The unrest and violence in Ukraine in recent years shocked the world, and the region's long-term future remains troublingly uncertain. Focusing on the difficulty of Kiev's transition from socialism to market democracy, this book demonstrates how Ukraine reached this turbulent point. Roman Adrian Cybriwsky delves deeply into the changing social geography of the city, recent urban development, and critical problems such as official corruption, inequality, sex tourism, and the heedless destruction of the city's historical architecture - all difficulties that have contributed incrementally to Ukrainian citizens' anger against their government. This thoroughly revised edition brings Cybriwsky's account of events and their ramifications fully up to date, offering the clearest picture we've had yet of what has happened - and what is likely still to come - in Ukraine.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- A Note about Transliteration
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1. Far from Heaven
- 1.1 A Curious Face
- 1.2 Graffito
- 1.3 A New American
- 1.4 Domes and Demons
- 1.5 A Changing City
- 1.6 Angry Citizens
- 1.7 Linking to the Literature
- 1.8 Postsocialist Urbanism
- 2. The Missing Museum of the History of the City of Kyiv
- 2.1 Life in Limbo
- 2.2 An Imperium of Raiders
- 2.3 Theater at Teatralna
- 2.4 A Dubious Home
- 3. Sketches from the Capital
- 3.1 Castle Hill
- 3.2 Notes from Euro 2012
- 3.3 Monumental Woes
- 3.4 Demons at Desiatynna
- 3.5 The Ukrainian Fight Club
- 3.6 A Missing Mayor
- 3.7 A Geography of the President
- 3.8 Helipad from Hell
- 4. Soviet Ways, Post-Soviet Days
- 4.1 Looking after Lenin
- 4.2 Red Army Birthday
- 4.3 One Day in the Life of the Ukrainian Language
- 4.4 May 18, 2013
- 4.5 Heorhiy Ruslanovych Gongadze
- 4.6 A Personal Warning?
- 5. Historical Memory
- 5.1 Place-name Gymnastics
- 5.2 Remembering the Great Patriotic War
- 5.3 Babyn Yar
- 5.4 The Holodomor Museum
- 5.5 The Legacy of Chornobyl
- 5.6 Rebuilding Religion
- 6. The Center of Kyiv
- 6.1 A Taste of History
- 6.2 Ghosts
- 6.3 Maidan: Independence Square
- 6.4 Khreshchatyk: Main Street Kyiv
- 6.5 TsUM in Transition
- 6.6 SS. Sophia, Michael, and Hyatt
- 6.7 Remaking Andrew’s Descent
- 6.8 Podil at a Crossroads
- 7. A Geography of Privilege and Pretension
- 7.1 A Diamond Monster
- 7.2 Face Control in Arena City
- 7.3 Men in Black
- 7.4 The Strange New Neighborhood of Vozdvyzhenka
- 7.5 Koncha Zaspa: Gated Hideaway
- 7.6 Bullies with Bentleys
- 8. Landscapes of Struggle
- 8.1 The Killing of Oksana Makar
- 8.2 Faces of Poverty
- 8.3 Petty Traders
- 8.4 The People’s Markets
- 8.5 The Scourge of Prejudice
- 8.6 Roma
- 9. “Suburbia”
- 9.1 The Residential Ring
- 9.2 Commerce, Cars, and Billboards
- 9.3 The Middle Class and the Malls
- 9.4 Four Photographs
- 10. Seamy Stories
- 10.1 “No More Heroines”
- 10.2 Visitors from Abroad
- 10.3 Sex Tourism
- 10.4 Export Wives
- 10.5 River Vice
- 10.6 The Voices of FEMEN
- 11. The Defenders of Kyiv
- 11.1 Hero City
- 11.2 The Grassroots
- 11.3 Save Old Kyiv
- 11.4 The Republic of Hostynyi Dvir
- 11.5 Oleksandr Glukhov’s Apartment
- 11.6 The Ordeal of Oleksandr Hudyma
- 11.7 The Last Farmstead in Pozniaky
- 12. Reflections
- 12.1 A Souvenir and a Song
- 12.2 A Messy Period
- 12.3 A Book Review
- 13. Two Years Later
- 13.1 Euromaidan and Aftermath
- 13.2 The Last Days of Euromaidan
- 13.3 Kyiv Updates
- References
- Index
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- List of Illustrations
- Figure 0.1 – The author and 26 of his 27 students at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, May 2011, plus Peter
- Figure 1.1 – “Ukraine Is Far from Heaven” graffito
- Figure 1.2 – Olena Zhelesko with megaphone
- Figure 1.3 – A view of Kyiv across the Dnipro River
- Figure 2.1 – Exhibits from the Museum of the History of the City of Kyiv being packed up for moving to limbo (Courtesy of V. Kovalynskyi)
- Figure 3.1 – Under the People’s Friendship Arch
- Figure 3.2 – The small and controversial Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. In the background is the historic, baroque St. Andrew’s Church, while to the right is a fence that demarcates the site of Desiatynna Church. The signboard announces that
- Figure 3.3 – President Yanukovych’s notorious book Opportunity Ukraine (Courtesy of Alexander J. Motyl)
- Figure 3.4 – The helipad from hell
- Figure 4.1 – A scene from the Soviet-like February 22 (2011) “Defenders of the Homeland” celebration. The words read “Party of Regions Ukraine.”
