Bound for Hutsal country

We discovered this magnificent church while in Kiev at the museum of folk architecture and life, which undoubtedly has the finest collection of traditional buildings in Eastern Europe.

After traveling from Kiev to Ivano-Frankivsk by sleeper we continued our journey in Andriy fathers car and arrived in Verkhovyna. Our journey to Verkhovyna from Kiev had been eventful, after nearly missing our train by a matter of seconds; we swiftly learned Andriy was new to the game of guide and interpreter. He was also a complete novice to riding and had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

We arrived in Verkhovyna where, after numerous calls to our horsemen, we discovered the dirt track to the outskirts of the town. The track took us to a very different world where small farmsteads could be seen scattered across the gentle rolling hills at the foot of the mountains.

After only a few hours riding on our Hutsal horses we found ourselves high in the mountains overlooking transhumant farmsteads. The weather did not look kind but the landscape was magical and far off in the distance we could see the Romanian border and the region of Blacker s Maramures which we were later to discover on the second leg of our journey but that's another story.