Pre-tour 2

Western Ukraine (6 days)

Day 1

The tour starts in Kharkiv (1), the second-largest Ukrainian city where you can get by fl ying directly or via Kyiv. You will visit the National Pharmaceutical University and see unique works of the Academician Tikhonov’s scientifi c school. The scientists of this school have developed more than 50 drugs based on beekeeping products. Afterwards, a comfortable tour bus will take you to one of Kharkiv’s pharmaceutical factories where you will learn how these drugs are commercially manufactured according to the gmp standards. After lunch, you will take a short tour around the city during which you will visit the largest square in Europe, the Freedom Square and see the famous Derzhprom Building. The day will end with a dinner with representatives of Ukrainian beekeeping science.

Day 2

In the morning you will visit the National University of Veterinary Medicine and learn about specifi cs of veterinary support of beekeeping science in Ukraine. Then, the tour bus will head west with a short stop in Sharivka (2) with its unique park and palace. You will have your lunch with students and academic staff of the famous Hadiach school of beekeeping (3) and, after visiting the school, will turn to the north to the town of Baturin, capital of Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa (4).

Day 3

Day 3 will start with a tour around Baturin where the famous beekeeper, naturalist, and inventor of the fi rst beehive frame in the world Petro Ivanovych Prokopovych lived some two hundred years ago. You will visit the places where Prokopovych’s bee yard, the largest apiary in the Russian Empire for 1500 bee families, once stood, and see a modern commercial bee factory near Bakhmach (5) where you will have lunch with local beekeepers. Then, the route will take you south, back to Poltava Oblast, where you will visit an apiary which makes organic beekeeping products (6).

Day 4

You will travel farther west to the unique historical and ethnographic preserve in Pereyaslav (7) (see page 47, paragraph 4), where you will learn about cultural landmarks from different eras. After lunch you will head toward Kyiv and make a stop at the most famous honey beverage factory in Ukraine (8). There, you will be offered to taste the factory’s products which include over 20 types of various honey beverages made using traditional Ukrainian recipe. The day will end in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv (9).

Day 5

Having arrived to Kyiv two days before the opening of the Apimondia Congress you will have an opportunity to fully enjoy the beauty and diversity of Ukraine’s capital. On the fi rst day in Kyiv you will visit the famous Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 (see page 62) the main part of which is located inside the pedestal of the 102 meter-tall statue of the Motherland. After that, you will be taken on a detailed tour of one of the most important Orthodox Christian sanctuaries in the world, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra inscribed as unesco World Heritage Site (see page 58). And fi nally, a dinner in an ethnical Ukrainian restaurant with representatives of Ukrainian beekeepers’ associations.

Day 6

Your second day in Kyiv will begin with a trip to the world’s largest outdoor museum, Pyrohiv National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine. There you will see old beehives and beekeeping equipment, learn about history and traditions of Ukrainian beekeeping, and visit a completely restored 19th century beekeeper’s house. After Pyrohiv you will visit another unesco World Heritage Site, world-famous St. Sophia Cathedral (see page 60) and also unique Chornobyl Museum at Podil. An evening stroll by Khreshchatyk and the Independence Square (see page 66) will end the program of this pre-tour.