This has little to do with my philatelic alphabet, but I wanted to share these photos
with an acquaintance in England, and decided a web page was the best vehicle. Once
I had
created it, I couldn't resist the temptation to make it available in the
Alphabetilately
pages as well. So no stamps below, just trains.
Lots of streetcars too - this was a view from the end of the corridor in the
hotel.
Our train from Kyiv to L'viv left Kyiv's main train station at 8PM, so it was dark
when
we arrived there, and total chaos, and I couldn't get any photos. Ukrainians still
use
their trains heavily, so our train was crowded. Dad and I shared a compartment
intended
for six, and found it cramped for two. Below are a couple of shots of the corridor
and
one of our compartment. That white contraption is the boiler where our car's
attendant
(one of the few service personnel we encountered there who seemed to get the idea)
heated
the water for our tea, which was strong and sweet and welcome.
The trip was a joy for me, but I don't think anyone else in our group shared my
enthusiasm. We arrived in L'viv early the next morning, barely after dawn, and
again it
was not feasible to play photographer, so I returned to the L'viv train station
alone a
few days later to take the pictures below.
I was unable to find any information about the station in my own reference books, but
emailed a (no longer active) Lviv information site
and a gentleman named Rob Jordan provided the following data:
On March, 26, 1904 Lviv Railway station "Ploshcha Dvirtseva" was built by the
Polish
architect W. Sadlowski. It has been said that it was the largest railway station of
it's time (however I could find no sources to confirm this). The construction of the
station was during Austrian Hungarian occupation. During the second World War the
railway station was destroyed and rebuilt in postwar time under the Soviet
occupation, probably utilizing the original design as a guide
Below is a postcard showing the station as it appeared shortly after it was built.
(Scan
courtesy of Tony Goodbody of the UK, for whom I wrote this page.) and a recent
screenshot
from Google streetview from about the same angle - they did a pretty good job of
reproducing the original, I'd say.
I asked my Dad what "Ploshcha Dvirtseva" means, and he replied
Ploschcha means public site or square.
Dvirtseva is derived from dvir. Dvir means court, manor house or royal palace.
Dvirtseva is an adjective derived therefrom. So Ploshcha Dvirtseva means public
gathering place or something more indicative of that building at that time, or
whatever
the administrative officials had in mind when they decided on the appellation.
6/28/15 - I just tried Google Translate - it says
Площа
Двірцева
means "Palace Square."
I asked Google Ukraine, and it says that name applies to the
area in front of the station, and the station itself is
Palace Station, or just Lviv Main.
They are actually expanding the station! You can see the area under construction, on
the far left here. (Keep in mind that I am from the US, where trains are considered
dinosaurs or oddities. We do not expand our train stations, we turn them into
shopping
malls.)
One of the more modern-looking engines I saw.
Unlike Kyiv, L'viv was almost untouched by the War, so has wonderful antiquities,
though
their state of preservation often leaves something to be desired. Parts of the old
city
got a facelift last summer for a meeting of European ministers held there, but
otherwise
everything seemed shabby.
I insisted on riding the local streetcars, which mystified our guides.
On a side trip south of L'viv by auto, to visit a
Hutsul crafts bazaar, we passed
through Ivano-Frankivs'k, where I managed to get this fleeting glimpse of the train
station. It was the name Ivano-Frankivs'k that initially prompted me to suggest this
part of the trip - it sounded quaint and charming. It turned out to be a large
industrial town with little charm, though reconstruction of the city center is
under way,
and can only improve things. Fortunately we were headed further south, to Kolomiya,
which was everything I had hoped for.
Our trip to Budapest was also an overnight journey, but did extend until noon the
following day, so I got a few photos of Hungarian engines, for whatever that's
worth.
The highlight of the journey was our 4AM to 7AM border crossing and wheel change.
They
actually jack up the car bodies, roll out the wide-gauge Soviet wheels and roll in
the
narrower gauge Western European wheels.
We were detoured from our intended arrival at Nyugati (Budapest West) station to this
one, Keleti Palyaudvar, the East Station - something about repairs, not sure
whether to
the tracks or the station. It added about an hour to our trip, moving at about five
miles an hour through the outskirts of Budapest, but our Hungarian tour guide
Laszlo was
on top of it, and met us as promised.
Of course I had to ride the Budapest Subway, with more of those incredible
escalators.
And people are still afraid of cameras - they either scowled or hid their faces
when I
started clicking.
If you would like to see more photos from my trip to Ukraine, CLICK HERE
Send feedback to the author: CLICK HERE
Revised -- 05/05/2000