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Europe : Ukraine : Western Ukraine

Western Ukraine

Western Ukraine makes about a quarter of Ukraine, and is the country's most Central European region.

Regions

Cities

Other destinations

The Carpathians of Zakarpatska, Kamyenets Podilsky the historic Capital of Podolia, Turkish fortifications of Podolia.

Understand

Western Ukraine was under the reign of different mostly European countries thoughout history and only relatively recently (mostly after WWII) got immerged into the Russian circle of influence. Therefore, there are considerable minorities still living in the area as well as many remnants of the Central European/Turkish past of this region still to be seen in architecture, religion practices, languages cuisine and politics.

Talk

Unlike in Southern Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian language is more predominant in this region, although everyone can also speak and write in Russian very well and are not very pricly about it. Nevertheless, learning a few basic phrases in Ukrainian will endear the locals. Most signs are only Ukrainian, and only a few also include Russian, something prevalent even as a Soviet province. Minority languages include Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak and German. Foreign languages (apart from Russian) are mainly English and German. Polish is spoken well among people with mature memories of the interwar era.

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Get around

See

Itineraries

Do

Eat

Drink

Stay safe

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This page was last edited at 18:42, on 22 February 2009 by Wikitravel user Vidimian. Based on work by Peter Fitzgerald, George Miziuk and Nick Roux, Wikitravel user(s) The Yeti and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel.