Vika’s trip to Nikolaiev from 6th of June till 16th of June 2025

Because there are still no flights to Ukraine, Vika flew to Chisinau (Moldova) and from there she took a bus to Odessa and then another bus to Nikolaiev. The whole trip lasted about 8 hours. Crossing the border between Ukraine and Moldova took only 40 minutes.
In Nikolaiev there was real summer weather, it was more than 30 degrees centigrade.

The city looked very clean, well kept and tidy. Vike thinks Nikolaiev is cleaner than Nürnberg (Germany).
During those ten days Vika has not heard any explosion, luckily it was calm.
There are much less men than women in the streets. It is unclear if men are fighting in the war or are hiding at home because they do not want to be sent to the war.
There are a lot of soldiers and people with weapons in the streets.

Supermarkets, drugstores, restaurants, clothes shops, hairdressers … everything is open, there is no lack of anything. Vika noticed there were a lot of European goods (mostly from Poland) in the shops. Some products were from Italy or Germany.

Vika expected to have problems with electricity but during the ten days she was in Nikolaiev electricity was interrupted only once for two hours.
Drinking water remains the biggest problem. The water which is flowing from taps is ‘technical’ and can be used neither for drinking, nor for dish washing, nor for cooking. You need to bring home bottles of water and always remember which one you can use for what: this bottle to drink, this one to boil and cook, this one to wash dishes and so on.

The exchange rate is higher again and was already 47-48 hrv for 1 euro. If you come to Ukraine with Euro it works out fine. Some prices are higher than in Germany. But not for everything! For example, medical services are cheaper. Dentists are 5 times cheaper than in Germany with comparably quality.

Vika decided to rent a car in order to be more mobile. She rented a Kia for 1000 hrvs (~21 Euro) per day. Vika closed her shop at the market completely. It doesn’t make sense economically any more. Ideally Vika would like to sell the shop and one of her flats but at the moment the prices for real estate and property are so low that it makes no sense.

Ukraine has become Ukrainian speaking. A lot of people, who I have known for years and who used to speak Russian as their mother language, are speaking only Ukrainian now. On the radio there are absolutely no (as in „zero“) Russian songs. Even Ukrainian artists that performed songs in Russian had to translate them into Ukrainian.