As a follow-up to my, much longer, ‘101 reasons to love Kiev’ I have been compiling more lists. I don’t know why, maybe because I once read High Fidelity and have way-too-much in common with Rob Flemming than I like. Anyway, in an attempt to summarize the differences between Oxford and Kiev in the fewest possible words. Here’s two lists:
List A. 22 things you see in Ukraine but don’t see in the UK, well not in Oxford anyway…
1. Policemen smoking
2. Big, no, MASSIVE adverts. Sometime who apartment blocks are turned into adverts
3. People on motorbikes with no helmets
4. Trains with cabins, music, curtains and beds
5. Babushkas (grandmas) with colourful head-scarves
6. Stray Dogs
7. Grown women behaving like children in public
8. iBoxes (useful automated machines for paying for things)
9. Cyrillic writing
10. Dried fish
11. Ukrainian Bags
12. Small 1-man currency exchanges
13. Animals for posing with (Monkeys, Eagles etc)
14. Flags in cars
15. Ladas with spoilers (they are the best)
16. Ukrop
17. Semki
18. Slims (slim cigarettes)
19. Real fur coats
20. Bars inside corner-shops. You can actually buy a pint and drink it in some shops.
21. Milk in a bag
22. Security guards, with guns …in the lingerie section of a shop
…and, List B. 11 things you can find in Oxford but not in Ukraine.
1. Cycle paths and people cycling with helmets on
2. Double-Decker buses
3. Wifi on buses
4. Vegetable samosas
5. Men dressed like teenagers
6. Hungarians, Slovakians and Nepalese people
7. Shops without security guards
8. Self-service checkouts
9. Charity shops
10. Talking bus drivers
11. Police cars in pursuit
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