After Friday morning sightseeing in and around Poltava, we drove north west for about 200 km along a two lane highway to Lubny, our Area of Observation on Election Day.
Vadym drives a Toyota Land Cruiser. He is a student and the car looks as if it’s close to his age; nevertheless it’s just the job for the badly kept country roads leading to many of our rural polling station. We are staying in a motel just outside Lubny but had time to visit the town on Friday evening for business and pleasure. The former to visit the District Election Commission and the latter to explore this beautiful and ancient small city.
Ukraine is indeed a beautiful country and its population most welcoming but I must take off my rose-tinted specs for a sec and mention an episode in Lubny’s history.
“During the German occupation in the Second World War, Lubny was the centre of major partisan (resistance) movement. On October 16, 1941 over a thousand of the city’s Jews, including women and children, were massacred by German Einsatzgruppen on the outskirts of the city.” (Wikipedia)
It would be wrong not to mention this act of genocide but tomorrow I will tell you about what I observed on Saturday.