2008 oil on canvas 17,5×12,5 cm

Please email me your bid (starting at $75) if you’d like to own this piece.

The ladies cooking pancakes in this typical open oven you see on every Paris corner are dressed in full Ukrainian traditional dress.  They are sticklers to their 15 minute breaks and usually collect long ques of customers in between. The top seller filling is the cabbage and mushroom, kvas also available on tap along with some tried and trusted Obolon beer you can enjoy, sitting in the park.

I picked this lady for her bangs – so perfectly appointed and colored – “blesk”!

]]> http://olechko.org/2008-07-17/292/feed/ 0 http://olechko.org/2008-06-19/girls-today/ http://olechko.org/2008-06-19/girls-today/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:54:11 +0000 olha pryymak http://olechko.org/?p=270 Girl sipping tea,18.06.08 watercolor pencils on 140 lb. paper

Girl dancing, watercolor pencils in Moleskine

By now you (who spent some time in Ukraine) all know  that Ukrainian menus like to trick you with items priced by grams, and then the waiters take the liberty at judging how many of those grams your wallet can handle.   Luda’s stab at this problem exceeded all expectations: 6×50=300 grams of wine. “Why didn’t you bring us the whole bottle in that “big” glass?” we asked, very annoyed. “You should have declined the glass when you saw it was 300 gram”. “Forgot my measuring cup at home,”  I defiantly thought. The worst part was that the wine in question was flat. Be on guard if you see too many kinds of wine by the glass in the menu. It could have been sitting open for months, like ours did.

Appalled at this Luda’s lame attempt to trick us, we demonstratively payed the $25 per glass, promising we’d tell every expat to avoid the place. So now you now.  Btw, with the quick poll via blackberry among his “high-flying” friends Yuri Uzzband concluded, that $25 per glass could  cost at only other place in the word – the Beverly Hills Hotel bar!

Some very decent street art (the better works tended to be are sold by the artists themselves, they come out to the market only on weekends). Below are the pictures by  Shumakov V. with his cute little paintings of Pirogovo; Yuri Kachkin with small Kyiv landmark oils on pane; and tiny oforts by R. Sydorec.  All these were small works that did not cost more then $50 a piece – not bad.

The really good staff we found in Gallery 36 (36, Andriyivsky descent) – well-established and non-presumptious (12 years on the market), it sells mid-range (about $500 per piece) local artists. A few years back we bought from there a levkas by Igor Prokofyev – one of those baby-faced  fuzzy figures in late eighteen hundreds settings.

Then we popped into Hochari gallery where I recognized a little cute sculpture by Pylnyk – I am going back to Lviv to pick it up though – once again, I confirmed that the price markup on Lviv art market in Kyiv is 150%  for the same artists’ works!

The well-advertised White gallery current show did not impress us much. The other galleries Karas Atelier and art center by NaUKMA were closed so Zeh was the last spot on our itinerary. And what a treat it was.

Lovely Margo – gallerina at Zeh- let us dig into the back room fare – all the best current contemporary from Kyiv as well as brilliant upcoming stuff from the regions (the gallery specializes on out0of-towners). Now Yuri Pikul has a solo show there till August 2nd. He is only 23 and does very interesting post-photo realist oils of random landscapes and war-era shots.

Yuri Solomko  with his larger-then-life pictures of preserves is also represented there. He is the renowned artist from whom I’ve been lucky to take classes this spring, organized by and for IWCK.

Also we were really impressed with the paintings by Igor Pereklita, an unconventional Transcarpathian with his surreal poster-like paintings of beauties in typical Ukrainian landscapes.

The crawl made me make a list of tree good restaurants to visit on the Andriyivsky in the near future – Za Dvoma Zaycyamy (a guy in general’s uniform greets you at the entrance there, 34 Anrdiyivsky) Parmezan, 36 Andriyivsky) and Vernisazh(down the street from the first two). We ended up taking coffee at Kaffa (Scovorody st) – it has  great decor inside, ample seating outside and  some sumptuous coffee on their menu.

Three bottom pictures are courtesy of Zeh gallery website.

Pushkinska 2

This guy wrote an exhaustive guite to Pirogovo in Russian (map of the place provided there on top, which can be very handy). I am linking it here on top as well.

It’s best to bring your own food. No bbq but plenty of picnic tables around. Locally done bbq is too fried or too expensive (if you go to Yarivec’ restaurant on the grounds. It boasts a great terrase in secluded woods and Kyiv prices).

To get there, find the museum on the map – it’s on the road to Odessa. Opean 10-17 daily. Btw, this weekend on July 6, between 17:20-22:00 there will be Ivana Kupala celebration with staged traditional folk rites.

Later on I did a scetch of this wooden church:

The new discoveries of this visit – several solid coffee places:

Svit Kavy

Pid Synyou Plyashkoyu – it was there that we really dug our heels into the groud and said – we are going to be back! Most solid looking 5-table establishment, predominantly a coffee and drinks place, ask for their honey liquer specialty – not as good as my dad’s stuff but really great!

Rooftop cafe at the shopping mall that used to be the old Univermag – very low key, almost fast food place, but with amazing views of the city!

Kilikiya – very beautiful side alley off Virmenska St., it’s quite easy to find by its sign. They serve regular Ukrainian food fare as well as the best hot chocolate and mostly coffee. Their furniture is hade of the heaviest steel, but it’s “ironmonged” very stylishly.

and the regular tourist-heavy Videnska Kavyarnia and the Italiysky Dvoryk

and restaurants:

Opera – the Terrase on top of the Opera hotel across the street from the opera house – very fancy, perfect for dessert, decent wine list also their dinner tasted very good too. Check out the automatic shoe cleaner in the hotel lobby – classic! The views are really hard to beat – you are up there, soaring with the sculptures on top of the opera, checking out the city center rooftops.

For sughtseeing, we went up the City Hall tower, which also provided the best view! Get into the city hall lobby, ride up to 4th floor and follow the signs to “vezha”. After paying your 3 hryvnyas you will have to climb 17 floors on rickety wooden stairs and appreciate the exposed bell tower clock. The view is worth all the trouble. To be continued…

Shato, 24 Khreschatik vul.

Pushkinska str. 42/2