BUKOVEL, Ukraine – It’s amazing that I’ve lived in Ukraine for 10 years and had yet to visit Bukovel, what I would call the jewel of the Carpathians, until the weekend of January 16-18.
I think I was intimidated. As Ukraine’s most-hyped ski resort, I imagined unaffordable hotels anad ski lifts to diamond-level slopes, dominated by the ski-bum kids of Donetsk oligarchs as their bored Barbie doll wives strolled to the various spas in fur coats.
How wrong I was! Bukovel in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast is not Aspen, Colo., or St. Moritz, Switzerland. It’s a ski resort of average American-standard quality and prices in the heart of the Carpathians. Rentals were $7.62 per day and a daily ski pass, purchased before 9 a.m., cost $26.59 (it rose to $32.93 after 9 a.m.).
Such affordability for those who earn their pay in U.S. dollars can be attributed to the hryvnia’s 50 percent plunge in value last year. These were the prices when $1 U.S. was worth 16.4 hrv at street kiosks. In the month since my trip, the U.S. dollar has strengthened to 23 hrv, which means the prices became even less expensive for Westerners.
Zenon Zawada
Skiers descend on a Bukovel ski slope overlooking the village resort.
At the same time, Bukovel has become utterly expensive for most Ukrainians. Yet to my delighted surprise, the majority of the people there spoke Ukrainian, which means it’s a popular weekend getaway for a Halychyna middle class that seems to remain resilient despite Ukraine’s economic devastation. (I got my chance to travel as part of a weekend corporate getaway organized by Concorde Capital, for whom I do political analysis.)
Indeed there were plenty of families. I came across a father teaching his 3 1/2-year-old to descend down a circle-level slope without poles. The presence of kids was so pervasive that a woman I spoke with compared it to a “dytiachiy sad,” or nursery.
As with any mid-tier ski resort, the key to comfortable skiing is getting there early. Particularly pleasurable for me was being on the slopes by opening time at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, which is among the best experiences I’ve had while living in Ukraine.
The ascent on ski lifts – that put the Carpathians’ pines close to within arm’s reach – takes you to the mountains’ peaks and their inspiring landscapes. Besides all the great skiing, Bukovel is worth the extraordinary views alone. Reaching top of a peak opens up a crisp panorama of snow-covered pines deserving of Christmas cards.
Indeed, I’ve come to believe that nothing would raise patriotism more than for every Ukrainian high school student to be brought to the top of the Carpathians in the wintertime, ski slope or not.
They’d get a new appreciation, maybe even love for Ukraine and its natural wonders, including Hoverlia, the highest peak that’s visible from Mount Bukovel, the first set of slopes when approaching the resort from the northern road.
The descent through the crisp mountain air is padded by pillowy, freshly groomed snow. The absence of anyone within sight for these first two hours in the morning gave me the pleasurable illusion that the Carpathians – or at least this slice – belonged to me alone and were mine to roam exclusively.
Even as the crowd starts to thicken by 10:30 a.m., the weekend slopes of Bukovel offers enough space – most of the time – to ski with comfort, without fear of collisions, either with overly zealous hot-doggers or rookies that have gotten in over their heads when tackling a new slope.
For lunch, one not need go far. There are plenty of places to dine, even on the very peaks. I chose Korchma Filvarok (Farmhouse Tavern) at the top of Mount Bukovel, whose main attraction is an indoor grill at its very center, used for roasting shashlyky (kebabs), among other meat dishes.
Zenon Zawada
A cook roasts shashlyky (kebabs) at the indoor grill at Korchma Filvarok on Mount Bukovel.
I am a big fan of mamalyga (cornmeal and cheese topped with diced chunks of fried pork fat) and I like to try new foods whenever I travel in western Ukraine. Filvarok offered as good a version as any I’ve sampled for the comfortable price of $5.48.
Across the way from the Korchma was the Panorama Bar, which offered incredible views of the Carpathian panorama under the intoxication of your favorite alcoholic beverage.
Indeed it’s this aspect of Bukovel that I found to be among the most disturbing. As far as I can remember, American slopes only offer alcohol at the bottom and I can’t see why these guys can’t restrain their craving for 100 grams of Nemiroff until closing time at 8:30 p.m., when they’ve put away their skis and can party the night away.
Unfortunately, I can’t offer the ski buffs an assessment of the expert diamond slopes because I avoided them altogether. What I can state with confidence is that there is enough of a variety of trails to satisfy skiers of all levels.
In all, there are 14 sets of slopes and what’s most impressive is their intricate interconnectedness. One can ski from any one point to another in the entire resort, which even offers three bridges from the three mounts on the resort’s south side (Bukovel, Chorna Kleva and Dovha) to the two mounts on its north side.
Prior to Bukovel, I went skiing only twice before in Ukraine at resorts far inferior, replete with shabby infrastructure (offering only seats and handles attached to cables as ski lifts) and poorly marked trails.
