Backpackers and Trailblazers

A guide to Kyiv’s budget accommodation for independent travellers

Though the grotesque, earthy, and life affirming tales of Nikolai Gogol were written is St. Petersburg, they were very much a product of his native Poltava, with the legends, language, sights, sounds, and smells of his native land inspiring him to produce such classics as ‘Tales From a Farm Near Dikanka’, which would change the nature of Russian literature forever.

Nikolai Gogol was born in the picturesque and somewhat sleepy village of Velyki Sorochyntsi, not far from Poltava in 1809. His family actually lived in  the nearby settlement of Vasilivna but following a miscarriage the future writer’s mother left nothing to chance, opting to give birth in Dr. Trokhymovsky’s house. The Soviet regime hailed Gogol as a revolutionary and socially critical writer and as such Trokhmovsky’s house was converted into a literary museum in the 1940s. Around the same time the film ‘Sorochinsky Fair’ based on the Gogol work of the same name was filmed in and around the building, which alas was looted and razed to the ground by the retreating German army during World War II. A new building based on the original was completed in 1951 and can still be visited today; it comprises of five halls exhibiting many of the writer’s personal possessions, fine examples of eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture, several original editions of Gogol’s work, sketches made by the literary figure and a portrait of Gogol painted by the great Russian artist Ilya Repin.

It was in this fine example of Ukrainian Baroque architecture where the young Gogol was christened shortly after his birth in 1809. The church was constructed on the orders of local military bigwig Colonel Danylo Apostol and took four years to construct, opening its doors to the faithful in 1732. Gogol’s intense search for faith and forgiveness was a legacy of his childhood; both his parents were deeply religious to the point where even their marriage was assumed to be the product of divine intervention. According to Gogol’s father, he was standing in Spaso-Preobrazhenska Church one day when he was visited by an angel who pointed to a girl standing next to the youth, declaring that this would be his wife. This turned out to be the case and such supernatural stories naturally left a strong impression on the young Nikolai.

Throughout his life the village of Vasylivka, now named Gogoleve in honour of its most famous resident, served as a constant source of inspiration for Nikolai Gogol throughout his life. Contrary to the Soviet ideal, Gogol was not in fact born into poverty nor, as some Ukrainian idealists would have us believe, under a haystack; his family were the type of middling gentry which would feature prominently in his works, his father a civil servant by day and a writer in the Ukrainian language in his free time of some repute. The family enjoyed all the luxuries of the rural middle class, if such a term is applicable for Imperial Russia, owning plenty of farm land and pastures, with around 200 serfs to work them. The Gogol family had a strong interest in local folk traditions, and later on when Nikolai was in St. Petersburg working on his breakthrough work ‘Tales from a Farm Near  Dikanka’, he begged his mother to send him local proverbs, gossip, and even locally produced items which would serve as inspiration and remind him of the Ukrainian countryside. Curiously, there are two villages named Gogoleve in this village; the one associated with the literary great can be reached by heading to the village of Shyshaky village, going 4km along the Poltavska Highway, and then turning left at the ‘Gogolevo’ sign.  

Standing on the Oposhnya-Poltava Highway, the Arch of Triumph is the only monument in Ukraine which was built to celebrate victory over Napoleon in 1812. It was constructed in time for a visit by Aleksandr I to the old Cossack estate of Kochubei, and indeed Gogol appears to have been particularly impressed by the heroic exploits of the Cossacks, eulogising their heroic deeds in battle, drinking and brotherly love in ‘Taras Bulba’. Food consumption on a massive scale was also a leitmotif of Gogols’ and it was said that he based the character Patsyuk, who swallows bowls of flying vareniki one after the other in the the story ‘The Night Before Christmas’ on a local character in Dikanka whose lunch consisted of a bucket of potatoes, a pale of milk and several huge water-melons.

Not all of Gogols’ early works were light-hearted in nature with the chilling tale of witchcraft and possession “Viy” being an outstanding example. St. Nicolas Church in Dikanka supposedly served as the inspiration for the final showdown in the story, when the lead character finds himself trapped in a church surrounded by demons and creatures of the night. According to legend a local archbishop, Lazar Baranovych, came across an icon of St. Nicholas on a tree stump and brought it to the church only for it to go missing the next day. It was found in exactly the same place where the holy man originally found it. It was brought back to the church only for it to return to the stump once more. After this pattern was repeated several times it was decided to build a church around the stump, which was obviously a sight of spiritual significance. It was completed around 1660. The Ukrainian countryside was full of such supernatural tales which fascinated and enthralled Gogol throughout his childhood and adolescence, contributing to the almost fanatical religious fervour he endured towards the end of his life. 

Dating back to the eighteenth century, Troitsky Church was another Dikanka landmark which made its way into the works of Gogl; it was Troitsky Church which the blacksmith Vakula painted in ‘The Night Before Christmas’, though the frescoes which partly inspired Gogol to write the tale are unfortunately no longer present, being destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. The character of Vakula was inspired by a resident of Dikanka who served as the town’s resident artist, architect, and engineer, and whose decendent, who still bear the name Vakula, continue to live in the village. In a twist straight out of the bizarre world of Nikolai Gogol, the church was converted to a storehouse for sugar and herring in the 1930s.

A pleasant 2km stroll away from Dikanka itself is the farm which served as the setting for Gogol’s ‘Tales from a Farm’. The people who own Pronya’s Farm certainly have an eye for the tourist trade, with the site boasting an excellent traditional Ukrainian restaurant, and facilities for such healthy country pastimes as horse riding and fishing. In addition to this, theatrical performances featuring many of Gogol’s best known characters could be staged given prior notice. The Gogols themselves enjoyed treading the rustic boards, with Nikolai’s father, Vasyl Gogol-Yanovsky, being the chief stage director of the local theatre troupe, which was funded by a local landowner Troshinsky. To arrange such a performance call Pronya’s Farm on +38-05351-97-136, +38-050-305-5192; a thirty minute performance costs 120hrv.

The sights and sounds of nineteenth century Sorochintsi were lovingly recorded by Nikolai Gogol in his work Sorochnisti Fair; “Noises of lashing, bellowing, bleating, howls – all joined in one discordant speech. Oxen, bags, hay, gypsies, pots, women, hats – all is bright coloured, speckled, harmonic, rushing in swarms and glimpses in front of one’s eyes.” Over 150 years later, the fair retains much of the hustle and bustle which made it such an attractive subject for a writer drawn to the fantastic as Gogol was. The fair was restarted back in 1996, to promote business in Ukraine through developing and building on economic and cultural relations between different regions of the country. Big business still come to the fair in order to purchase the latest in mechanized agricultural machinery. It’s also the ideal place to buy traditional souvenirs, arts and crafts, a chicken or two, and engage in some manly rough and ready sport to the delight of the type of buxom country wench which Gogol’s friend Pushkin would no doubt have had in the bushes as soon a as you could say ‘second stanza’.