By bike: Kharkiv – Bohodukhiv – Poltava – Kharkiv

A big loop in Sloboda Ukraine. About 400 km by bike through the Kharkiv and Poltava regions, on the flat plain of eastern Ukraine (80–230 m above sea level). The loop goes from Kharkiv north-west to Bohodukhiv, west to Krasnokutsk and Dykanka, south to Poltava and back through Chutove, Valky and Lyubotyn: a good four-day tour, about 100 km a day.

The route. Kharkiv – Derhachi – Zolochiv – Bohodukhiv – Krasnokutsk – Dykanka – Poltava – Chutove – Valky – Lyubotyn – Kharkiv.

On the way. Bohodukhiv is a small town of the Kharkiv region on the river Merla. Near Krasnokutsk lies the Sloboda National Nature Park with chalk hills and forest. Dykanka is known from Gogol’s Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. Poltava has a lovely 19th-century centre around the Round Square and is the place of the 1709 Battle of Poltava; the local speciality is halushky, boiled dumplings. Lyubotyn and Valky are small old towns on the way home.

Good to know. Many roads in the area are quiet but rough; take a spare tube and enough water – there are few shops between towns. The music is a Ukrainian folk song.

Picture: The Round Square in Poltava, Nataliya Shestakova, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.