Oleksandr Nazaryshyn was preparing his consulting room for a busy afternoon surgery. Outside his small practice on the ground floor of a multi storey building in Irpin, just a few miles west of Kyiv, pet owners already started to queue to have their animals seen. Together with his colleague Alina Klechanovska, a native of …
Category Archives: Travel
Air raids and Borscht
We were just approaching the Maidan, the very heart of Kyiv, which by now was a Sea of blue and yellow flags that were commemorating fallen Ukrainian soldiers, when my phone exploded with the sounds of my first real air raid alarm. Both drones as well as rockets were approaching the capital, and we …
The Patron Pet Center
Exiting Vystavkovyi Tsentre metro station, we first had to pass a considerable amount of tank barriers, which had been placed conveniently on the pavement next to Akademika Hushkova Ave, to be always at hand to set up an impromptu road block on this major trunk road leading into the centre of Kyiv and to …
On the train to Kyiv
It wasn’t exactly a journey I was looking forward to, but it had been too many times that I had found excuses for not visiting my colleagues in Ukraine at their annual vet congress despite their warmhearted invitations, that I would have felt too much of a fraught, if I wouldn’t have gone this …
Magda’s Place
There is no other river, that is so quintessentially Polish than the Vistula. With its source in Barania Góra in the South West corner of the country, close to the border to the Czech Republic, this stream of water connects Krakow, Warsaw, Bydgoszcz and a number of other Polish cities, before its waters flow into …
Tito’s Iron Fist
Back in Sarajevo, following a week of travelling and hiking, it was once again time to get some washing done, but this time I had decided to leave my dirty clothes in the gentle care of “Tito’s Iron Fist”, an institution no traveller to the city should miss, regardless of their need for a …
Brown bears and land mines
Today it is hard to imagine that the peaceful valley of Sutjeska, at the eastern rim of Hercegovina, was once the setting for one of the bloodiest battles of the second world war. Josep Broz Tito, then the charismatic leader of just a few, hopelessly outnumbered brigades of partisans, but who eventually would prevail …
Street art (and dirty clothes) in Mostar
After a week on the road, it was time to get some of my limited supply of clothes washed. As it turned out, there was no laundry near Lučki Most and a half an hour walk, covering the length of the city was required to get to a laundry that was open on a …
Bread and Rosewater
Once again I was back in Mostar, once again I was lucky to stay at Brajlovic’s white house with its beautiful garden near Lucki Most and once again I was torn between two mistresses…. Let me explain. “Brajla” is the undisputed champion of breakfast in Bosnia. In his garden right in the centre of the …
The Bridge over the Drina
It is not so common that a building, even more so a bridge, is the main protagonist of a novel. Before embarking on a second trip to Bosnia, I thought it a good idea to familiarise myself with the writing from this part of the world and what better way then to start with …
The Blue Vet Diary 