Rakhiv

Introducing Rakhiv

Travelling west over the Carpathian Mountains just before coming into Rakhiv, you pass a clapped-out concrete monolith where apparatchiks once enjoyed their après-ski. Today this huge resort is literally a shell of its former self, a little bit like Rakhiv itself. Or, as the Wall Street Journal Europe has put it, this is ‘a poor logging region that has lost most of its tourist trade since the collapse of the Soviet Union’.

Not that this one-time skiing mecca and quintessentially Hutsul region could be described as completely dead. The continuing need to make a living and the proximity of the Romanian border ensure the hustle and bustle associated with ad-hoc (and often ­illicit) trading continues.

For foreign travellers that border can provide good reason to visit as, when the border posts are open at least, Rakhiv makes a handy staging post between the Ukrainian Carpathians and Romania’s idyllic and ­increasingly popular Maramures region.

While in Rakhiv, there’s also the chance to have a laugh visiting a ‘geographical centre of Europe’ that’s not really, or to enjoy a little hiking. A Swiss-Ukrainian project, Forza (www.forza.org.ua), is working on regional regeneration, including the marking of trails into the Carpathian National Nature Park.

Rakhiv’s proximity to the CNNP means that, although it’s officially in Transcarpathia, the city is best covered here.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009