olechko

For me the FT Weekend last page read has been a staple of every pleasant Saturday morning. With the departure of Tyler Brule I feared the paper will never be the same. So it happened, it changed, and for the better. Now Chrystia Freeland took over his Fast Lane (called now the A-Train) column. To my delight I soon discovered she is a former expat to Ukraine writing often on Ukraine-related matters and super vitty and intelligent to top it all.

In her last post, available online, she touched on the growing popularity of Ukrainian nannies export to the US when dicussing the States’ curent attitude to the migrants, etc.

Beregynya annual festival in Lutsk, Volyn region featured lots of folklore, crafts, music and dancing, special church service and a parade. Locals poured on the streets to enjoy the sight, show themselves and check out others.

I saw a particularly good exhibit by 12-15-yr-olds and helped out my family to sell their mead. Mead is sth of a mix between cider and wine, made purely of honey, water and hops, 15 grad proof or so, served mostly chilled. It’s been around Europe ever since druids. If it was not so complicated to set up a small business in Ukraine, I would long ago embark into the family business of marking this drink. And even though receteering and petty crime has gone down in the past 15 years, the govermnment corruption has grown stronger. So we keep this treat exclusively to our family circle and some rare festival outings. Although if my readers would like to try some…

I am thrilled to see more and more young folk driving little scooters around town. Apparenty helmets are not mandatory for them at the moment, but cute outfits are almost always a constant feature to go along with these…

It’s been a reoccurring theme for Mr. Olechko to get me to go to the soccer match at the Dynamo stadium. Now that the weather got better, Little Miss Moi and Mr. Moi joined us for Dynamo-Kharkiv. The stadium turned out to be move like a Veronese coliseum then a modern soccer stadium. It’s tiny and surrounded by a great park. Everything is colored blue-white - Dynamo colors. The people actually pay attention at the game, except for the well-organized chanting of Dynamo fans on the side of the field by the opponent’s goal post. The tickets are dirt cheap (15-50 hrv), and usually are in plenty of supply at the door just before the game except for when Beckham or else descends on Kyiv. Dynamo won 2:0

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The reviews in the press were great for Sasha Makarska, the young figurative painter from the R.E.P. group of artists (Kadan, Khomenko, etc.) .   Here are some oils on canvass  that looked most attractive.  The gallery sits behind the botanical garden in the vicinity of University metro station. Inside interior is very Western, the catalogues for the artists they represented within a year of their existence are stellar quality.

Collectsia gallery

University Metro stop, 8 Pankovska st.

During my time in DC Taras Kuzio’s talks always were welcomed with great reverence by the diaspora.  He appears to be the top expert on all things Ukrainian in the North America at the moment.   And now I found his blog.  The posts seem to be translated into English  from BBC Ukrainian service website (in Ukrainian).   Hightly reccomend reading it for some intelligent independet view on Ukrainian politics.

As a result of years’ worth of reading Vogue, FRUiTS and Elle magazines, I collected myself to actually ask the stylish people on the street of Kyiv I admire to pose for my pictures. (For now I have expressed my fascination with just stealing photos for my Devushka project). I do not aspire to match up to match up to the w0nderful Sartorealist or outshine the indie Ulyanov’s Kyiv streetfashion but this can be loads of fun.

I would ask my subjects for their name, occupation, age, where the things were bought, what’s their style inspiration is about, etc, etc and hand them some kind of business card with the site address on it…

A blogger, very well versed in Ukrainian contemporary culture, and art in particular, writes a critical, edgy, and very rich in content blog proza.com.ua. He now publishes in Sho magazine. His site a great read (even if you do not read in Russian yet, the illustrations are telling enough) although it took me about a year to get used to his freedom of posting a l-o-t about art that edges into pornography. Well, this seems to be the trend in all of the contemporary art these days… I linked this picture from his LJ but it’s also published in this weeks TimeOut.

… almost won (second place) the 2007 Eurovision contest. The victorious Verka Serduchka - Andriy Danylko leaves nobody indifferent to her perfomance and her (his) persona among the Ukrainians. Hat tipped to this unique modern cultural phenomenon!!

(photo courtecy of proza.com.ua)

..has its own brewery and a patio, but food there sucks. Do not get there anything but the beer (Slavutych)! Otherwise, people watching, especially on a weekday around lunchtime can be real fun. It offers free WiFi (I have not checked it myself). I got to write up a post about places to get free WiFi around Kyiv now that I come to think of it.

Shato, 24 Khreschatik vul.