Even as war rages in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Kyiv, commuters may take in the sight of supposedly bucolic Ukrainian life at Kievskaya, a Soviet-era metro stop in Moscow.
Tag Archives: Ukraine
Discarded and left for gone, relics of the Soviet past find their way to St. Petersburg’s Udelnaya flea market. Kyiv’s flea market is located near the old Moscow Avenue, though the street has now been renamed in honor of controversial Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. Old Soviet relics here are […]
Peeking out from modern day St. Petersburg and Kyiv are old-style markets which both have a distinctively ethnic flair. In Kyiv, the historic Bessarabsky market houses many local food vendors.
Could Ukraine’s secessionist war actually encourage more gender equality? Following my first trip to Kyiv almost three years ago, I would have been skeptical of such views. During interviews, political activists on Ukraine’s independent left circuit expressed dismay over sexism during the Maidan revolution which toppled the unpopular, pro-Kremlin government […]
Nearly three years ago, the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa looked as if it might succumb to a downward spiral of ethnic hatred and violent strife. The trouble all started when pro-Ukrainian demonstrators and local soccer fans were attacked by armed separatists. It’s unclear who was behind the attack […]
I have always had a romantic fixation on the Black Sea port of Odessa, home to swashbuckling thieves, miscreants and all manner of shady and colorful characters. In the early twentieth century, iconic native son Isaac Babel memorialized the city’s Jewish ghetto, known as Moldavanka or the “Moldovan girl.” In […]
While many Ukrainian politicians and political activists alike have embraced pointed views on their country’s thorny and controversial World War II past, relatively few may claim direct personal experience of the Holocaust. Abraham Kristein, however, is the rare exception of someone who not only witnessed horrific wartime atrocities in Soviet […]
Amid increasing hostilities in Ukraine, many of the social aims of the Maidan revolution could be lost or simply forgotten. That, at least, is the impression I got from speaking to activists on the independent left circuit, not to be confused with the old Soviet and authoritarian left. During my […]
To the extent that the mainstream media cover Ukraine at all, they tend to frame Kiev’s conflict with Kremlin-backed Russian separatists as a zero-sum game pitting Vladimir Putin against the U.S. and its Western allies. Yet beneath all the wonky geopolitical chatter, Ukraine’s independent left — which must be distinguished […]
Even as the conflict with Russian-backed separatists smolders, Kiev has ratcheted up a no less ferocious public relations war. Hoping to bolster its case against Moscow, Ukraine as well as the country’s foreign Diaspora have zeroed in on the so-called Holodomor or Stalinist-induced famine of 1932-33. In an effort to […]
