Katerinowka is a village in the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine, in the rolling farmland of Podolia, and on the map it is mainly a point on a quiet back road between larger settlements.
Podolia is a plateau cut by river valleys and gullies, with deep black soil that has made the region a breadbasket for centuries. Fields of wheat, sunflowers and sugar beet roll to the horizon, divided by shelter belts of poplar and acacia. Villages tend to be long, strung along a single street, with whitewashed houses, painted window frames and gardens full of sunflowers and cabbages. In summer the air smells of hay and warm earth; in late September the combine harvesters throw up clouds of dust that glow orange in the evening.
Riding conditions in rural Ukraine have always demanded attention. Surfaces can change abruptly from decent asphalt to broken patches or gravel, and potholes appear at the worst places, usually in a bend or at the bottom of a dip. Carts, tractors and livestock share the roads, and in villages the speed limits are best treated as generous. The nearest towns, Krasyliv with almost twenty thousand people and Khmelnytskyi with nearly four hundred thousand, have fuel and food, while the villages in between mostly do not.
An honest word about the present: because of the war in Ukraine, travel here depends on the current security situation, official advice and local conditions, and anyone planning to ride should check them carefully and not rely on any older description of the roads. The region has a long history of mixed communities, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish, and old manor parks, wooden churches and ruined fortifications are scattered across the countryside. In peaceful times this is a superb place for slow, unhurried touring, and the villages have a warmth that visitors remember.