In addition to addresses, telephone and fax numbers, the reference section of this guide contains listings for:

• Government agencies of Ukraine: political parties and organizations;

• Embassies and consulates of Ukraine abroad;

• Foreign embassies in Ukraine;

The guide contains maps of 24 regional capitals of Ukraine and the capital of the Republic of Crimea, as well as recent street-name changes, and subway guides for Kyiv and Kharkiv. The English language travel guide to Ukraine follows the Ukrainian transliteration system for proper names and geographic locations.

The guide does not list current information on costs of hotels, cruises, excursions, airfares, train or bus tickets, because of price fluctuations. But Ukraine is still considerably less expensive than other European countries.

Certain hotels accept Ukrainian currency, while others require payment in foreign currencies. There are three types of hotel rates in Ukraine: individual, business, and group rate.

With this convenient guide travelers to Ukraine can easily create their own itinerary or plan future trips.

Whatever your itinerary, you will find excellent food in Ukraine. Try Ukrainian borshch and varenyky, chicken a la Kyiv, the rolled, filled pancakes, or delicious Ukrainian dark bread. But be prepared for a different style of service in restaurants, where you may have to wait longer for your order. Above all, bring your sense of humor and don't let certain inadequacies of service spoil your visit. We are confident that you will enjoy your visit to Ukraine and come back again and again!

Home reading The Climate and Weather in Great Britain

Speaking about climate it is important to note that it mostly depends on the geographical position of the country. The British Isles which are surrounded by the ocean have an insular climate. There are 3 things that chiefly determine the climate of the United Kingdom: the position of the islands in the temperate belt; the fact that the prevailing winds blow from the west and south-west and the warm current - the Gulf Stream that flows from the Gulf of Mexico along the western shores of England. All this features make the climate more moderate, without striking difference between seasons. It is not very cold in winter and not very hot in summer. So the British ports are ice-free and its rivers are not frozen throughout the year.

The lack of extremes is the reason why on the few occasions when it gets genuinely hot or freezing cold, the country seems to be totally unprepared for it. A bit of snow, a few days of frost and the trains stop working and the roads are blocked. If the thermometer goes above 27 °C, people behave as if they were in the Sahara and the temperature makes front-page headlines. These things happen so seldom that it is not worth organizing life to be ready for them.

In spring sunshine and showers follow each other so often during the day that an umbrella or raincoat is absolutely

necessary in England. The weather changes so frequently that it is difficult to forecast. It is not unusual for people to complain that the weathermen were wrong. The weather in spring is generally mild but sometimes the days are really

fresh. Spring is the season when nature awakens from its long winter sleep: the temperature grows, the sky becomes blue,

and the sun grows warmer. Everything is full of new life again. The days grow longer and warmer; the ground gets covered with green grass.

Summers are generally cool, but due to global warming they are starting drier and hotter. The sunrays become hot, the days are long, and the nights are short and warm. It's time for holidays, when people go to the seaside for sunbathing and swimming. It usually gets hot in July. The summer nights are short, but they are wonderful.

As for autumn it isn't so nice. It's a season of winds and beautiful sunsets. The leaves turn yellow and reddish and fall to the ground and the birds migrate to warm countries. In autumn the days become shorter. A spell of sunny weather of September is called Indian summer or "Golden Autumn". In England September and October are warm and dry, but November is the foggiest month. Late autumn is generally an unpleasant season. Everything begins to take a different colour. The trees look bare. The flowers have faded away. The sky is overcast with low clouds. Everything looks gloomy. In winter in England they can hardly forecast their weather. Sometimes it rains and sometimes it snows. In England it isn't so cold in winter as in our country and they don't get so much snow as we get here, in Ukraine.

It rains very often in all seasons in Great Britain. Autumn and winter are the wettest. The sky is usually grey and cold winds blow. On the average, Britain has more than 200 rainy days a year. The English say that they have 3 variants of the weather: when it rains in the morning, when it rains in the afternoon, and when it rains all day long. Sometimes it rains so heavily, that they say, "It's raining cats and dogs".

Thanks to the rains and mild climate the grass remains green all the year round.

Britain in truth looks like one great well-ordered park with its old trees, green meadows and hedges.

Britain is known all over the world for its fogs. Sometimes fogs are so thick that it's impossible to see anything within a few meters. The winter fogs of London were, indeed, awful; they surpassed all imagination. In a dense fog all traffic was stopped, no vehicle could move from fear of dreadful accidents.

Since the 1950's, most British cities have introduced clean air zones. Factories and houses cannot burn coal and must use smokeless fuel. The dirt caused by smoke used to cause terrible smogs, particularly in London. Such smogs are now the thing of the past, but you can still see them in the old films where they add mystery and atmosphere to murder stories and thrillers.

The weather on the British Isles has a bad reputation. It is very changeable and fickle. The British say, that there is a climate in other countries, but they have just weather. If you don't like the weather in England, just wait a few minutes. If the weather in the morning is fine it doesn't mean that it will remain the same in the evening. A warm sunny morning may

suddenly turn into a rainy and nasty afternoon. Probably, the comparison 'as changeable as the weather' came from Britain.