KieVVision

J'ai Cherché (2016)  Ukrainian fashion brands   Fashion is a big industry in Ukraine. It is also growing in popularity thanks to a patriotic drive to buy Ukrainian.  You may be interested because clothes cost a fraction that they do in western Europe (at least half the price). An additional reason is that Ukrainian fashion is quite quirky, and you can buy looks that are stylish but not available in other parts of Europe. The city has a variety of ways to purchase fashion, from couture to high street. Let's start with markets. There are a number of fashion markets in the summer months. They are centred around Podil's Kontraktova Ploscha square, Andriivskiy Spusk and the Platforma arts hub. What's on sites will have updates.  One of these markets has progressed into developing a full sized department store for over 100 small scale designers. The Bci Cboi (All Ours) https://www.instagram.com/bci.cboi/  store is on Kreschatik Street and has three st...

Give a Little Back to The World (1990)  Wales-Ukraine not England-Russia  EUROVISION COUNTRY: United Kingdom KYIV DESTINATION: I-zone; Holodomor Memorial In 2008 a Welsh journalist called Gareth Jones  http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/soviet_articles.htm , was honoured at Westminster Abbey posthumously for being one of the few people to inform the world of the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine.  Gareth's mother had once lived in Ukraine, and so he was shocked when he travelled to Kyiv to see people dying in the streets Gareth graduated from university, and then worked as a foreign policy adviser to David Lloyd George before working as a journalist for The Western Mail, and Manchester Guardian and travelled widely across Russia and Ukraine. Although 7-10 million people are estimated to have been starved to death over the two years, the Soviet Union and many Westerners denied enforced starvation was happening. This starvation, called Holodomor, was onl...

Småting (1972)  Tiny worlds in Andorra and Ukraine  EUROVISION COUNTRY: Andorra KYIV DESTINATION: Museum of Microminiature The Museum of Microminiature is one of the world's oddest exhibitions. It contains around 20 microscopes, under each of which lies a tiny piece of art work. The tiny art was made by Ukrainian Nikolai Syadristy during the Soviet Union, and the museum reflects a space age design of the late 1970s. The displays are explained in English next to each object. They tell you what the object is, and what it was made from, and sometimes how many microns log it is. The combinations are odd. A portrait of a popular singer in the 1960s is made out of a cherry stone and fixed on a piece of meteorite. A 3mmx 4mm portrait of spaceman Yury Gagarin is made out of sloe thorn stone. Entrance fee is 50 Hrivna (under €2) and it takes about 10 minutes to complete. The museum is open 09.00-19.00 daily (except Tuesdays). The museum says it's closed during rain showers...

Disappear (2008)  Blending In It is highly unlikely that you will be recognised as a local. Your clothes, your posture and your bone structure will give you away. However manners can be one thing you can work on. First if you are 55 years old or over, expect to offered a seat by nice young men on public transport. If you are a nice young man, then stand up for anyone who looks 55 or over. In Ukraine 55 is old - by 70 you'll probably be dead. Second if you enter a lift and there's someone already inside, it is quite usual for the person entering (regardless of age or gender) to walk up to the lift's mirror, stick a finger in their hair, wiggle it about a bit, check their face, and turn around to continue their lift experience. Why? I have no idea. Do not attempt this if you are the first person in the lift. You would be immediately caught out as a foreigner. Finally, if you travel on Ukraine International Airlines to Kyiv, join in the applause of the passe...

Nina (1991)  What's in a Name? - or how Iceland exists in every Ukrainian  EUROVISION COUNTRY: Iceland KYIV DESTINATION:  Cemeteries   Iceland and Kyiv were established in the same decade by the same group of Viking traders. Although they are thousands of miles apart they share something more than blood to this day. Only Icelanders and the eastern Slavs retain the system of patronymics. That is - in both societies people have a first name, followed by the name of their father. For example, in 1999 Iceland's Eurovision entry was sung by Selma Björnsdóttir - or Selma, daughter of Björn. Take the grave of the 1930s Ukrainian actress above. She has three names: Christian name:  Ekaterina Father's name:    Alexandrovna (Alexander) Surname:            Gursikina Do you know of any other links with Iceland? Icelandic consulate:      Yakir St, 8 Kyiv. Tel:           ...

