Kyiv Autumn Solitude
It was really sad to leave Kyiv. I don’t know if that’s the case for other people who admire Kyiv, but I always missed this amazing city when I was traveling. This feeling that I would see Kyiv soon was even creating some kind of pleasure that sometimes I even created a list of things “To Do in Kyiv”. Because Kyiv always provides a big variety of places and huge options for how to spend free time. Anyway, Kyiv has the biggest concentration of interesting people, beautiful girls, professional and personal opportunities, and the biggest concentration of capital.
The day before my long trip, I went for a long walk in the center of Kyiv. I showed part of Kyiv to one of my friends who came to visit for a few days. We started to walk from Saksahanskoho Street, went through Shota Rustaveli, then Baseina Street to Khreshatyk. My idea was to walk via “Glass” bridge and to walk back from another side of Khreshatyk. It was raining - perfect weather. But there was not so much time so we stopped at Maidan and went to drink coffee at the “Last Barricade”. I asked the girl who worked there to make an excursion. In the past, they used to make such excursions very often for foreigners. Now Kyiv has a much smaller amount of foreign guests. This time the way they speak about Maidan (Revolution of dignity) resonated with what I had in mind, this liberal pop-culture focus - here is the post of shitty journalist, here is this… No, No, I must republish my book about Maidan and this is one of the ideas I want to focus on in future writings.
I slept only a few hours, preparing my things, and early morning I left Kyiv. I stopped for coffee and a hot-dog on Klo station just after the Southern Bridge. This is a big gas station with not so many visitors (because Southern bridge is still semi-closed for most of the people). Nice view of the Dnipro river and the right bank - I see from there Lysa hora (bold mountain) and skyscrapers.
This time I don’t put my trip on Blablacar, I need to drive to one place before and anyway I have a lot of things with me. Before Kharkiv, I stopped at the OKKO station to drink free coffee and eat a free hot dog. At the end of Kharkiv city, I stopped once again at another Okko. It’s getting dark soon and for me, it seems that it might be my last stop at “civilization”.
In Kyiv one might have the feeling that there is no war, life is almost like before. With some differences. For example, curfew hour which starts at midnight, then the absence of flights. On the streets there are more expensive cars and more electric vehicles - this means that somehow a part of the people manage to earn good money and somehow the economy is keeping up or even growing. Kyiv is anyway big megapolis, and I have no doubts about its great future.
One of the French “petite bourgeois” wanted to meet, but not this time, I already left the city. I’m checking how is he doing, as I remember a few years before the full-scale invasion, he bought 2 apartments in Kyiv. Of I think he was lucky to find for 60K in the center, so now he responds: “If I sell my apartment one day, unless there is a catastroph, it will not be less than 100 K$”. Now he plans to rent it and in case of real estate, Kyiv was a very good location before the full-scale invasion but for some people it remains so now. For example in this case, the guy could sell it with a profit, but he doesn’t want and prefers to rent. A small chance that russian rocket will destroy it remains. Already now russians (or faggots as they are called here) activated their strikes on Ukrainian capital.
Fall is probably the perfect time for Kyiv, and this October and November were very warm. So if you were planning to visit - maybe it’s a good time now? The winter might be dark, cold, and not cozy. But while it’s still autumn - you might come.
And I will join you in your walks in Kyiv distantly, checking tons of photos that I accumulated during the last years. I will be selecting photos and writing more texts about Kyiv.
But will I ever see you again?..