Is St. Petersburg a great “Window to the West” as commonly thought? Architectural details within the city center underscore St. Petersburg’s fascination with the West, including several art nouveau buildings. Though such buildings tend to be scarce, they evoke a French or Parisian cosmopolitan mood. In Moscow too, one may […]
If you had asked me three years ago to assess Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region, I would have argued that the conflict had triggered a right-wing shift in the nation’s politics. If anything, military hostilities seemed to have eclipsed or overshadowed radical social change as called […]
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 […]
Aghast at the rise of Donald Trump and the slow disintegration of the European Union, many Ukrainians may certainly wonder about the legacy of Maidan. Foremost in the minds of many revolutionaries who sought to topple the unpopular government of Viktor Yanukovych was the overarching need to bring Ukraine into […]
On the third year anniversary of the Maidan revolution, I’m holed up in Kyiv’s decidedly retro, Soviet-era Ukraina hotel. Located just a stone’s throw away from Maidan square itself, Ukraina is linked to the revolt against former president Viktor Yanukovych, for it was here that snipers may have shot at […]
A few blocks from Kyiv’s bleak and imposing Stalinist-style Maidan square lies a nondescript alleyway. Passing through a gate, one arrives at Ukraine’s revolutionary café, Bar Baraban, which played a key role in protests resulting in the eventual toppling of the unpopular government of Viktor Yanukovych. Three years ago, as […]
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 […]
