Friday 2nd April – Kyiv

• Arrival in Kyiv at your own leisure and transfer to our centrally located hotel.
• An optional trip to a shooting range where we are able to experience firing some high calibre Soviet-era guns this can also be combined with tank driving, where you will get behind the wheel of an original, Soviet era tank! (extra charge).
• We meet up at 18:00 in the evening and go out for dinner and drinks at Palata No 6, one of our favourite places and recently featured in the list of “10 places to drink in before you die”. Be sure to try the shot requiring you to wear a straitjacket and be set on fire…
• Overnight in Kyiv.

Saturday 3rd April – Chernobyl

• We got up nice and early to get on our comfortable AC minibus to the Chernobyl exclusion zone. On the way there,we will stop for breakfast at a well stocked gas station as well as watch a documentary on the disaster.The journey to the first checkpoint will take around two hours.
• On arrival, we go through the entry procedure and processing of our permits. This can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to one hour.
• Visit the village Zalissya, the main square of the town of Chernobyl, “Fukushima” memorial, Statue to Lenin, the abandoned Synagogue and the only active church in the zone.
• Lunch at the Workers Cafe (no produce is grown on site).
• Visit the Dock, local shops, Monument to the Firefighters, exposition of the remotely operated machines, hills of the buried village Kopachi, rustic kindergarten, panoramic angle of NPPA and existing sarcophagus, the construction site of the new sarcophagus, the Stone Road sign of Pripyat, Bridge of Death, Lenin Street, the main square of Pripyat, supermarket, Amusement Park, School #3 (with gas masks), and the olympic swimming pool.
• We will also try our best to visit some sights we cannot mention online.
• We transfer to the Chernobyl Hotel for a classic Soviet experience. We will head for dinner and a sampling of vodka back at the hotel.
• Overnight in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Sunday 4th April – Easter Sunday

• Up early with breakfast in the hotel, before we head back into the zone.
• Visit Duga 3, nicknamed the “Russian Woodpecker,” a Soviet “over-the-horizon” radar at its base “Chernobyl 2.”
• We’ll visit the abandoned Soviet army base and radar control centres.
• Visit the unfinished Cooling towers on the side of the unfinished reactors 5 and 6. Visit the “Red Forest.”
• Visit the Panel buildings with Soviet emblems, Palace of Culture and “Jupiter” factory.
• Visit the ruins of the School #1 and the infamous Pripyat hospital.
• Pripyat passenger boats on River Port, “Prometheus” cinema, music school and athletic stadium.
• Laboratory in the former kindergarten, abandoned village and palaces of culture.
• After a long day of exploring we board our bus for the drive back to Kiev.
• Arrive in the capital between 18:00-19:00 and we’ll have some free time before meeting up and heading for the night train to Odessa.

Monday 5th April – Odessa

• Early arrival in Odessa – securely store our bags at the train station.
• Breakfast nearby, we’ll then meet our local Odessan guide who will take us away from the charming side of the city and show us the dark side of this city.
• This is the ‘Odessa Depression’ tour, prepare for abandoned Stalin era factories, abandoned Soviet brothels and nightclubs and the killing ground of hundreds of victims of the Odessa mafia.
• After the tour you’ll have free time in this historic city and have the chance to explore downtown.
• We’ll then meet back at the baggage storage in the afternoon and link up with our fixers who will transfer us to Tiraspol, Capital of the breakaway republic of Transnistria.
• On arrival at the border we will cross the no man’s land between Ukraine and Transnistria which is an infamous smuggling route and we register with immigration and KGB/MGB before transferring to the local version of the Soviet Intourist Hotel. This is the quintessential Soviet experience in the region’s original tourist hotel.
• We go for dinner at a local institution and then head into the cellar of a club called ‘Mafia’ to try out some Russian style karaoke!
• Overnight in Soviet Hotel.

