Kyiv

Having survived the Mongol Empire, WWII, Chernobyl, and Soviet rule, Kyiv is the proud capital of the Ukraine.

capital city

B efore I started my Chernobyl project, I went to Kyiv to gain an understanding of the people, the culture, the heartbeat of this wonderful, yet foreign city. As a stranger walking through town with a camera i was met with scepticism and distrust. As I later learned, the sight of a camera during Soviet rule never meant anything positive for the people being photographed. So I made sure I stayed invisible as much as I could, and I never ever pointed the camera straight into a person’s face.

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‘For me it’s very important to turn Kiev into one of the main centers of contemporary art in the world. There is New York. There’s London. And there will be Kiev. Everyone will come and say, ‘Wow!’

Victor Pinchuk, Ukrainian Oligarch

capital city

“Just because you can measure everything doesn’t mean that you should.”

W. Edward Deming

On the Saturday during my first fact-finding visit to Kyiv I stepped onto the street in the city center and straight into a military parade. I remember seeing on as a little kid in Austria, but that was the first and last one in a Western European country before military parades were abolished.

Not so in the Ukraine in 2011. So I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures.

It must have been an important call. Long distance for sure.

capital city

These are a few of my very first impressions of Kyiv the evening I arrived in Ukraine’s capital. It had rained all day and by the time I arrived the sky cleared and made way for a beautiful sunset. By the way, it took me 4 hours to get to the city center. As luck will have it, then US president George W. Bush arrived in Kyiv for a State visit an hour before me. So the entire city was cordoned off until W. arrived at the Ukrainian President’s residence for a State dinner.

‘“Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.’

Benjamin Disraeli