Murals in Ukraine

A friend just spotted this mural near Kharkiv's Sportivnaya metro stop. What do you think of it? 

Even from afar, I'm still pretty obsessed with Ukrainian street art!!! The entire let's-make-public-art scene seems to be booming there nowadays. Here's proof:

• Andrea from Let's Explore Kyiv pointed out that this new mobile app lets you track down the city's brightest and coolest murals. 
• You can already take a walking tour of Kyiv's street art. 
• Are murals "less Soviet" than mosaics? (And speaking of mosaics, here is a great guide to old Soviet mosaics in Dnipro.)
• Ukraine's top 10 murals. Ура! Kharkiv takes spot #3!
• Shameless internal link: murals and graffiti in Kharkiv, 2011-2014.

Have you seen any of Ukraine's newer murals? And can we just take one more look at what was Kharkiv's greatest mural ever, haha? Nothing can ever top this-

A farewell to Ukrainian street art

Even though there have been a ton of posts about Ukraine's street art on this blog, I still have more pictures left over.

Seeing as how it's been 1.5 years since we left Kharkiv, it's probably time to dust these guys off and make space on the computer for new photos. (There are also a few repeats in here that I just really liked.)

Hope you enjoy! :)

Cable cars in color + street art

Yesterday we had the chance to ride the newly painted-and-windowed cable cars that Brandon Price wrote about in May. He was right on all accounts. While the updated version is bright and eye-catching...

how they look now

how they looked before

... the windows are a big disappointment, slashing chances of getting a great photo. But on the upside, like Brandon mentioned, a lot of the windows are missing. Certain cars have 3 windows, some only 2, others just 1. Maybe windows were randomly removed for summer? Or, based on the gaps in the frames of the remaining windows, perhaps the others fell out? 

The whole experience of riding the cable cars feels different. Ticket takers have actual box offices now, not sun umbrellas. There's an electronic turnstile to go through before getting onto the platform and longer lines to wait in. The casual days of drinking beer in open carts seem to be long gone.

A summer's worth of street art!

Long ago, during one of this year's rare car rides, we spied a fantastically-embellished wall running down Akademika Pavlova street. It covers about 1.5 kilometers, all the way from the Akademika Pavlova metro stop to the Studentcheska metro stop.

Several months later, a certain intrepid companion and I set off to explore.

There were lots of strangely cool things.

 

And some cool strange things.

And some rather creepy images.

Surprising places

Yuri Gagarin mural near the Prospect Gagarina metro stop

A good friend came into town to visit last week. He came all the way from the village of Sinne for the promise of an afternoon of bowling, but our plans fell through. Instead, we made a valiant and brief attempt to play badminton on a windy afternoon, hung out in the kids' playground (never too old for the seesaw!), and grabbed lunch at a nearby supermarket café. I hope to return the favor and visit him in Sinne this month. Doesn't it look like a great place?

Anyways, because he's got one of those fancy new iPhones, we were able to take some fantastic photos along Prospect Gagarina after lunch. All these works of art are located on the side of the Gagarin Shopping Center (торговий центр "на гагарина") in an alley by the name of "Street Art".

Snapshots of Ukrainian Life, Part 14

Having a slow day? Find some inspiration here!

 A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world. - John le Carré

Art of City, City of Art

Kharkov has been gloomy lately. A heavy fog slowly erases the city, brick by brick.

Compare:

regular day

today

Yesterday I went out in search of color...

...and found it!

Welcome to Art of City.

Gone but Not Forgotten

One of my favourite things about living in Ukraine is catching a glimpse of the footprints of the past.

Along the Lopan

Ой, the weather this week has really been something! Drizzly rain, constant fog... stereotypical London weather! It feels like I'm constantly out stomping around in it, going from class to class. Home isn't much warmer, as the city hasn't turned the heat on yet, so I'm going to put on an extra sweater and reminisce over these pictures taken in sunnier times.

"Good morning!"

Is it art?

Behind ХАТОБ, the Kharkov State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, lies a landscape not of elegant costumes and evening orchestras but rather of unpaid teenage labor under the cover of night.

Like ballet, also done for the love of art!

This is a fantastic spot. Just ignore the smell of urine and think of it as the city's free open-air museum.

Art on the city streets

Kharkov street art

Tea with a Texan and the approach of fall

Despite the threat of rain, I set out this morning on a trek across town for the promise of real chai. See, the Russian word чай (chai) means tea but it's always just regular tea, not what we often think of a chai (spice) tea. Starr, however, had been to India recently and scored some real chai.... and then made the mistake of telling me about it :p Living in Ukraine there are only a couple American staples that I miss and chai tea is one of them.  The others- root beer, peanut butter, cheddar cheese- I can live without as long as I don't start eating them. One spoonful of peanut butter and I'd start having crazy cravings, so it's better to just abstain and Ukrainianize my diet. Borsch, anyone? But chai? That's irreplaceable.

It was a long walk to Starr's place. I went through downtown and through Freedom Square, where there was some kind of subdued demonstration going on with almost as many policeman as protesters. I passed the wedding palace and all the attendant dress shops with gowns modeled more after wedding cakes than actual fashion. Google maps (or my hand-sketched drawing) led me a bit astray at the end, but I got to see this awesome kvas advertisement while wandering the neighborhood.

Starr's apartment was like the featured article from a design magazine. It broke most of the typical Kharkov apartment commandments: it was in a new building, the building had more than 7 stories, it had a DISHWASHER (which I barely even recognized after all this time!), the elevators had a real digital display in the lobby, instead of a domofon there was a video screen, a stove you didn't have to light by hand, actual smoke detectors in the building.... need I go on? On top of that the place had a minimalist design that focused attention on the giant picture windows overlooking a nearby park. Even the refrigerator was subtly designed to look like a cabinet and had a freezer compartment on the bottom (oooooh!). No wonder one of the Metallist players lives in the same building! If Bruce Wayne had a penthouse it would probably look like this. And should I even mention the mini sauna in the bathroom??

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!

Alley of Glory

Welcome to the Alley of Glory.

This is a large park near the Moscow Prospect metro station. It's dedicated to the memory of those involved in WWII, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and Chernobyl.

"To those from Cheronobyl, from the people of this neighborhood."

Memorial to the Soviets who fought in the Afghan war.

See the red stars?

A number is cleverly built into the back of each: 41, 42, 43, 44, 45- the war years.

More photos from the park (click to enlarge):

Picture 3 shows the results of a broken water pipe. The pipe got fixed but the path didn't.