Kiev Photography - M1key - Michal Huniewicz

The pilot on our flight passed out, so I had to try to land the plane.

It was so smooth, people didn't even notice we landed.

We hooked up with Ekaterina aka Katyusha, who showed us a bit of the city.

Katya showed us Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or the Independence Square, where various political rallies took place, such as Revolution on Granite in 1989, Ukraine without Kuchma in 2001, the Orange Revolution in 2004, and Euromaidan in 2013-2014. [1]

Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations when the Ukrainians demanded closer European integration. [2]

Putin khuilo means Putin is a dickhead - it's a slogan that became popular during the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine. [3] We bought this as a gift for our Russian friend - he hasn't been using it.

Gas masks and helmets became symbols of the revolution.

Ukrainian government policies were not inclusive of the Russian minority, which gave the Russians an excuse for the intervention.

The poster encourages men aged 18 (so legally adult) to join the armed forces of Ukraine.

More than one hundred protesters, mostly civilian, were killed (some by snipers), and the Ukrainians often refer to them as the Heavenly Hundred. [4]

The real question here is, as predicted by Samuel Huntington [5], should Ukraine be part of the Western Civilisation or the Orthodox (Russian) civilisation, and the answer isn't easy, as Western Ukraine is rather pro-Western, and Eastern Ukraine is rather pro-Eastern. According to Mykola Riabchuk, Ukrainian intellectual, it would be more accurate to divide Ukraine into post-colonial (pro-Soviet) and anti-colonial (anti-Soviet) - he reminds us that to speak Ukrainian in Ukraine (as opposed to Russian) is often perceived as embarrassing, as it is seen as the language of the unsophisticated peasant. [17] Out of 15 Prime Ministers of Ukraine, only the current one, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, speaks Ukrainian.
In the photo, a Soviet monument (Ukraine was a Soviet republic) with a Ukrainian flag painted on.

This elegant building used to be the House of Culture of the Parliament, now it is the reception house for delegates (thanks, Iuna).

Ukrainian girl wearing a traditional Korean outfit.

Tai Chi in Kiev. Compare the arch to this arch in Moscow.

This is the main gate in the 11th-century fortifications of Kiev, when it was the capital of Ancient Rus (the cultural ancestor of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia - hence some claim it should be one country again [7]). It's not original, as it was rebuilt by the Soviets in 1982, and no one knows what the real thing looked like. [6]

Elaborate corbel.

Islamic door - nice find. It's got an imitation of ablaq.

In case you needed more encouragement to use contraception.

This park keeps getting more and more strange.

Fingernails painted with national Ukrainian colours.
From Wikipedia: The common explanation of "blue sky above yellow field of wheat" was invented around that time [that's 1848], and, although this evocation of a Ukrainian landscape has nothing to do with the choice of colours or the history of the original yellow and blue, it certainly has formed the Ukrainians' conception of their flag." [16] The whole thing is [citation needed].

Cheshire cat.

Dolls on sale.

The bell tower of Saint Sophia's Cathedral.

Banner somewhere in Central Kiev.

Dorota, probably the most courageous of all of us going to Chernobyl.

A tram driver's cabin.

Shop prices display the country of a product's origin, so that the customers can make what they believe is the right choice.

Woman in the Pechersk Lavra, an Orthodox Christian monastery.

Magda, nicknamed Pumpkin, after her eating habits.

Lavra is a set of caves, established in as early as 1051. [9] They are 383 metres long and are between 5 to 20 metres deep. [10] It is quite claustrophobic in there, and not impossible to get lost, as Pumpkin and I proved.
In the photo, Kartik and Magda looking at a coffin with, presumably, a religious authority inside. Mummies, skulls, caves, candles, what more can you ask for.

Magda, when we got lost.

Photo #1.

Girl we met in Lavra.

Huge, Soviet statue made of stainless steel, commemorating the Soviet victory over the Nazis in WW2. [11] At its feet, you'll find out the war started in 1941, although it actually started in 1939, but then, woops, the Soviet Union was allied with the Nazis and busy invading Poland, and I suppose that's not something they wanted to be proud of.
We were told you used to be able to climb it to where the shield is, but people were committing suicide, so they closed it.

Some of the old Soviet tanks are currently being re-used by the Ukrainians in their struggle against the invading Russians.

Iuna, who was so kind as to show us the best bits of the city.

Never underestimate the power of a warsnail.

The Uspensky Sobor gate.

This is meant to be one of the longest escalators in Europe. [12]

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery.

Women at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery.

Pumpkin wearing my scarf.

Woman crossing herself.

Photo #2.

Tomasz on the escalator.

Slavutych metro station.

Zoloti Vorota metro station.

Pumpkin in bed.

Pirogovo, open-air museum near Kiev.

The woman spoke Russian to us, we understood quite a bit of it.

Jesus & Mary, the inside of a peasants' house.

Zarubyntsi church and a modern car.

That Ukrainian Easter bread on the right, it looks somewhat phallic - and it's called velikodnia paska, as the Cultural Encylopedia of the Penis informs us. [13]

The Kysorychi village church. The whole place felt like a setting for the game the Witcher.

The Transcarpathian Ukrainian wooden church of the Kanora Village.

Sheaf of wheat.

The Zelenc village church.

Compare this Orthodox iconostasis (wall of icons) with its Coptic counterpart.

Kartik visiting Baba Yaga's house.
I thought Baba Yaga was purely for scaring children, but it turns out that "Baba Yaga is a Slavic version of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Death, the Dancer on Gravestones. Although, more often than not, we consider Baba Yaga as a symbol of death, She is a representation of the Crone in the Triple Goddess symbolism. She is the Death that leads to Rebirth. It is curious that some Slavic fairy tales show Baba Yaga living in Her hut with Her two other sisters, also Baba Yagas. In this sense, Baba Yaga becomes full Triple Goddess, representing Virgin, Mother, and the Crone. Baba Yaga is also sometimes described as a guardian of the Water of Life and Death. When one is killed by sword or by fire, when sprinkled with the Water of Death, all wounds heal, and after that, when the corpse is sprinkled with the Water of Life, it is reborn. The symbolism of oven in the Baba Yaga fairy tales is very powerful since from primordial times the oven has been a representation of womb and of baked bread. The womb, of course, is a symbol of life and birth, and the baked bread is a very powerful the image of earth, a place where one’s body is buried to be reborn again. It is interesting that Baba Yaga invites Her guests to clean up and eat before eating them, as though preparing them for their final journey, for entering the death, which will result in a new clean rebirth. Baba Yaga also gives Her prey a choice when She asks them to sit on Her spatula to be placed inside the oven: if one is strong or witty, he or she escapes the fires of the oven, for weak or dim-witted ones, the road to death becomes clear." [14]
Baba Yaga is possibly related to Kali via the ancient Iranian demoness Jahi. [15]

This looks like one of those caption contest photos.

The sun shines on this deadly new morning,
The church bells ring an early warning.

Dorogynka church.

Perun's Oak. Perun was the highest god of the Slavic mythology - the god of thunder and lightning (and so he scorched the tree in the 7th or 8th century, if I remember correctly).

Wooden bridge.

Trees.

Kartik when drunk.

Ksenia.

Re-enacting a photo by Alfred Stieglitz.

Kartik getting his eye hurt by the dust in the air - he would not recover until the end of the trip.

Ksenia left work earlier to meet up with us.

Kiev funicular.

Chapel on the River Dnieper.

Ksenia.