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:



:)))

A bunch of blurry, useless pics that I took on the way to Maidan tonight are here.







The weather was absolutely impossible, but it improved during the concert. I was watching most of it at home, as I had to be near Marta. But we opened the window and listened to the more or less live sound.

As I mentioned on Twitter, the crowd's spirit was fantastic. Reminded me of 2004: tons of friendly people who chose not to sit comfortably at home and all came to Maidan instead. I kept thinking of my papa - how he would've loved to be there. Tried hard not to cry as I listened to 'Hey Jude' and 'Yesterday' - kept imagining how papa would've been singing along, blissfully, in his bad English.

As for the politics of it all, I think Victor Pinchuk is setting a good example, and I hope some of the rich folks from the other camp will try to bring, say, the Rolling Stones to Kyiv next. Or anyone else who's cool. Would be as awesome, especially if they do it soon, without waiting for the next election. Also, according to AP, this was a charity concert, and the money raised will be spent to buy medical equipment for kids with cancer - which is a very good thing, too.

Mikheil Saakashvili was at Maidan - but without his friend Yushchenko. Kuchma was there, too - which was hard to swallow. His daughter, Pinchuk's wife, was wearing something awful. Pinchuk looked genuinely happy.

A few more random Kyiv pics, just to get myself distracted from the subject of the previous entry...


Near Kyiv's central train station



A mailbox



Wine, vodka, flowers, open 24 hours, 7 meters away



"There is time for work. And time for love." (Coco Chanel)



"I Love You"



This guy's billboards are all over the city, but for some reason I don't remember his name. Sorry.

Walked by Eric's Bierstube at Ploshcha Tolstogo yesterday, was horrified by the Nazi stuff on the walls in the courtyard there:









This last one most likely refers to a McDonald's nearby - "Don't eat shit."

Reminds me of St. Pete five years ago, but to be seeing it here hurts a lot more.

Here are two more pics for the 'Turks in Ukraine' series at The Turkish Invasion (the first installment featured my shot of Karadeniz Cafe at Poznyaki).

KATYA + LEYLA = arkadashiki: a Ukrainian-Turkish friendship, Tatu-style, sort of (arkadaş is 'friend' in Turkish):



"Dudu Döner - Turkish shawarma" - near Svyatoshyn metro station:



:)

It's not often that you see a Moskvich car in Kyiv nowadays. But in Brovary, I've seen two:





And then there was also this:

Been to Brovary today, was pleasantly surprised by how little garbage I saw there. Also, tons of kids and tons of playgrounds, old and new, everywhere. I wouldn't mind borrowing their mayor.

I'll post more pics later; for now, here's my favorite, of the stuff hanging out to dry on someone's balcony:

Saw this on the way from the dentist yesterday:


"I eat here."







The name of the street is Klinichna. Yes, Clinical Street. Very close to the Institute of Sugar Beats bus stop.

At the polling station on Sunday:



Inside the polling booth - two ballots, both ridiculously long:

On Saturday, I was feeling claustrophobic in Kyiv's center, so I got into a random marshrutka and went where it took me: to Poznyaky and Osokorky, on the Dnieper's left bank.

Some of my favorite pictures from the trip:









All photos are here.

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Marshrutka driver seemed like a very religious guy:





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Lots of street trade, just like everywhere else in Kyiv:







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So many flyers everywhere, I don't think they have any informational value anymore and instead serve as decorations only in this otherwise gloomy area:



Election-related flyers from Poznyaky and Osokorky are in the Mayor 2008 Flickr folder.

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A very strange logo on the store that seems to be selling doors - looks pretty phallic to me:



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Mishuga Street - named, as it turns out, after an opera singer Oleksandr Mishuga (link in Ukrainian), who was born in a village near Lviv in 1853, in a shoemaker's family:





While meshuga is a more familiar transliteration of the Yiddish word, here in Kyiv the name's spelling varies from Mishuga (first photo) to Myshuga (second photo).

And then there's also this sign for a wedding salon on Mishuga St. - composed by some meshugener in an inexplicable mix of Ukrainian (line 1) and Russian (line 2):



A Lenny Kravitz billboard on Mishuga St.:



Kravitz is, of course, a mis-transliteration of the Ukrainian word kravets, a tailor.

Café "Karadenis" - another cute mis-transliteration from the Mishuga St. neighborhood, this time of the Turkish word Karadeniz, the Black Sea: