Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine

I wanted to make this post about public squares in different places of the world. Which seems a nice idea to me. But important events are on the way in one of my home countries, Ukraine, so I devote this post to Ukraine and Kyiv, with sincere wish of success.

As one can check in the history – but possibly it’s hard to imagine for many by now – Ukraine was fighting for the right to be an independent country on the map literally for centuries. And it became formally independent in 1991 with the crush of the Soviet Union. But some (of my friends too) still claim that real independence started only 5 years ago after the events now called “The revolution of dignity” – public protests that led to the flight of that time pro-Russian president and his team, all accused in human rights violations, corruption, and abusing of power. And then almost immediately the war started.

The public spirit after that – as it appeared later, not at all the final – victory, it was very romantic and even with a tinge of euphoria. The enemy fled, [formal] leaders of the protests formed the government. Business and university crowd rushed to volunteer in creating strategies for the country development (sometimes ignoring how different views of this development goals and means they/we actually had, within the same team). Collected suggestions of business and sent to the government (which mostly ignored them – well, at least, on the surface) because now the government was “ours”. And everything seemed like within arm’s reach. I myself spent almost a year volunteering part or full time for this kind of activity 🙂

Then, as usual, the reality appeared to be not as impressive as in dreams and hopes. Because of the war, still mighty forces that didn’t want changes to eliminate their “sources of income”, the “inert” majority that, as always, has its own interests, which might be not visible in times of great events but becomes visible in times of elections…

To sum up, I’d say that now Ukraine seems well up to developed world trends in politics… Two elections – presidential and parliamentary have just finished and some quite ambiguous figures and forces came to power as a result. At the same time, some of truly progressive and good professionals came to the parliament with the winning force – who possibly wouldn’t be there otherwise. Some of these people I know personally.

Possibly, only after years or dozens of years it will become clear how much has been actually done in these 5 years (and part of this – by my friends, which I am very proud of!)

And I wish success to Ukraine, as independent and flourishing country, let all be good!

Concluding that with some of my photos and paintings/drawings made in Kyiv, Ukraine during last 5 years.

– Click / tap on images to see them in bigger size –