Beauty without sacrifices: 4 things that struck me in Kiev

I haven’t been to Kyiv for two and a half years—the longest period since I moved to the USA. Of course, I need to come home more often, but my long absence gave me the opportunity to look at things with fresh eyes that I might not have noticed otherwise.

Фото: Depositphotos

Here's the hit parade of change (or lack thereof), in my purely subjective opinion.

Housing reform

On the route from my home in the USA to my parents' house in Kyiv, the least pleasant stage for me until my last visit was the last one - a ride in the elevator of a multi-story building to the floor where my parents' apartment is located. The elevators were constantly stuck—in the last years of my life in Kyiv, I had the emergency service number in speed dial on my phone—and the freight elevator refused to carry me at all without suitcases. He simply “didn’t see” a person lighter than 60 kg.

Walking up to the fourteenth floor doesn't really look like much either. The house smelled of garbage disposal and human waste products. Next to the house there are the remains of a children's playground with used syringes in a sandbox, which not only is the child's mother playing in, but the man won't let his cat go to the toilet.

This time a completely different picture appeared before my eyes. New playground. A clean staircase, in which the garbage chute was closed, and residents take out the garbage into the tanks in the yard.

Photo: Tatyana Vorozhko for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America

Concierge room, new windows and doors in common areas.

The main thing is two new elevators, both of which are capable of carrying small passengers like me. New mailboxes and a furnished room for the head of the house.

And the most interesting thing is that a cooperative of residents opened a bomb shelter, cleaned it out, found a tenant for a cafe, and, in addition to him, is equipping there, in addition to him, rooms for common use - a children's room, for guests and separately for mothers. We've already installed water and electricity. Lawyer of the residents' cooperative Sergei Kunenko says that this territory will continue to play the role of a bomb shelter - repairs are being carried out in accordance with the requirements for premises of this profile. For example, this basement room has no interior doors.

Photo: Tatyana Vorozhko for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America

Well, a beautiful painting on the wall. Mom says that the best in Kiev.

Beauty without sacrifice

I really liked modern Kiev women's fashion. In all that time, I probably saw less than a dozen women in high heels. The vast majority wear sneakers, ballet shoes, moccasins, sneakers and other comfortable, predominantly sports shoes with flat soles. Even in combination with dresses. I also almost never met Kiev residents or guests of the capital in very tight skirts and heavy makeup. Many women do not use any cosmetics, but still have a well-groomed, fashionable and very European look.

Photo: Tatyana Vorozhko for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America

I started my stay in Kyiv by shopping in Ukrainian clothing stores and am very pleased with the new clothes - let Washington fashionistas envy my high-quality and stylish things Made in Ukraine.

True, jeans with a clasp from navel to tailbone, which I saw on several girls, seemed to me to be trash.

Kindergarten in Tsarskoye Selo

My friend and I, who rents a house in Tsarskoe Selo, went to pick up her child at the Skazka state kindergarten on Lesi Ukrainki Boulevard. Wonderful, well-organized children's playground in front of the building. The interior is in good repair. The corridors even have a glamorous look. Large, clean rooms - separate playroom and bedroom in each group. There are cribs that you rarely see in the United States - where children sleep in their clothes on mattresses that are spread on the floor.

Photo: Tatyana Vorozhko for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America

Of course, this is a kindergarten in a prestigious area and it is not free at all - parents pay a minimum extra for food. But we also live in a prestigious area

Photo: Tatyana Vorozhko for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America

in the vicinity of Washington, and for the nursery and kindergarten gave almost half of one salary. I think if you compare all aspects of Ukrainian and American gardens, there will be certain advantages in children's institutions in the United States. But this Kiev definitely looks prettier than those that we saw near Washington. And in Kiev there are gardens with swimming pools.

Photo: Tatyana Vorozhko for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America

A friend whose eldest child went to kindergarten in the USA, and whose youngest child went to kindergarten in Ukraine, is very pleased with him. She says that her daughter runs to kindergarten with joy, eats well, and even studies foreign languages ​​at a school nearby (for a fee). And the woman especially likes how carefully the nannies and teachers treat her own career and are not indignant when she picks up the child late.

“In the US, I would have been fined several times and kicked out a long time ago,” she says.

Spontaneous parking anywhere

Well, a little negative. Kyiv is a city where cars, public transport and pedestrians do not get along with each other. At least there is clearly no place for some of them.

Cars are parked in the middle of the road, turning two-way streets into one-way streets, parking with one wheel on the sidewalk and the other on the roadway, and abandoning cars in the least expected places.

At first, I assumed that this was due to the lack of paid parking lots, which I was so used to in Washington. But friends say that they exist, including several underground ones, but drivers prefer to leave their cars even where there is a risk that a tow truck will pick them up, instead of paying 20 hryvnia per hour.

Changes in this issue, as I learned in Kiev, I can see when I come to Ukraine next time. In September, a law passed by the Verkhovna Rada will be enforced, tightening the responsibility of drivers for parking in unauthorized places. We'll see.

The original column is published on the website. Ukrainian service “Voice of America”.

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