Tuesday 6th April – Tiraspol

• For breakfast we’ll head to a great, Ukrainian restaurant in Tiraspol. Be prepared to wash away your hangover as they’re well known for handing out complimentary shots of pepper Vodka, whether it’s 9:00am or not!
• We’ll stop at the flea market in Tiraspol, here it’s possible to buy all kinds of Soviet antiques for rock bottom prices. You never know what you will find!
• We’ll then walk down the main street called October 25th street which has a billboard of former President Smirnoff: The warlord who turned president for almost twenty years. We’ll see the embassies of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the foreboding HQ of the infamous Sheriff organization and stop at a bookshop to pick up some Russian and Transnistrian nationalist paraphernalia, a mug with Putin or a fridge magnet of ICBMs firing across the atmosphere, why not?
• We’ll then stop at the impressive House of the Soviets, built in Stalinist style with a large bust of Lenin outside.
• We’ll mix with students at the Dolce Vita cafe, an inexpensive place with great buffet style food and the eatery of choice for students at nearby Tiraspol university.
• We’ll then transfer to the other end of October 25th street to see the North Korean style statue of Russian General Suvorov. Surrounding it are the flags of Russia, Transnistria and the breakaway brotherhood states of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.
• Have your picture taken in front of a giant crest of Transnistria featuring the hammer and sickle!
• Visit Parliament, housing one of the biggest statues of Lenin outside Russia.
• Visit the Eternal Flame Memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet-Afghan war, WW2 and the Transnistrian civil war. Check out the battle damaged T-34 monument to WW2, it’s permitted to climb on it and get an awesome photo.
• We’ll then switch it up and board an old Soviet ferry without an engine and cross the Dniester river to see how the village people live across from Tiraspol. This is an area truly lost in the USSR!
• We’ll visit a still functioning palace of culture with an enormous head of Lenin outside, pockmarked with Kalashnikov bullet holes after Moldovan troops symbolically executed him during the civil war.
• We’ll then visit a stunning and completely self sufficient monastery complex that has to be seen to be believed. We know many of the priests there and sometimes they allow us to sample their incredible homemade wine, however, this is subject to whether the one priest with the key is available on the day.
• We pay a visit to a local store which hasn’t changed since the USSR and still uses an abacus to calculate the total. Here we’ll stock up on $3 Kvint Cognac (One of the best Cognacs in the Soviet era), $1 Vodka and local smoked cheese.
• We then head to a stunning viewpoint and Soviet obelisk that was one of the most brutal battlefields during WW2. In the Russian speaking world, it’s respect to the dead to raise a shot of Cognac or Vodka in their honour and we’ll do just that!
• Return to Tiraspol and head for dinner at 7Fridays, a Tiraspol institution!
• Afterwards we can head to one of the country’s few nightclubs and try our hand at Russian karaoke!
• Overnight in Tiraspol

Wednesday 7th April – Bender/Chisinau

• After breakfast we Transfer to Bender, one of Transnistria’s biggest cities and a site of fierce fighting during the civil war. We enter one of the largest outdoor markets in all of Transnistria. Guests will be able to shop and buy anything they want at very, very low prices. Also, many opportunities for old world type photos. This is a true old school, Russian market. Expect pigs heads, spices and everything imaginable for sale.
• We leave the market and continue walking down the main street until we reach the main church in the center, well renovated and a favorite place for couples to get married. Here you can buy inexpensive Russian Orthodox jewellery and icons.
• We’ll check out the city hall which has been left exactly as it was during the civil war and is still filled with bullet holes.
• We continue walking down the main street until we arrive at Lenin Park. We view the main fountain, the bust of Lenin before going into the local cinema which is largely unchanged since Soviet times except Mission Impossible is playing instead of Soviet propaganda.
• We continue to walk down the main street until we reach the train station, renovated and well maintained. It seems like a ghost town because only a few trains stop here, and there are almost no passengers. Besides the train station is an old Soviet train from WWII with the hammer and sickle on the front.
• We’ll have lunch in the town at a local cafe called CCCP. This is designed to create a sense of nostalgia for locals and is packed with original Soviet memorabilia and great food.
• We head to the river to check out ‘The Great October’ theme park. There are old amusement rides including bumper cars and mini ferris wheels here. A scene right out of the 1950’s, it may look abandoned but the rides are still operating and are very cheap.
• After Bender, we’ll board our bus for the short two hour journey to Chisinau, the capital of Europe’s least visited country: Moldova!
• Check into the local Soviet era hotel and head out for dinner and drinks at an incredible steakhouse.
• Overnight in Chisinau.