- Figure 4.2 – Leaders of the three main opposition parties in Ukraine singing the national anthem after signing their historic accord. From left to right they are Oleh Tyahnybok, Svoboda Party; Arsenyi Yatsenyuk; Batkivshyna Party; and Vitalyi Klitschko, Ud
- Figure 5.1 – Sign with conflicting street names
- Figure 5.2 – Kyiv’s iconic “Mother of the Fatherland” World War II memorial as seen from across the Dnipro River
- Figure 5.3 – The candle-shaped Holodomor Monument and Museum and a statue of a hungry girl
- Figure 5.4 – Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, a new church in Troyeshchyna
- Figure 6.1 – 1 Yaroslaviv Val
- Figure 6.2 – Independence Square. Khreshchatyk crosses the scene and divides the square into two halves. The lower portion of the Independence Monument is on the right.
- Figure 6.3 – The bell tower of St. Sophia Cathedral
- Figure 6.4 – Andrew’s Descent during reconstruction (Courtesy of Vladyslava Osmak)
- Figure 6.5 – Podil at a crossroads, literally. This is a traffic tie-up approaching Post Office Square. There is construction underway in parkland on the bluffs on the left, the large new Fairmont Hotel at right-center, and some of industrial Podil in the
- Figure 7.1 – A glass-skinned “monster” rising from within historic buildings in the center of Kyiv. The building to the right is the city’s famed Opera. Note also the traffic and the vehicles parked on sidewalks.
- Figure 7.2 – Diamond Hill rising from parkland atop the bluffs of right-bank Kyiv
- Figure 7.3 – A view of Vozdvyzhenka from above
- Figure 7.4 – The mansions of Koncha Zaspa as seen via Google Earth
- Figure 7.5 – This photograph was taken at an anti-corruption in government rally by the Communist Party of Ukraine in the center of Kyiv. The protester’s sign reads “Caution! Oligarch at the Wheel.” As is characteristic of Ukraine’s communists, the languag
- Figure 8.1 – Laborers gathered around a recruiter for day work outside Kyiv’s central rail station
- Figure 8.2 – Misha the handyman
- Figure 8.3 – One of the countless petty vendors in Kyiv, a great many of whom are elderly women
- Figure 8.4 – A view of a table at the secondhand market at Shulyavska before the market was burned down
- Figure 8.5 – African vendors and their merchandise in the under-highway section of Shulyavska Market
- Figure 8.6 – A Roma husband-and-wife team of metal scrap collectors at work
- Figure 9.1 – A minibus (marshrutka) decorated with an advertisement for “Comfort Town,” a new housing development in Kyiv’s residential ring. The text reads “Start Living like a European!”
- Figure 9.2 – A large new private home close to Dnipro River beaches in an area that was reserved for modest dachas during Soviet times
- Figure 9.3 – Troyeshchyna village and parking garages from the roof of a high building
- Figure 9.4 – Traffic circle and Metro terminus at Heroiv Dnipra, north of the city center
- Figure 9.5 – New residential high-rises, commercial strips, billboards, and harsh distances for pedestrians in the Osokorky neighborhood on the Left Bank
- Figure 9.6 – Kyiv relaxing. The photo is of the walk along the beach in Obolon.
- Figure 10.1 – Foreign men “shopping” along Khreshchatyk at Independence Square
- Figure 10.2 – Former restaurant-nightclub boats docked in limbo along the Dnipro River
- Figure 11.1 – Photo of angry citizens in demonstration. The sign reads, “If you don’t like Ukrainians, get out of Ukraine.”
- Figure 11.2 – “This city is not for sale!” (right), “Keep your hands off of my city!” (center), and “Hostynyi Dvir – A Space for Culture” (right) (Right image courtesy of Vladyslava Osmak)
- Figure 11.3 – A controversial new construction site. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate, is building the new office building that is shown on the billboard in an historic part of the city, on the site of old buildings that had been taken down
- Figure 11.4 – Kyivans encircling Hostynyi Dvir in a symbolic action to defend the building from developers (Photo courtesy of Viktor Kruk)
- Figure 11.5 – Oleksandr Glukhov in his cold apartment
- Figure 11.6 – The last farmstead in Pozniaky
- Figure 12.1 – Kyivans in the sun together
- Figure 13.1 – Honoring the fallen at Maidan Nezalezhnosti after the killings of mid-February, 2014
- Figure 13.2 – Masha from Kherson with the last flag of Ukraine that flew over Maidan before the stage was destroyed, and a man who photo-bombed us
- List of Tables
- Table 1.1 – Socialist and Postsocialist Cities Compared
- Table 5.1 – Shifting Place-names in Kyiv before and after Independence
- Table 7.1 – Selling Vozdvyzhenka
- Table 10.1 – Protest Activities by FEMEN, 2008-2012
- Table 11.1 – Journalists Killed in Ukraine, 1995-2010
- Table 11.2 – Examples of Save Old Kyiv Hot Button Issues
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
Login to your account