‘Back in the USSR’ is being played without irony in the corner of the restaurant. We’ve just explored Kiev by day, taking in The Park of Eternal Glory where packs of wedding parties congregate for photographs. At this time of year, even the daytime temperature is hovering around zero, so being correctly kitted out is essential.

A reminder of the Ukraine’s recent, turbulent history is found at the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, a stunning complex of religious buildings with a network of caves containing the mummified bodies of saints. The Communists who oversaw the country for most of the 20th Century took a hardline on Christianity that Richard Dawkins would have been proud of – they closed the monastery and replaced it with an anti-religious museum until Gorbachev reopened it in 1988.

The caves also used to hold hermits who bricked themselves in and took a glass of water a day and some bread every two days. It’s a far cry from the regenerated districts of the city where houses can now go for as much as $1 million – a distant dream for most as while there’s ‘very rich’ and ‘quite poor’ there’s no middle-class here. While there’s less opportunity for foreign investors to speculate on property as they can in East Berlin, the city is in a definite state of flux: there was an election over a month ago but there is no sign of a result or formation of a successful coalition yet. In November 2004, hoards of photogenic young demonstrators took to the streets in an ‘orange revolution’. It could yet happen again; just hopefully not this weekend.

<Next Instalment:Late-night football with Dynamo Kiev and special Ukraine World Cup tips. Brought to you by Clerk & Teller and Black Tomato>

C&T recommends:

• Drink: Coffee – black and as thick as treacle
• Vittles: Borscht and Vareniky (pickled cabbage-based pasta dish)
• Songs in our head: Going Underground – The Jam
• www.lavra.kiev.ua - Kiev Monastery of Caves
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVBoIcGHg_w
• Reading: Kiev Post – weekly English language newspaper (www.kyivpost.com)