Weather
Most people tend to associate Ukraine with the severe winters of Russian legend, but while this is a fair reflection of the country in the winter months, it is less well known that Ukraine enjoys some of Europe’s most consistently sunny summer weather.
The seasons in Ukraine come and go like acts in a particularly dramatic theatrical spectacular – one day it is 38 degrees and baking sunshine. You feel like the whole city is a giant baking rock, with only the blessed Dnipro breeze offering any kind of relief. Then before you know it, the temperature has dropped down to ten degrees and the vast eastern winds are blowing in a new season. Soon the snows will come, and with them four months of ice-bound existence, which force everyone in this cast metropolis to alter everything from their choice of outfit to the way they walk. So it goes in Kiev, where annual temperature fluctuations of 60 degrees are considered normal.
Kiev skyline in the spring
If you visit in the winter months then you would be advised to bring thermal underwear and all-weather clothing as well as plenty of hats, scarves and pairs of gloves. The cold is bearable but if you come unprepared you will find yourself quickly in trouble. In the summer months (June-August) the city tends to be subjected to prolonged periods of intense sunshine, with heatwaves in the high thirties lasting for weeks on end. Luckily Kievites have the relative luxury of miles of sandy beaches right in the city centre, while the outer regions and suburbs are dotted with lakes featuring sandy beaches. Many foreign visitors and locals remain somewhat skeptical of the cleanliness of the Dnipro River, largely due to fears over residual radiation in the river as a result of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, which took place just over one hundred kilometers upstream.
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