You're reading: Lifestyle Blog: Faux street signs poke fun at Kyiv

Lost or not, Kyiv now has supplemental street signs that poke fun at local spots for events that happened nearby, their history or just their general reputation.

Take
Volodymyrsky Proyizd up the hill from Independence Square. A sign hangs there that
reads, “Public toilet. Everywhere” after the many Swedish fans who favored a
square nearby to urinate in plain view of the police during last summer’s
European football championship. The city administrator Oleksandr Popov had
expressly allowed it to accommodate the “European guests.”

Shevchenko Park
is marked with a “Kyiv Vodka Arena” sign in reference to the many people who
combine playing chess and backgammon with alcohol consumption.

Meanwhile, Khreschatyk
Street is dubbed “Fake Briotti Chestnut Alley” for the newly planted chestnut
trees that were supposed to have been brought in from Italy. But when the
trees’ flowers bloomed, their origin was betrayed, erupting in a public
procurement scandal.

WalkKyiv, a
group that says it aims to “fight boorishness with sarcasm,” has installed
about a dozen such street signs in recent days.

Its overloaded
website, www.walkkyiv.com, lists all
the street signs it’s installed around the city. The group’s Facebook page has already
garnered more than 3,000 likes.

WalkKyiv describes itself as the “hooligan guide to Kyiv.”

“It’s been a
while since I’ve seen such a brilliant idea that at the same time is not based
on denial or direct criticism. Hats off!” commented Oleksandr Reshniuk on
Facebook.

The man behind
the idea is Igor Skliarevsky. In 2011, he designed a new orientation system and
a full set of signs for Kyiv, but it was rejected by city authorities.

When asked to
describe some aspects of Kyiv’s boorishness, he
said the city has a number of urban design flaws like the white plastic
balconies installed on historical buildings along Saksahanskoho Street.

He
referred to the recent overhaul of Poshtova Ploshcha, which is supposed to
eliminate a crucial traffic bottleneck, but whose design catered to people who
use wheelchairs or bicycle riders.

Skliarevsky
added that he wants to show that official permission isn’t always needed to
change a city’s image. Some of the signs are actually easygoing. The one near
Teatralna metro station says “50s Disco. Babushkas
and dedushkas party. Every Saturday night,” in reference to the senior citizens
who gather to dance every week in the underpass.

He says WalkKyiv is actually a mix of two similar foreign projects: America’s Walk (Your City) and Russia’s Partizaning,org. Ihor Ponosov,
a member of the latter, is helping Skliarevsky install the signs with Kyiv
street artist Oleksander Kurmaz.

All the signs
are made of plastic and designed by Sklyarevskiy, each costing around Hr 50 to
make.

Skliarevsky’s
signs haven’t got him into much trouble yet. A police officer didn’t
particularly like the public toilet sign on Volodymyrsky Proyizd and demanded
its removal. However, Skliarevsky says the officer didn’t know how to legally
justify his claim, so the sign stayed where it was. Not for long, though.

“Signs don’t
damage the city property, they do not look like road signs and cannot mislead
drivers,” explained Skliarevsky.

While some
signs still stand, others have been removed. One that read, “Sharks, beware of
people,” in reference to a shark that was kept in a tank too small for it at
Ocean Plaza, vanished from the pillar in front of the mall in a matter of hours
after installation.

Kyiv Post intern Artem Babak can be
reached at [email protected].