Thursday 8th April – Chisinau

• After breakfast we’ll start our city walking tour of Chisinau. We’ll visit the abandoned National Hotel, see one of the most stunning monasteries in the city which was thankfully spared destruction under Communism, see the infamous city prison which has been declared a breach of human rights amongst other things.
• We’ll see the enormous World War II Memorial and climb some tanks and surface to air missiles at the Military Museum!
• Visit the local flea market, great for antiques and Soviet kitsch!
• Lunch at a local Soviet style canteen followed by free time in the city.
• Dinner and drinks in the evening at a local Moldovan restaurant.
• Overnight in Chisinau

Friday 9th April – Chisinau

• After breakfast we’ll board our bus for the thirty minute drive to Cricova Winery to see the wine making process and to of course sample a good amount of Eastern Europe’s best wine! This is one of the most fantastic wine cellars you are ever likely to see. Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel have wine collections here and on display is wine liberated from Hermann Goring during the last days of WW2. Yuri Gagarin famously spent two nights getting drunk in the tunnels and claimed ‘’it was easier to get to space than to pull myself out of Cricova winery!’’.
• Free afternoon in Chisinau.
• We’ll meet up in the afternoon to grab our bags and souvenir wine and head to the station for the 16:55 train to Bucharest. This is an old school Communist era 4-berth sleeper and still has the made in the DDR plates on some of the walls!
• During the night, we’ll pass border control and the train will be lifted off the tracks to change wheel gauge
• Overnight on the sleeper train.

Saturday 10th April – Train/Bucharest

• 00 arrival in Bucharest (depending on customs).
• Check into the hotel for a short rest.
• We conclude the tour in true YPT style, as we meet our local Romanian guide for a day tour of Ceausescu’s Bucharest! No trip to Romania would be worth its salt unless we went and looked at everything and anything Ceausescu related, the don of Eastern Bloc extreme. We will do a local walking tour, seeing all the must-see sites from “revolutionary” times such as the enormous Palace of the Parliament, see where the Communist regime went down in flames on the bullet riddled streets around Revolutionary Square, see the churches that avoided Communist destruction by being placed on wheels and slid across the city and much more.
• Free afternoon in Bucharest to explore the old town at your own leisure before meeting up at Care Cu Bare; easily YPT’s favourite restaurant on the planet. Here we’ll enjoy dinner and drinks followed by a last night pub-crawl in Bucharest’s old town.
• Overnight in Bucharest

Sunday 11th April – Bucharest

• Today we’ll be transferring from Bucha to Baku!
• We head to the airport of Bucharest to fly to Baku. Multiple cheap options are available, most going through Istanbul (Flight not included in the price of the tour.)
• Arrival in Baku where we check into our centrally-located hotel.
• We head out for our first dinner in Baku.
• Overnight in Baku

Monday 12th April – Baku

• Free day to explore the fascinating capital of Azerbaijan. Fueled by the petrol economy, the capital is the scene of many changes.
• At 18:00 meet up with your YPT guide and the rest of the group and head out for a traditional Azerbaijani dinner.
• Try the classic rice dish of Plov or a meatball broth called Kufta Bozbash or Azeri Dolma. Despite being nominally a nation of Shiite Muslims, more than 160 years of Russian presence have left Azerbaijan with strong taste for alcohol, so you can wash the meal down with a local Xirdalan beer or Azeri wine.
• Overnight in Baku

Tuesday 13th April – Baku

• After breakfast we’ll meet our local Baku guide and head to the vantage point over Baku to see the Azerbaijani capital in it’s full glory, we’ll then begin our tour of Baku old town, a UNESCO world heritage site, this fortified area is the historical core of Baku. We’ll see the ancient landmarks of the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and Maiden Tower.
• See the famous carpet museum (actually shaped like a carpet) from outside.
• Heading into the suburbs of Baku, we’ll check out the Baku Fire Temple, a castle-like religious temple used as a Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian place of worship.
• Check out the iconic and jaw-dropping Heydar Aliyev centre. Named after the long-running president of Azerbaijan, the centre is famous for its distinctive flowing, curved design. It’s a fantastic example of post-modern architecture, the building’s shape is an eternal cycle, connecting the past with the present.
• Check out some of the surviving Soviet architecture of Baku.
• Now, no journey to the land of fire would be complete without a visit to the burning mountain! We’ll ascend into the hills around Baku to Yanar Dag. Similar to the Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan, this is a natural gas fire which burns continuously on a hill near the Caspian Sea. The flames steadily burn 3 metres into the air feeding off natural gas under the rock. Legend has it that the blaze was ignited by a shepherd discarding a cigarette in the 1950’s and it continues to burn to this day.
• On the way back from Yanar Dag we’ll be able to see some Soviet oil industry ruins from the car.
• Return to Baku for an evening meal and prepare for our departure into the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
• Overnight in Baku.

