You're reading: Soccer-inspired art coming to Kyiv in time for summer

Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post’s weekly Euro 2012 page looks forward to the soccer tournament that Ukraine will co-host with Poland from June 8 to July 1. We will cover information for fans, visitors and people who live in Ukraine, including travel tips, interviews, coverage of the teams competing and information on preparations for the championship.

Stadiums and airports are not the only things that are being rushed in time for the Euro 2012 football championships that start June 8. Even street art in Kyiv is being hurried up for it.

Kostiantyn Skrytutskyi, a 30-year-old artist known for dozens of sculptures around the city center, is getting ready to unveil three new works. One of them will be a replica of a football goal marking the entry to the city on the way from Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport. Two others will be a symbolic sculpture of a giant hand on Khreschatyk Street and a musical fountain in the Poznyaky neighborhood.

The giant goal

The goal will be painted golden as an allusion to the famous Golden Gate of Kyiv that used to mark the main entrance into the city around the 11th century. In Russian and Ukrainian there is also a pun involved because the gate and the goal are the same word, vorota.

The goal will be set on Kharkivska Square, and will be 6 meters high and 15 meters wide, or roughly twice the regular size. It will also be decorated with mosaic.
“It’s meant to become a modern symbol of Kyiv,” explains Skrytutskyi. “In a few months a lot of football fans will visit our city. This new symbol has to be a recognizable and memorable one.”

He says he does not like most of the symbols of the upcoming championship, except stadium flowers. He says the rest look like a rushed job. Nor does he want to decorate his goal with any Euro-related symbols, hoping that his art will transcend the championship.

Fedir Balandin, his manager, says that the goal sculpture has already been approved by the city authorities. The design and modeling work that will be done by Skrytutskyi, will cost potential sponsors or city Hr 200,000.

The hand

The second sculpture in the works is a bronze hand at the corner of Khreschatyk and Prorizna streets, dedicated to those who resurrected Kyiv’s central street after it was effectively destroyed during World War II.

The monument, which is planned to open on May 27, will be 1.5 meters tall and 1.5 meters wide – the size designed for easy palm reading. Skrytutskyi said Khreschatyk will be the lifeline there, and other streets will be modeled as other lines, with geographical precision.
“Some recognizable buildings of the city will probably be modeled onto the hand as well,” explains the sculptor.

The project is worth Hr 300,000 according to Balandin, but the artist does not know how much of this money he will earn for designing and modeling the statue.
“I’m happy to have space for work. It’s very lucky. It’s a creative job, not business,” says the artist, who started years ago turning tree stumps into art works in the city center. His most famous work to date is probably the mosaic cats on Peyzazhna Alley, just off the landmark Andriyivskiy Uzviz.

The musical fountain

This year, Skrytutskyi will undertake his biggest project yet, an illuminated musical fountain that is to become the highlight of Poznyaky Park at the intersection of Hryhorenko and Dragomanova streets in a busy residential district on the left bank.
“Unlike other fountains that work for five-six months per year and get full of garbage after the water is turned off in winter, this project will please people all the year round – with water and without it,” he explains.

The project is a part of the Pozniaky Park reconstruction undertaken by the municipal authorities at a total cost of Hr 12.1 million, according to Darnitskiy Visnyk online paper.

The authorities held a competition among local school pupils to produce the best idea for the fountain. A sketch with two hands, one holding a heart and the other protecting it with an umbrella, won.

Skrytutskyi then worked the idea into a bigger project. Its central feature will now be an apple.
“There are thousands of monuments featuring the images of hearts or loving couples. I think it’s time to do something new,” he explains. “Actually, the apple was the initial reason for people to appear in this world.”

The fountain will be made in bronze, ceramics and mosaic. The apple will have several heart-shaped doors big enough to let in a human, with three bridges leading to the doors. The fountain will light up to music in the evening.

Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]