro Championships and the rest is history. "We were just a bunch of enthusiasts really back then," remembers Tkachenko, adding, "to achieve serious results in a sport like this, you need to have professional structures behind the scenes to coordinate your efforts."
That's just what he's set about doing, introducing regional competitions across Ukraine to give everyone with talent a chance and to recruit the best for the national side. Regular events in the Carpathians and Crimea are part of the national expansion, and Tkachenko hopes to see mountain biking take over many of Ukraine's idle ski resorts throughout the summer months, much as they do now in New Zealand and across the Alps.
Like just about anybody involved in the arts or sport in Ukraine, Tkachenko is always on the look-out for potential sponsors or financial support and bemoans the lack of government money available for the development of up-and-coming sports, which mountain biking surely is. Underfunding plagues his work but he has the entrepreneur's 'never say die' attitude and has managed to keep the momentum up in terms of the national team while at the same time securing enough support and materials to spread the good word to a whole new generation of bikers.
His centre in Teremki II houses a mountain biking school which offers kids expert tuition in the sport as well as providing them with bikes and kit. Approximately 200 kids currently study at the school and they hope to expand.
Tkachenko's wife Viktoria is the person behind the teaching projects and works closely with Igor across the board. In fact, both of them are totally committed to an existence dominated by mountain bikes. They are a likeable pair, always finishing off each other's sentences in the nicest possible way, and don't seem to find the intensity of living together and working together to be too much of a strain.
But that doesn't explain exactly why they should have chosen this path. It may partly be because they are from classically Soviet sports school backgrounds. To Igor this is sufficient information to explain his current direction and focus, never mind that he studied as a racing cyclist while wife Viktoria studied to be a figure-skater.
Another key factor is the couple's four children. Watching them grow up in Teremki II with all the drug and crime problems you'd find in any 21st century big city housing estate, the couple sought some form of more healthy entertainment firstly for their own kids and secondly for the local youngsters in general, hence the emphasis on involving children.
Tkachenko has become involved in BMXing as part of his drive to get youngsters mountain biking. His passion may well be for the bigger bikes, but his work also involves promoting and teaching BMXing as to him it's the ideal way to train up young talent and prepare for the more intensive mountain biking experience. You can only realistically begin competitive mountain biking at around 11 or 12 years of age, whereas BMXers start as young as 6 years old, meaning, as Tkachenko points out with a satisfied grin, that you could have a kid entering the mountain-biking fray with 5 years of competitive experience under his belt.
BMXing swept the West in the early to mid-eighties and has boomed here in the last five years, much like the other eighties favourites, breakdancing and graffiti. However, there is as-yet no BMX track in Ukraine, a problem Tkachenko aims to rectify as soon as possible with plans for a track down by Republican Stadium.
To get the track built, Tkachenko wants to enlist the support of Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko in what would be a project with Moscow parallels. In the Russian capital a year ago, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov saw a BMX competition and decided that such a healthy pastime should be promoted among the city's youth. Moscow now boasts nine BMX tracks in total, with 20 across Russia, leaving Ukraine with some serious catching up to do.
With Tkachenko's track record you're left fairly confident that the track will be built one way or another, and if any of the 50 entrants to this year's Sydney Olympics slips up or pulls out, Ukraine holds second place on the reserve list and Tkachenko is confident that they would not disappoint if they get the Olympic call. If not, there's always 2004 to look forward to, and Tkachenko's not going anywhere just yet. Why should he? His hobby is his job, as he puts it, and he's doing very nicely thank you very much.

MTB Goloseyevo
Prospekt Goloseyevo 31a (third building of three all bearing the legend 31-a!)
Tel. 266-2195 Open: 11.00 till 21.00

