I'm trying to get rid of the photo backlog, so here's a set from my quick trip to Brovary - 65 photos, including the ones I posted earlier, here and here.

A few highlights:

- Although I wrote previously that Brovary was a pleasant surprise - clean, full of kids and playgrounds - this isn't really reflected in my photos. And it's not completely my fault - because, honestly, Brovary isn't some sort of a dream town, even though I liked it there. It reminded me of Kyiv ten years ago or so, one of the remote neighborhoods of Kyiv, perhaps, sleepy, with comparatively few cars, and not drowning in garbage. I'm afraid that in ten years Brovary will turn into a nuthouse just like today's Kyiv - and, the way things are going now, I don't even want to think of what awaits Kyiv in ten years.

By way of illustration of this point, here's what Lisova subway station looked like when I returned from Brovary:



And here's a picture from Brovary:



- Mishah used to have an apartment in Brovary in the 1990s, so I went looking for it. He gave me the wrong address, though, and I ended up taking pictures of a totally different building, but that's okay, because I had a very brief but interesting encounter with a couple of locals there.



The woman in this picture hadn't seen her brother in 20 years - because she'd been in jail. She called to me as I walking through the grass behind the building that I thought had been Mishah's, and asked me to take a picture of the two of them. She wasn't very sober, and neither was he, but they were both extremely happy. The most moving part of it was when she almost offered me to have a drink with them. She didn't - it must've been obvious that I'd decline - but for a moment, she looked as if she wanted the whole world to share in her joy, to celebrate their reunion. I took a few pictures, wished them health, and walked off. Back home, my mama couldn't believe I didn't ask the woman some questions: like, what she'd been serving time for, how long, etc. My mama would've made an awesome journalist, and me, I guess I just chickened out.

- Brovary has changed a lot in the past decade. There is, for example, a humongous new mall at the town's edge now, complete with a kart racing track and a skating rink - and a new church right next to it:





- Independence Street used to be named after the 50th anniversary of Komsomol:



- Some Nazi shit at Brovary's central square:



And a Lebanese flag on someone's balcony:



- Stuff they are selling at makeshift street markets - from pickles to doors:



- Finally, here's how to write 'LOL' and 'Ha-ha' in Cyrillic script:



:)))