Ukraine Travel Guide

Instead of reposting Ukrainian Travel information that you can find on any other website, I will post information that was important to me, my family, and will be important to you and your adoption.

Before You Travel

Before you travel to Ukraine you will want to call your bank and request new money. When you pay your court fees exchange currency - only new clean money will be accepted.  We have encountered some exchange booths that took our "used" American currency without any trouble, but it is wise to be safe, than sorry.  The bank branch I went to did not have new money but called around and I was able to go to another nearby bank that had $10,000 for me in clean new bills. For our adoption, we needed about $14,000 cash with us. It is handy to have $20's or $50's, especially when daily paying for your driver. It gets confusing to give him $100 when you only owed him $20, then to remember for the next day that you are pre-paid.

When you are travelling to Ukraine for an adoption, use a travel agency that specializes in humanitarian air fare, as you will get deeply discounted rates. I reccommend Golden Rule Travel.

Please bring lots of alka steltzer, tums, and immodium ad. The new food does not sit well, it will take over a week for your body to adjust.

Bring a receipt book for the apartment manager to sign, the driver to sign (keep a log), for facilitator payments, etc. You will not receive receipts for anything, and if you are adopting a non-disabled child, the IRS will require receipts for your adoption tax credit. We kept receipts anyways for our reference.

In The Ukraine
When you arrive in Ukraine your facilitator should provide a driver that will be there at the airpot to escort you to your hotel. Our adoption agency, About A Child, arranged everything.

It is important to note, that you will arrive in Kiev, the capitol of Ukraine. In this city, everyone speaks Ukraine. When you travel to other parts of Ukraine to meet your child, it is possible the primary language could be Russian, as was the case when we travelled to Sevastopol, which is in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

Our facilitaor had an apartment ready for us. In Kiev, the rate is $70 a day, and in Sevastopol, we were in an apartment for 1 week that was $70 a day, and then we moved to a hotel that was $62 a day. We appreciated the savings, but in return lost a full-sized kitchen to a microwave and a single heating element. Every place we stayed had dishes for us to use.  Also, the apartments and hotels all had wifi.

Transportation
In Kiev, our facilitator took us to our court, and a seperate driver picked us up to take us to the train the night we left to Sevastopol. The rest of the time, expect to walk.

In Sevastopol, we had access to a driver that we could daily make arrangements with. They were paid $10/hour. Driving around gets very expensive, so we found ourselves walking to get around. To save money, we visited our child every other day, and we didn't stay at the orphanage very long. We had him drop us off at a restaurant, and we would walk home from there. We never wanted to pay for stand-by time if we didn't have to. When we are with our facilitator and we are waiting for a document to take to the notary, we are expected to pay for stand-by time, which in some cases took all day.

There are plenty of buses here, with bus stops along the main streets. There are both buses and trolls. They are very inexpensive to use, but you will not be educated by your facilitator on how to use the bus system. They are looking our for your saftey and perfer you to use the driver. I've heard of another couple who insisted to only use the bus to save money. If we could speak more Russian, we might have used the bus system more, but we opted for the driver.

Even with trying to save, and cut back using the driver, we still spent $900 altogether for our driver in Sevastopol.