Kyiv... a shot of adrenalin.

Fast and furious, brash and flash, Kyiv reeks of sex and money. No lada's, no Buck Roger buses and no Tonka Toy trucks. Just big black SUV's... tons of them and driven aggressively. Apparently, most of Kyiv's three and half million population are relatively poor but you'd never know it by strolling around the city. White and gold stucco buildings with expensive boutiques at their base look down on grand and spendid avenues. The people, particularly the women, are well-dressed and would give Parisians a run for their money, except that most of the loud logo's they flaunt are fake.

The metro seems to be inhabited by a different race and feels very much like the underbelly of the metropolis. Beautiful Art Deco lighting warms the stations with a homely glow. Patriotic music, plangent and unobtrusive, drifts along the patforms and through the carriages. There are only a few lines and trains run frequently. It can get very busy and quite claustrophobic. On exiting a train at one station I found myself caught in a massive crowd slowly inching itself to a solitary working escalator. Any thoughts of bounding up the stairs were quickly extinguished when, on glancing up, I saw just how far down we were. Deeper than anything I've seen on the London Underground. People often sit down on the slow moving staircase as it takes so long. Having finally reached the escalator's base and just as I was about to start my ascent upwards I noticed in one corner three people crouched down and hemmed in by the crowd. Underneath them lay a man, his lifeless legs protruding. He wore brown trousers and black shoes. They were pounding his chest, but I think the man was dead.