A Love Letter to the Kyiv I Knew
A view of Kyiv. All images belong to the author
When I moved to Kyiv in September 2020, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I had never been to Ukraine before and, although I hoped to love it, I had no real idea of how it would go. Arriving as summer gave way to autumn, I was greeted with the last of the season’s raspberries and a warmth from Kyivans beyond my expectations. Within 24 hours I was being offered salo (traditional cured pork fat) and tomatoes ‘from the village’ as I listened to stories from the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution at a picnic on one of Kyiv’s forested islands. After months of lockdown in the UK, it felt utterly surreal to be taken in by Kyivans so wholeheartedly.
Fresh cranberries for sale
I don’t know if I’ve ever before been quite so attached to a city, or its residents. It’s a place that surprises you at every turn and that is beautiful precisely because it refuses to be put in a box. Right next to a pastel-coloured palatial remnant of empires gone by, you’ll find undulating pavements taken over by trees that stubbornly refuse to be stopped in their tracks. Old women from rural villages gather together in sun, rain or snow, selling their eggs, milk and beetroot in the shadow of colourful murals. The metro is elaborately decorated with chandeliers and mosaics, and the middle-aged bus conductor ladies are never – no, really, never – in a good mood. The Soviet apartments look so unwelcoming from the outside but, decorated with jars of homemade pickles, old copies of Shevchenko’s poetry and carpets hanging on the walls, couldn’t be more homely. Mountains of flowers pile up at the feet of monuments to the Second World War on 9 May, and the crowds spontaneously break into song. And how can I not mention the unbeatable coffees and those delicious horishky (if you know, you know)? Of course, I may be romanticising it. But how can you not try to savour every last drop of goodness from a place now faced with such sheer brutality?
Autumn in Kyiv’s Botanical Gardens
One of the charms of Kyiv is that you can feel a million miles from the city while still being in its beating heart, just by heading to one of its densely wooded islands. Indeed, Kyivans like to tell you that Charles de Gaulle, on a trip to Kyiv, was heard to say, ‘I have seen many parks in cities, but I have never seen a city in a park’. You can even take the metro to go skiing. The city’s expansive parks turn a vibrant burnt orange in autumn, which bleeds into a long, white winter, bringing snow drifts taller than me. Snow-covered parks sparkle under streetlamps. My eyelashes freeze on the walk to work each morning. Early one morning, standing at the top of Andriivskyi Uzviz, one of Kyiv’s most historic streets, I hear the gentle tinkling of iced-over branches moving in the biting wind. A girl skates on the frozen Dnipro in the waning January sun. Old men congregate in a park to play chess, indifferent to the snow piled up around them. Icicles form which are so long, rumour has it they can kill you if they fall. I’m using the present tense, knowing that war has changed everything and that none of this looks the same, but hoping nonetheless that it is not firmly in the past just yet. And there’s hope: the fierce ambition of the Ukrainians I met is not something that bombs can erase.
Mariinskyi Park, Kyiv
In Kyiv, even before 24 February 2022, you could not help but be confronted by history at every turn. From the old lady in my apartment block who remembered sheltering in the city’s hippodrome during the Second World War, to the locals joking that a nearby building built by German prisoners of war was better quality as a result. From the beautiful opera house being that one where Stolypin was assassinated, to the building still standing on Maidan Nezalezhnosti from where snipers shot protestors in 2014. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Kyiv was never a place where the past was overlooked. Even before this war, memories of the Second World War and past repression were vivid enough to move many people to tears. This perhaps makes it all the more painful to come to terms with witnessing another wound being gouged into the city’s consciousness.
Late summer in Kyiv’s Podil neighbourhood
I know Kyiv and I will meet again. But I also know that the Kyiv I knew no longer exists. I suppose this is just the nature of the passing of history, but none of us is accustomed to seeing a place change quite so drastically before our very eyes. The anti-tank defences will be taken away, but buildings will be pockmarked for centuries to come. It’s achingly sad to imagine that even if the place you loved survives, it will be deeply scarred forever by the magnitude of this war. The Kyiv I knew was flourishing, embracing collective ambition and welcoming in the world with open arms and a plate of dumplings. And I know it will one day bounce back and surpass any of our expectations: Ukraine’s good at doing that.
I try to hold onto a phrase one of my friends said to me when I left: ‘The world is too small for us not to meet again’. So, Kyiv, this is not goodbye, only a do pobachennia.