All kinds of Everything (1970)  Birch Juice  Eurovision-time is also the height of the birch tree juice season. In April and early May as the sap rises in birch trees people in Ukraine and Belarus tap the trees in a similar way to maple syrup and extract the water. Tree sap is said to be the purest from of water because it is filtered through living vegetation. It is also slightly sweet. If you leave a jar under one tree over night you can have around five litres of sap by the morning. The best juice is the fresh variety, but this can only be found in the countryside. But this drink is popular with city dwellers and a sweetened version can be found from various producers in all supermarkets in Kyiv. In Ukraine the drink is used to reduce freckles. What do you do with this ingredient?

Sevince (1978) Crimean food  KYIV DESTINATION: Halal restaurants Jamala's winning Eurovision song for Ukraine was sung partially in Crimean Tarar. The language of the Tartars, similar to the food of Crimea has origins in Turkic traditions and customs. There are a number of places where you can sample Crimean food in Kyiv. Musafir https://www.facebook.com/musafir.kiev  is one of the better known locations. The restaurant is on Saksaganskovo St 57A, a five minute walk from Ploscha Lva Tolstovo metro station. This restaurant is authentic because it is an exile. It was originally based in Crimea, but moved to Kyiv following the annexation of the region by Russia in 2015. Crimean cuisine also has been influenced by the theme of Jamala's song, '1944'. The forced displacement of the Tartars by Stalin during WWII ended with the Crimeans ending in Uzbekistan and Central Asia. Therefore Crimean food has become a fusion cuisine. For example, Crimeans differ from Turkish...

Nekonečná Piesen (1994) Ukraine, Slovakia and Warhol  EUROVISION COUNTRY: Slovakia KYIV DESTINATION: Pinchuk Modern Arts Centre Why is this Warhol-esque T-shirt showing "Ukrainian Borshcht"? How is Slovakia linked to Ukraine? One explanation from the Kyiv makers of this T-shirt is: Warhol was Ukrainian. Really? Well like all romances: "It's complicated". Please bear with us: 1. Warhol was born in the USA. 2. His parents were from Slovakia. 3. But their ethnic group was Ruthenian. 4. Ruthenians are followers of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. 5. Ergo, Warhol is Ukrainian and Slovakia is linked inextricably to Ukraine. 6. Welcome to the world of tenuous East European historical claims! However: Some Slovako-Ukrainian facts: Slovakia and Ukraine are neighbours and share a border. There are up to 100,000 people of Ukrainian background in Slovakia. Ruthenians now self-identify themselves as "Rusyns", a term which relates back to K...

Hombres (1993) Vsevolod Maksimovich A camp, but short life  KYIV DESTINATION: National Art Gallery of Ukraine  The National Art Museum of Ukraine http://namu.kiev.ua  has the world's best collection of this camp Ukrainian avante-garde painter of the pre-World War I era. He only painted 12 paintings. Each one is fab-u-lous. The decadent artist was intoxicated by Aubrey Beardsley and the utterly camp avant garde movement, but when Vsevolod exhibited in Moscow in 1912 he was already too late. Fashion had moved one. His exhibition was a failure and he took a drugs overdose and committed suicide. A good context to his work can be found here:  https://victorianist.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/the-ukrainian-beardsley-or-a-study-in-camp/

Moj Svijet - My World  (2014)  Milla Jovovich and Kyiv  EUROVISION COUNTRY: Montenegro  KYIV DESTINATION: Dovzhenko Film Studios, Libid Hotel  How are Montenegro and Ukraine famously linked? In 1973 Ukrainian Actress Galina Loginova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galina_Jovovich  left a successful career as a Shakespearian and film in Moscow for a staff actress job at the Dovzhenko Film studios   http://www.dovzhenkocentre.org/eng/  in Kyiv. Galina went to the fashionable restaurant in the Lybid Hotel, which in Soviet times was a popular place for meeting football stars and foreigners. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau dined there among others. There she met Bogdah Jovovich a Montenegrin doctor.  They started dating. Dating a foreigner was highly frowned upon in the Soviet Union. Galina was threatened, but she married Bogdah and in 1975 they had a daughter Milla. The family emigrated, and the Soviet authorities banned all...