It is time for those who brag about knowing Kyiv perfectly to check their knowledge using "Awesome Kyiv," the recently published English-language guide to the city. Chances are good that its pages will be full of surprises.
Published by Osnovy publishing house in 2015, “Awesome Kyiv” offers a selection of the most notable places, things, monuments, and personalities of Kyiv – both modern and historical.
The paperback book has chestnut leaves, one of the symbols of the city, on its cover. The book opens up with a picture of the Molotov cocktail bottle, a weapon of choice of the anti-government protesters that pursued the EuroMaidan Revolution. Offered without a story to go with it, the picture leaves space for personal associations.
“Awesome Kyiv” is divided in the themed sections, including culture, food, sports, and more. In each of them, the chapters are a mix of profiles, historic stories, and locations related to the theme.
The book continues with a history section that mixes facts with legends when telling of the early times of Kyiv. Some stories remind of the tragic times of the city, like massacre in Babyn Yar during the World War II. Another section, devoted to culture, features the stories of the famous Kyiv-born artists, architects, scientists, philanthropists, ballet geniuses, and gymnasts, many of whom opted to leave the city and the country, seeking bigger fame, like ballet dancer Serhiy Lyfar.
The peculiarity of the book is the way it combines history and modernity, covering everything from the founding of Kyiv to the popular modern band Dakh Daughters.
But there is one key thing missing here – a map. Also, there are no addresses of the mentioned places, and the chapters about museums don’t include prices and working hours – it is up to the readers to find the details they require. For writing it down one might use the blank pages at the end of the book.
But while lacking some important details, the book can be an interesting read for those looking to discover new places and facts that were left behind by the classic guidebooks.
We picked five remarkable and little-known facts from the pages of the “Awesome Kyiv”:
Vladyslav Horodetskyi, famous Kyiv architect, who built House with Chimaeras at Bankowa St. is known as “the Kyiv’s Gaudi”. To some, his most famous creation looks similar to the Antoni Gaudi’s buildings in Barcelona.
The first documentary sound-film in Soviet Union was produced by the Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kyiv and had a name that reads as symbolic now – “Symphony of Donbas.”
Sometimes the line at Kyiv Perepichka, an iconic street food venue that’s been on sale in central Kyiv since 1981, gets so long that it takes up to 20 minutes to get the much wanted perepichka – a hot dog in a greasy bun.
Mother Motherland, a massive statue of a female warrior with a nine-ton sword and a 13-ton shield was originally planned to be covered with gold, but the Soviet authorities later opted for much cheaper steel. The “Awesome Kyiv” hints that it is not a coincidence that the warrior faces the direction of Moscow.
Some of the Kyiv metro stations are impressively deep, but Arsenalna beats them all. It takes five minutes to get from the ground to the trains on its escalators.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliana Romanyshyn can be reached at [email protected].
