Now I don't claim to be a Nostradamus, but I predict that sometime in the near future, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, founder and intellectual inspiration of the former Soviet Communist party, will formally roll over in his grave, if he hasn't already. I'm referring to the exact moment in time when the number of statues of Lenin will be surpassed by those of Ronald McDonald, the cheerful clown mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain, who is always telling everyone "I'm 'lovin it. "

There is a Ukrainian joke going around that says Ukraine has had three invasions: first the English and French during the Crimean War, second the Germans in The Great Patriotic War, or World War II, and now Ronald McDonald. But the Ukrainians don't seem to have put up much of their legendary Cossack resistance to the latter. Everywhere my wife and I went on a recent trip to Ukraine, the Golden Arches were packed with eager customers. Possibly, the only statue more prominent than Ronald McDonald is that of Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Kh-mel-nit'-sky), the legendary Cossack hetman, or leader, who drove the Poles from Ukraine in 1648.

Recently, my wife Susan and I visited Europe's largest country and took a riverboat cruise down the historic Dnieper River from Kiev to the Black Sea, a river which in past times has offered strategic navigation to the Vikings, Greeks, Mongols, Romans, Turks, Poles, Germans, and Russians, to name but a few. Our cruise immersed us in Cossack traditions in Zaporozhia (zap-or-o'-shia), a Tatar Khan's Palace in Crimea, the former top-secret Soviet submarine base at Sevastopol, the Crimean War site at Balaclava where the ill-fated charge of the Light Brigade played out, the seaside resort of Yalta and site of the 1945 conference between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, and ending with a visit to the tree-lined boulevards of Odessa.

Before boarding the Viking Lavrinenkov, we spent a few days in Kiev, which is fast becoming a popular destination for travelers to Eastern Europe, being inexpensive and an eclectic mix of old and new: stilettos clicking on cobblestone boulevards and chic ethnic restaurants, mixed with golden, onion-shaped domed cathedrals, and the 11th century Caves Monastery, the most sacred place in all Ukraine, included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.

"We're in Cossack country now," my wife said a few days later as we docked at Zaporozhia, ancestral home of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The Cossacks are the champions of Ukrainian liberty, having settled in the 15th century along the Dnieper River, a region separating Poland/Lithuania to the west and the Moslem Tatars to the south. From their origins as ex-serfs, they presented a formidable resistance which neither the Kings of Poland nor the Turkish Sultans were able to overcome. It has been said the Cossacks provided the same function to Ukraine as the Great Wall did for China.

To the Western psyche, Cossacks have always fueled images of fearless horsemen, galloping across grassy and snowy steppes, wielding sabers and battleaxes. The phrase "The Cossacks are Coming" was the embodiment of terror to the Western mind.

Crying "Na Konya," an old Cossack man with a straggly beard toasted Susan, raising an obscenely large glass of home-brewed vodka. We were visiting a Cossack village, where we were treated to traditional Cossack dancers, heels together, arms folded across the chest, alternately kicking out feet to the tempo of the music. Then we watched with open-mouths a display of Cossack horsemanship, no doubt the type that caused foes in the past to believe Cossacks were half horse and half human.

"Huh?" Susan replied to the old Cossack's toast, coughing on her own vodka.

"He means Onto the Horses," our guide said. "It's an old Cossack toast that Cossacks gave before riding into battle."

"I don't think so," Susan laughed, "I can't even walk, let alone ride a horse."

SEVASTOPOL AND YALTA

"My great-great grandfather was lucky," Margaret Trueman, a lady from Nottingham, England and fellow riverboat passenger, told us as we gazed out over a large valley near Sevastopol, peppered with vineyards and cyprus trees, where in 1856 the elite Light Brigade, pride of the British Cavalry, met an ill-fated end when its orders were misinterpreted, causing it to charge directly into Russian cannons. Today that fateful charge is remembered in Alfred Lord Tennyson's epic poem, "Charge of the Light Brigade."

"He was a large man," Margaret went on. "He was in the Heavy Brigade and thus escaped the doomed charge."As we looked down on the Valley of Death, we couldn't help but recall a verse from Tennyson's poem:

Theirs is not to make reply,

Rode the six hundred.

"That poem has meaning today," Margaret said.

"The Americans knew it was somewhere on the Black Sea, but they didn't know where," our young Ukrainian guide told us the next day as we toured what was, arguably, at the time of the Cold War the most secret real estate in the Soviet Union, the top-secret submarine base at Sevastopol and home of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. In the 1950s, Stalin ordered the construction of this underground submarine facility, cut out of solid granite, designed to withstand a nuclear attack.

"This looks like one of those places from a James Bond movie that always blows up at the end," Susan said as we meandered through the dank, watery tunnels with doors 2-feet thick. One could image during the Cold War workers scurrying about doing important things and studying panels of flashing lights. Now it consists of minions of Americans from cruise ships scurrying about studying their "Lonely Planet" guidebooks.

Yalta is remembered by Americans as the location of the 1945 Yalta Conference where Stalin came away with Eastern Europe and Roosevelt and Churchill came away with Western Europe. When Susan and I came here in 1990, a year before the fall of Communism, we brought chewing gum and cigarettes for the locals as if they were stone-age natives on a lost island. At that time people would grab us by the arm and tell us how bad Communism was and how great America was.

"We need to learn business from you Americans," we were told by an old Babushka lady selling trinkets on the street.

This time around the locals were dressed more stylish than us. Trendy young ladies attired in designer jeans and 4-inch heels clicked along immaculate boulevards. (But their swigging from a huge bottle of beer while they walked rather marred the glamorous image). Ukraine has progressed economically since the fall of Communism in 1991, but still has many problems. One hopes the progress continues.

"They're 'lovin it," my wife joked as we boarded our flight back to the U.S. She meant capitalism of course.

IF YOU GO

Here are some companies that feature Dnieper River cruises:

—1. Viking River Cruses: www.vikingrivercruises.com

— Uniworld: www.uniworld.com

— Imperial River Cruises www.cruisebyriver.com/land/kiev/

— European River Cruises: http://www.europeanrivercruises.com/

— Gate 1 Travel: www.gate1travel.com

Jerry and Susan Farlow are freelance travel writers and photographers. To find out more about Jerry and Susan Farlow and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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