Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Kharkov Graffiti

After months of stalking the streets of Kharkov with a camera, I proudly present to you this stunning collection: 

Kharkov's Finest Graffiti and Murals

It all began with the colorful brick ruins in Youth Park. The picture below caught my eye on the way to the park. Do you recognize this character?
Hint: he's saying "Cowabunga"
Now squint and imagine that this ninja is slightly more reptilian...
I think it's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle! D tells me that this show was also popular here in 1990s. Although we were thousands of miles and an entire language apart, we were both sitting in pajamas in front of the TV, watching the same thing :p

This one is called "The Duel of the Century" and is an alley near the Pushkinska metro station.
Bender: This is showbusiness, kid. Kenny: MMMM. Beavis: crappuccino.
Who is Robocop pointing his gun at? Why, none other than...
...Alexandr Pushkin, on the opposite wall, ready for a(nother) duel... apparently with Robocop!
And just down the street-
Pushkin and his ladies.
And one more, across from that one:
Eternal love. Follow this link to see a couple more local Pushkin murals.

Finally, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away- oops, I mean, in downtown Kharkov:

I also like finding words scrawled on a wall. It gives me some insight into what people are thinking.
These two pictures were taken near the Botanical Gardens metro station.
Speak Ukrainian.
Heroes don't die, enemies die!
D spotted this one on the outskirts of town.
Shortly after taking this picture, we saw a woman herding goats.
Then, there's always the not-so-nice graffiti.
Death to people from the Caucasus
I saw this word often in Yakutsk...except that the taggers there thought the word was spelled with an a instead of a u, so they'd write things like Fack you!
This is my favorite-
I guess it's universal!

4 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh! These murals are amazing! I love the "Duel of the Century" and the Pushkin ones. Awesome. The "death to the people from the Caucasus" not so much.

    The "speak Ukrainian" one is interesting... whenever I would say "Tak" instead of the Russian "Da" people would ask if I was a Ukrainian nationalist.

    LOL @ Haters Gonna Hate. Hahahaha.

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  2. Why would you think that "хамам" means "the people from the Caucasus"? Is that the local slang or what?

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  3. Sorry, my bad. "Хачам"

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    1. Yes, I asked a native speaker about that word and he gave me the translation. There's also a Wikipedia article on it here but it's in Ukrainian: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A5%D0%B0%D1%87%D1%96 Now I'm thinking it's maybe more offensive than I thought and am kind of embarrassed for posting the picture.

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