The Olesky Sands

Ukraine. Open it! This is a motto of the project I'm currently working in and - I must say - the project I'm really enjoying. How amazingly It may sound for the Ukrainian natives, their country is much richer for the outstanding places and people they may imagine resting on their enslaved consciousness and washed memory. Traveling around this big European (underline!) country, my collegues and me, we had a lot of memorable moment that we try to deliver on our openit.com.ua site.
Here, I want to tell you about our trip that hadn't enriched the collection of the project site. Doubt that many of you know the place where the only real desert in Europe situated. This is a small village near Olesky city Kherson region, Ukraine.

Here you can see the map of the Sands location

Просмотреть увеличенную карту

On a sunrise, we started our way from Dnipro. It took us about 5 hours to get to the estimated destination point. However, the dunes didn't rise in front of our faces. In fact, the way to the factual 'sands' was the most complicated part of the trip. In spite of our expectations, the inhabitants of the Nova Mayachka village - the closest to the desert - are seemed not to be interested in it at all. Logically, they all pointed us the different directions and finally drove us into the complete end of civilization where the sands still appeared the same 'far away' place. Luckily, one guy from a roadside pull-in said we are actually here, and the desert is only separated by a forest belt planted to stop the sands spreading in the area.
Emmobilzed by a poachy sand, our car is left on a forest edge. While two of my collegues stay there to watch over, our group of three is aimed to a cutting. Without a map, a way in a forest is quite complicated - imagine a still air and a 2-hours walk over the sea-shore with a temperature of 37 degrees celcium. But a result was worh it...