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Tag: Kyiv

“Poetry as witness during a time of great atrocity”

A review of Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond. By: Ostap Kin, ed., translated by Ostap Kin and John Hennessy and published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

August 18, 2023 - Nicole Yurcaba

City of bold hopes. How Kyiv lives during the war

The war has certainly changed the capital, but despite everything, the streets of this city have regained their rhythm and retained their soulfulness.

October 2, 2022 - Olena Petryshyn

My soul is in Kyiv

I left behind the city I was born in, where I learnt to ride a bike and ice skate, where I finished school and where I had my first kiss. There, I also left my ambitions, my plans and a part of my soul.

I did not believe that this war would take place up until the very last moment. All arguments, expert opinions and pure logic had convinced me that it would not reach Kyiv. Yet, it did. It destroyed my life on February 24th at five o’clock in the morning. The worst part was the first phone call I received about half an hour later. It was my dad, who only said, “Pack up your stuff”. This meant that everything that was written in the media was real. It was not a dream, not a fantasy but my life here and now. This was my life, with Russian rockets that were destroying not only the nearby airport but also my future.

August 25, 2022 - Zoriana Varenia

War diaries from Kyiv

Since the start of the war, journalist Andrey Kirillov found himself in Kyiv. He began documenting his daily experiences through his war diaries. We publish several excerpts from his diary here.

Day one
The editorial office where I am now writing this is located in a residential building. The grocery store in this building is the only one in the whole block that is open today. This is a luxurious district that used to be noisy, with crowds of citizens, young people and tourists walking around. Now, these streets are nearly deserted. Expensive clothes shops, restaurants, coffee shops and barbershops are all closed. But what is important are the people who have gathered around that open store. It is in the basement of the residential building. An old man is sleeping in the corner. Children are riding about on office chairs. Their mothers are having tea that they pour into cups. Fathers are smoking at the entrance. All of them are using this space as a bomb shelter.

April 25, 2022 - Andrey Kirillov

#UkraineUnderFire: A war diary

Imke Hansen is an international peace worker at the Sievierodonetsk field office of the Ukrainian NGO Vostok SOS. Together with her colleague Maksim, she has established a trauma-informed training system for war-affected people in the Luhansk region. She has shared her diary of the first weeks with us.

February 17th 2022
In the morning, the kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska was shelled. When Maksim told me, it felt like a punch in the gut. During the past two days, we had breathed a little sigh of relief; the diplomatic appeasements to Russia seemed to be working. Today's sudden shelling along the entire frontline exposed this as an illusion, as Russian disinformation policy. At noon, a school director called to request psychological help for the younger schoolchildren. There had been shelling there as well. In the past weeks, we already expected something to come.

April 25, 2022 - Imke Hansen

The soft power of Ukrainian women will defeat Mordor

A conversation with Iryna, a territorial defence officer, and Natalya, a civil volunteer. Interviewer: Andrii Horobchuk

ANDRII HOROBCHUK: What motivates women to join the territorial defence? How different are their motivations from men?

IRYNA: In fact, there are many kinds of women. First and foremost, there are female civil volunteers. For example, those who do not have children or have taken their children out of Kyiv but remain here themselves. And they just cannot sit at home. A woman generally needs to take care of someone and keep herself busy. This is the way her psyche works. And that is why there are a lot of women who just come of their own free will and do things to take care of the fighters.

April 25, 2022 - Andrii Horobchuk

Kyiv and Putin: a story of a certain hatred

The history of Ukraine has become an obsession for Russian President Vladimir Putin. A central place in this story is occupied by Kyiv, which he and many Russians call the mother of all Russian cities and a spiritual centre.

March 30, 2022 - Adam Balcer

Babyn Yar: When will the tragedy be finally commemorated?

Babyn Yar in Kyiv is the site of the largest Holocaust massacre on Ukrainian territory. The Nazis executed around 100,000 people from 1941 to 1943 on the site, including the killing of 33,771 Jews over two days – September 29-30th 1941. Today it is a place where an appropriate memorial to honour the victims has yet to be created. Since the Ukrainian state has been unable to take responsibility for such a project for years now, private actors have taken it on.

It has been 79 years since the massacre of Babyn Yar. Naturally, commemorative initiatives have been intensifying in Ukraine in recent years, as they usually do before round figure anniversaries. At the moment, there are at least two memorial projects at Babyn Yar, and both have a common aim: to commemorate the Babyn Yar massacre.

July 7, 2020 - Svitlana Oslavska

A man in a cobweb

A retrospective reportage from Kyiv.

January 7, 2020 - Paulina Siegień

Inside Kyiv’s co-living community

The Vilnyy co-living space in Kyiv is an example of a creative innovative space for Ukraine’s young people to commune together. It is entirely self-sufficient, not reliant on grants or support from outsider sources. Instead, it is built and designed by the community living there, adapting over time with each change of resident.

As expanding western and Asian cities face a growing housing crisis, there has been an outcry from frustrated young people to remodel the housing sector. An idea has recently emerged to fill this void: “Co-living”. It is currently making a mark in high-cost cities such as London, New York and Singapore, but surprisingly a bourgeoning market has recently sprung up in Kyiv. However, Ukraine’s adoption to the co-living model is far away from the polished-for-profit western trend, but could offer a genuine affordable alternative.

August 26, 2019 - Dominic Culverwell

kyiv uprisisng

The Kyiv Uprising scenario

On August 1st at exactly 5pm, Warsaw will remain motionless. Sirens and horns will shriek, people will pause, and all traffic – cars, buses, and trams – will stop in its tracks. As every year, for a few minutes, it will feel as if time is standing still. This is done to pay homage to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The uprising that began on August 1st 1944 and lasted for 63 days has become Poland’s national symbol of martyrdom. But the commemorations and tributes to the veterans that are still living are always accompanied by a national debate: “Was it worth it?”

July 27, 2017 - Maciej Olchawa

Ukrainian Tank umland

How to embed Ukraine? The idea of an Intermarium coalition in East-Central Europe

Neither the European Union nor NATO will any time soon be able to fill the security vacuum they have left with their hesitant policies in the grey zones of Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus. Both organisations have, in the past, amply demonstrated their inadequacy as strategically thinking and geopolitically resolute actors. Against this background, some post-Soviet politicians, diplomats and intellectuals are starting to discuss alternative options to, at least partially, increase their countries’ security. The most prominent among these concepts is the creation of a so-called “Intermarium coalition”.

July 6, 2017 - Kostiantyn Fedorenko and Andreas Umland

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