In fact, there were one or two black diamonds at Bukovel that were marked otherwise and I avoided them only thanks to my journalistic skepticism upon seeing what seemed to be something awfully close to a 90-degree drop as I slowly approached.
The uncouth clientele utterly contemptuous of the etiquette of skiing, is kept to a minimum at Bukovel thanks to its relative priceyness. The absolute worst is when these “zhloby” (boors) aggressively push and shove in line for the ski lift, literally stepping on your skis without so much as a “vybachte,” “pereproshuyu” or even “izvinitye.”
And yet this rabble did rear its ugly head at Bukovel. The resort’s werewolves come out at about 4:30 p.m. – when the sun sets and only three trails are lit and open for the four remaining hours. And they are eager to attempt the most risky stunts now that the parents and their kids have gone home.
I came close to a cultural exchange of fists with one punk after he slid down a slope and cut me in line for a ski lift, sliding over my skis without the slightest acknowledgement of my existence. What bruises I was spared in avoiding that exchange were incurred later when a speedster slammed into me on one of the slopes. He was going at such a speed – in a straight downhill trajectory – that he either overestimated his skills or was under the influence of some substance.
As it gets later, the hazards of hot-doggers are compounded by a ski surface that is utterly icy in some parts and unnavigable. I hit such an unexpected icy patch just before the line for a ski lift, requiring an intentional dive to prevent a painful encounter with a mesh fence that was the only thing shielding me from the traffic of the resort’s main thoroughfare – a two lane, two-way street.
Once I called it a day, I found Bukovel to be the coziest of places at night, more so than any place I’ve been in Ukraine.
Creating this unique atmosphere are rows of triangular cabin roofs lined with Christmas lights, jingling sleighbells from the horse-drawn taxis, narrow cobblestone sidewalks (admittedly lacking in some stretches), bright restaurant signage and all-encompassing soundtrack of Ukrainian folk and rock music, ruined by the occasional Russian pop or American rap interruption.
Indeed the music is worse in the daytime, when the Russian pop tunes of Radio Liuks dominate the playlist. This is one of the few exceptions in what’s otherwise among the few corners of Ukraine largely immune to Russian pop culture. (The next weekend, I even heard vile Russian shanson music – embraced by the nation’s lumpenproletariat and high-profile criminals like Viktor Yanukovych – on the public transportation of Lviv.)
Zenon Zawada
Horsedrawn carts with jingling sleighbells serve as taxis in the resort ski village of Bukovel.
For those concerned about the use of Ukrainian, rest assured you will be entirely comfortable at Bukovel. I noticed the language discipline among the staff is so strong that it seems as though the workers are specifically instructed to speak in Ukrainian to ensure that the resort gives its visitors the impression that they’re truly in the Carpathians.
The billionaire “zhydobanderivets” Igor Kolomoisky owns Bukovel’s lifts and much of its lodging, which is apparent with the PrivatBank ATMs stationed along the main road. Local staff is grateful that one of Ukraine’s most powerful oligarchs has invested seriously to make Bukovel such an attractive resort.
Not all the lodging is run by the resort, as numerous private hotels are positioned throughout. Apparently there aren’t enough being built as the lodging prices were the one aspect to the weekend that justified my initial intimidation.
My standard Bukovel studio room, located in the heart of the resort, cost $191 per night for two twin beds, which was reduced to $154 a night to include a 15 percent group-rate discount and 5 percent for reserving 30 days in advance.
No wonder dozens of hotels have cropped up along the 60-mile road from Ivano-Frankivsk (which takes two and a half hours to drive because of the rocky, potholed-plagued roads), providing skiers with cheaper alternatives the further they get from the resort.
Our group reservation included a European-style breakfast buffet at the Kozachok Ukrainian restaurant that resembled a museum inside.
There’s no better way to prepare for a morning of skiing than munching on pancakes (mlyntsi) while soaking in melodramatic Halychyna estrada (the music of pop solo singers) to kick off one’s day. When I asked for water, the waiter said I’m better off drinking the tap water drawn from the local streams, which he assured me was as pure as anything bottled.
My room resembled a typical Ukrainian renovation, with a shower cabinet that average overweight Americans can barely squeeze themselves into. For those wanting American-standard lodging, including the Ukrainian rarity of a double bed, there’s the Radisson Blu, offering a standard deluxe room for $163.
My hotel room’s glass door allowed for roaming carolers to spot my lit room and knock on the door. Without giving me a chance to reject their offer, they made their way through and immediately began signing.
To test their knowledge, I asked whether they knew carols that were common in the diaspora, such as “Heaven and Earth,” which they couldn’t sing, or “In Bethlehem,” of which they even knew the second and third verses.
They weren’t shy about requesting donations. When I contributed to one Hutsul cap stretched out before me, they whipped out another and insisted that it get its own fill. The Ukrainians of a decade ago would not have done something so bold, and I rewarded them for their assertiveness.
For such memorable experiences, it’s not worth traveling to Ukraine for Bukovel alone. But if you’re in the country between December and February, a weekend there should be on your itinerary.