Wednesday 14th April – Nakhchivan

• We’ll make an early start and head to the lesser visited terminal of Baku airport for our short flight to Nakhchivan, this will avoid the frontline of Nagorno-Karabakh and cross over Iran. We’ll arrive in Nakhchivan city in mid morning where our local Nakhchivan guides and escorts will be waiting for us.
• We’ll drop our luggage at our hotel and kick start the tour of this little known republic.
• First, we’ll visit the tomb of the Prophet Noah: This is one of the most important places in the autonomous republic related to the biblical Flood. It is claimed, researched and confirmed that Prophet Noah has been buried here.
• We’ll then visit one of the most outstanding landmarks in Nakhchivan: the Momine Khatun Mausoleum, decorated with a complex geometric pattern and quotes from the Koran, this grand decahedral mausoleum was built 1186 in memory of the mother of Atabay ruler Mahammad Jahan Pahlavan. It is called the Taj Mahal of Nakhchivan and was considered as a medieval skyscraper of its day reaching 34 meters in height.
• We’ll visit the military museum of some of the local residents who became high ranking officers of the Soviet army.
• Check out the Khans house, this was the home of the Nakhchivan ruler Rahim khan and was built on a high hilltop called the “Khan height”, which makes it look extremely magnificent. There is a spectacular view of the capital city from this point.
• We’ll enjoy a traditional Nakhchivan lunch.
• Head to the Karabaglar village to see the ruins of small mausoleums scattered over ancient fields and tower fortifications.
• We’ll pay a visit to the Duzdag Salt mines Hospital. We’ll tour the whole complex and meet those who regularly use it. This is a unique place used for natural medical treatment of asthma and bronchitis. The medical treatment is made by keeping the patients in the empty salt mines for several hours per day.
• Head back to Nakhchivan city for an evening meal and drinks.
• Overnight in Nakhchivan.

 Thursday 15th April – Nakchivan

• Breakfast at our hotel
• The water in Nakhchivan is a big deal, there are over 200 mineral water springs in Nakhchivan covering 60% of all water sources of Azerbaijan.There are six types, sixteen categories and thirty-three species of mineral waters in Nakhchivan.
• We’ll drive to Daridagh thermal spring deep in the mountains of Julfa region The water in the area is used for people suffering from stomach diseases.
• Drive to Ordubad which is the second largest town and a medieval city of the Caucasus, well known for its exports of fruits and spices, and for its cuisine.
• We’ll see what the hype is all about and stop for a local lunch to try the Ordubad cuisine.
• Tour of Ordubad, we’ll see one of the many underground canals called “kahriz”, a source of water for houses and orchards.
• See the stunning 17th century Juma Mosque, which looks more like a palace. Today, soviet era photos are exhibited here. The entrance area was once decorated with statues of Russian communists and the roof was also designed in Russian architecture, but these were removed during the fall of the USSR.
• See the Soviet observatory.
• Head back to Nakhchivan stopping at the 12th century Gulustan monument, a medieval sepulchral monument, the settlement here was destroyed when its Armenian population, was deported to Isfahan.
• We’ll then enjoy a trip highlight: a visit to the Azerbaijani Machu Picchu!
• Like the mysterious city of the Incas, the 6th century Alinja Fortress is located on a mountain slope, rising up to the top in a stepped form. The fortress witnessed the footsteps of many empires and saw many conquerors. It was often destroyed and rebuilt.
• Evening dinner in Nakhchivan followed by free time
• Overnight in Nakhchivan.

 Friday 16th April 2021 – Nakhchivan

• Breakfast at our hotel
• Our first stop of the day will be Batabat which is a beautiful landscape with forests, mountains, lakes expect with floating islands and ice cold, crystal clear water. Normally the temperatures in this region are very cold so bring a jacket!
• Return back to Nakhchivan and lunch
• We’ll visit an ancient pilgrimage site which is one of the holiest places for Muslims around the world. Ashabi-Kahf is a sanctuary in a natural cave which is located between the mountains of Ilandag and Nahajir in Azerbaijan. It has been considered as a sacred place since ancient times.
• We’ll pay a visit to the Nakhchivan History Museum and the Carpet Museum
• Dinner at a local restaurant before we collect our bag and transfer to Nakhchivan international airport for our flight back to Baku.
• Transfer to our hotel and overnight in Baku

 Saturday 17th April 

• Breakfast at the hotel
• End of tour
• YPT can arrange onward connections or tour extensions if needed

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