Журнал Viche 2011 №15

№15, 2011

Kings do not go on foot. Pawns do

“Kyiv is the EUROpean capital!”, “Kyiv is the EUROopean capital!”... Persistently repeated spells on every corner indicates more about our lack of confidence in that claim. You can jam a speech to the holes but this will not hide such an unconcealed thing as a life culture. It is truthful, exhibitionist, shamelessly exposes the flaws Ukrainian metropolis number 1, reveals the paradoxes between a healthy ambition for a chimerical Europeanness and manifestations of barbarism.
Take at least a bottom – in the literal sense of the word – outrage as the sidewalks near fashionable buildings. New hotels rush in the city sky, an old hotels move closer up to a certain stage of refinement. But then misfortune: those who orders the construction, gives consent to it and ultimately oversees the process do not go on foot. Governors fall right in the halls of hotels out of their cars with doors, not even having a glance at their feet. But in vain. Even the laconic promenade in any street of the capital grants an extraordinary moments of cognition. And the most important. Less than a year thousands of visitors Euro 2012 will walk by these pavements.

Olha KLEYMENOVA