The Zoo
There is one thing my city is known for and that is its zoo. Locals proudly proclaim that it is the best zoo in all of Ukraine. A clustermate of mine, who is a zoo afficionado, has wanted to see the zoo since we each arrived at our respective sites. She came over a few weekends ago and my other clustermate decided she'd come down too.
Those of us with littler interest in zoos were skeptical about this Ukrainian zoo experience. I had been there once before, as well as to the Kyiv Zoo. I don't like zoos in general on principle, but those two zoos made the Franklin Park Zoo look like a wild safari ride.
We ended up going though, and it wasn't as bad as I had remembered. The habitats were a little nicer (perhaps due to more visitors and more dough coming in), and some animals seemed not as depressed, but others seemed bored or listless or maybe even just plain nuts.
Most of the animals looked like they had problems with their fur and skin. On the chimps, parts of them were bald, which seemed unusual to me.
It was fun though to feed the bunnies and we saw tons of them (and itty-bitty baby bunnies). We watched other people feed elephants and bears (like it was the circus or something) and we looked at snakes, birds, monkeys, ponies, camels, and a hippo that had some sort of unexplainable medical problem. Probably because of this, she was the most interesting animal for us, since we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with her.
Despite some of the conditions of the animals, we all enjoyed the trip. It is also something that I later thought would be a necessary visit for any visitors to my site--the zoo, probably better than anything I could say or give them to read, demonstrates Ukraine's socio-economic situation. Having the animals is one thing, but maintaining them seems to be more difficult and beyond the zoos current capabilities or perhaps even desire.
Those of us with littler interest in zoos were skeptical about this Ukrainian zoo experience. I had been there once before, as well as to the Kyiv Zoo. I don't like zoos in general on principle, but those two zoos made the Franklin Park Zoo look like a wild safari ride.
We ended up going though, and it wasn't as bad as I had remembered. The habitats were a little nicer (perhaps due to more visitors and more dough coming in), and some animals seemed not as depressed, but others seemed bored or listless or maybe even just plain nuts.
Most of the animals looked like they had problems with their fur and skin. On the chimps, parts of them were bald, which seemed unusual to me.
It was fun though to feed the bunnies and we saw tons of them (and itty-bitty baby bunnies). We watched other people feed elephants and bears (like it was the circus or something) and we looked at snakes, birds, monkeys, ponies, camels, and a hippo that had some sort of unexplainable medical problem. Probably because of this, she was the most interesting animal for us, since we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with her.
Despite some of the conditions of the animals, we all enjoyed the trip. It is also something that I later thought would be a necessary visit for any visitors to my site--the zoo, probably better than anything I could say or give them to read, demonstrates Ukraine's socio-economic situation. Having the animals is one thing, but maintaining them seems to be more difficult and beyond the zoos current capabilities or perhaps even desire.
posted by Molly | 2:18 AM
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