Peter Dickinson
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Magic on Ice!
Learn the art of ice-skating in Kyiv this winter Before I left the warmer climes of my home sweet homeland, everyone kept bringing me back to the fact that as soon as I reached Ukraine Father Frost would envelop me. But as we all learn through experience, I baked in June, July and August.
The first question I asked every Ukrainian I happened to be acquainted with was 'when will winter be here?' Having never experienced snow before, I waited eagerly for it to be white all around, and everyone was sure that I had lost my mind! With the onset of autumn one more latent desire started looming up on the horizon and I set myself the task of finding out more about it.
With temperatures dipping below zero, I was sure that winter in Ukraine would be the happening place for ice skating. I imagined there being ice rinks on every corner and one could while away the evenings gliding over ice with pivo in hand. So I started by asking friends and acquaintances where I could learn skating and where the rinks were located. I was so surprised when I received blank expressions and there was no excitement regarding this sport which is so closely connected with most cold countries But then again this is Ukraine! It is like a seaside town where nobody swims!
I finally gave up on my friends and decided to turn to written sources of information. Eventually I found a list of two stadiums where the probability of finding skating rinks was quite high and set my friend Lena the task of calling them up. Poor girl, she usually has to do all the ground work for me with my minuscule Russian vocabulary!
The first contact was made with Lidovey Stadium which always opens after the first week of constant frost. It is an open air skating ring and they are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays but with a little difference: in the evenings they are only open if the street lights are turned on. So bad luck if you drive all the way towards Odesska Ploschad aiming to skate and the municipality decides not to turn on the street lights that day. Call it the finger of fate. Anyway for all you enthusiasts here are the directions, from Lybidska Metro station avtobus 80 or trolleybus 11 & 11K will take you directly to your destination. But don't forget to remind the conductor to tell you which stop to get off at. Entrance is 3 hrv and skate hire costs an additional 4 hrv for every two hours. These were the rates and schedule for last year: this year you will have to call and ask once they open - Hah! Ukraine. Please be cautious about the size of the skates, it would be better if you find out your correct Ukrainian shoe size beforehand. Shortly I will relate the fiasco I suffered when trying out skating for the first time, though you shouldn't worry because all rinks have trained attendants in case of emergencies!
Fortunately we learnt about another skating rink in Darnitsa from the bureau at Lidovey Stadium. So that added up to 3 skating rinks in Kyiv - could I get luckier?! Kryzhynka is just a few minutes walk from metro Darnitsa. You walk towards Hotel Bratislava and it is bang on Zahmachenka Street, and they said it was hard to miss. This ice rink is indoor and open on Fridays (8:15 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.), Saturdays (3:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.) and Sundays (11:30 a.m. - 9:40 p.m.). Here the entrance costs 4.80 hrv and skates 2.50 hrv per hour, although, they also offer student discounts. At Kryzhynka it is possible to hire a personal instructor but the cost has to be agreed with each individual. They also have lessons for groups of children, three times a week for as little as 35 hrv per month. Of the three hours, two are dedicated to skating and one to choreography and at the end of the year they hold a championship among the children who train with them.
Last but not least on the list was ATEK Ice Palace and I have fond bruises to remind me of this rink, as they ache even now while I write. When Lena called the rink they mentioned that it was home to the national ice hockey team and not open to the general public. In actual fact, the rink hosts European high-flyers Berkut. So I was surprised when a friend invited me to skate there, saying 'it's something you have been wanting to do all this time. I told her 'How can it be possible, I was told that it's not open to the public' and she said that her friends had been there last week and my information was wrong. Another sign of the environment!
ATEK was a good walk from Metro Svyatoshin, and gives you that necessary warm up. The whole place was full of hustle and bustle, with people scurrying all over getting out of their coats and shoes, into their skates and off onto the ice. It was nothing like the skating rinks I have seen in so many American and British movies, and in that respect I was quite disappointed. But little else matters when there is ice and music to go, and even that doesn't matter when you get onto the ice for the first time, hanging onto the railing for dear life. The first step is to get into your boots and tie them tight till your feet hurt. Then you get onto the ice and you're off.
I think I spent the better part of the hour and a half hugging the railing, trying to keep my feet together or desperately avoiding a fall. But fall you must and I got it nice and hard from the cold surface below on plenty of occasions. Even now I can hardly remember what actually happened yesterday. I think it must be partial amnesia with the sorrow of watching everyone else skate and observing myself making a clown of myself. Considering the fact that now it has become a mission in life to master skating, I must have had fun.
ATEK too is an indoor rink where entrance including skates cost 8 hrv and the ring is open to the public from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.. Now frankly after my 'fright on ice' I was too overcome to ask for details but for sure it is open on Fridays and I think the weekend too. But I urge all of you to go visit the rink and have an experience of a lifetime.
If you're really adventurous, you could always just wait until the river freezes over again, but ice rinks in Kyiv are there waiting for you!

Rashmi Bal
LIDOVEY STADIUM 9, Akad. Hlushkova prosp. Tel.: 266-3708
KRYZHYANKA 7, Zahmachenka vul. Tel.: 543-9849
ATEK ICE PALACE 20, Chystyakivska vul. Tel.: 213-24-25

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