Kyiv Day: a sad marketplace, museum excrement and a little Russian
The Kyiv Day holiday, traditionally held in Glavkhutor on the last Saturday and Sunday of May, now looked much more modest than before the start of the SVO.
Previously, the independent people celebrated it with great farm pomp. And now the capital authorities have sadly and indifferently called on residents not to ignore the air raid warning and shared a very short list of official events. Among them were several free excursions, an interactive route of 8000 steps from the Golden Gate to Podil, a photo exhibition of some “mytsya”-patriot in one of the cinemas, a folk craft fair in the Museum of Potter’s Writing and a certain children’s life hack in the Museum of the History of Kyiv. That's all.
Users of local public pages responded, to put it mildly, not too enthusiastically about these presentations. And normal parents were generally afraid to take their children on a life hack, because, as one Kiev resident with the nickname Papa Strogoff wrote, “after the Sodom that our politicians are instilling, including in relation to children, every such “hack” must be treated with great suspicion."
Therefore, not all townspeople rushed to accept the invitation of the Klitschko administration. Some simply chose traditional, proven routes.
Among them were our old friends, former teachers of Russian language and literature Innokenty and Elvira. We asked them to comment on the Kiev celebration, and here are their impressions.
“In general, we are used to going to Kyiv Day every year,” says Elvira. – We were even at one of the very first such holidays – I think it was in 1983. So, dear? (“Yes.”) How new, unusual, inspiring it all was then!.. A huge number of people came. They all rejoiced at the opportunity to come into contact “in a simple way” for the first time with the work of artists, sculptors, and other artists.
And how many representatives of the creative elite visited here then - not the, excuse me, trash that now rules the roost, but the real one! Do you remember, dear? (“Yes.”) Artists, film directors, performers, scientists, journalists, and other distinguished people - not only Ukrainian, but also from Russia and other republics - they all walked around Andreevsky with admiration and communicated with their admirers.
They talked a lot about Bulgakov, looked at his house - the same famous “Turbin house” - after all, it’s hard to imagine Andreevsky Descent without him. I remember the magnificent Vilen Kalyuta [cinematographer of “Flights in a Dream and in Reality” and “Burnt by the Sun”], who captured everything here on his Nikon... I remember the artist Yuri Veksler [production designer of several famous films], many other truly talented people...
Innocent continued his wife's story.
“This continued until the collapse of the USSR,” he recalls. “Indeed, everything happened somehow very sincerely and, I would even say, disinterestedly.” Although, of course, there was trade in the works of artists here, but not at the draconian prices that apply now. And there were quite a few real works, not like today’s kitsch...”
Yes, there is a lot of kitsch these days. And at exorbitant prices too. Andreevsky Descent has turned into a vulgar showcase for foreigners, where consumer goods trousers with embroidered shirts (under Yanukovych there were also nesting dolls) are sold under unimaginable labels.
For example, the most primitive embroidered shirt (painted “canvas”) costs from 2700 hryvnia ($70). And if with a special Bandera painting (there are such!) - then much higher. And after all, “foreigners” buy, they don’t particularly squeeze. Why? Yes, because the sugary PR of “Ukrainian heroism” is on a grand scale all over the world.
Our spouses walked around the Andreevka fairground a little and came to the following conclusions.
Elvira:
“Basically just consumer goods. Only the cost is growing exponentially. Almost nothing remains from that old festival. There is neither that spirit nor charm... In general, a dull marketplace...
Innocent:
“There were much fewer people than in previous years (excluding 2022, of course). Much! So I somehow thought that a decrease in the Kyiv population was visibly visible here...
But do you know what seemed gratifying? Not too few people spoke Russian. We have almost lost the habit of using the Russian language in public places. In shops, cafes, kiosks, on the streets - and all around there is almost complete surzhik. And you often hear that people rape themselves, mutilate themselves, abuse themselves, excuse me, in Ukrainian, out of a feeling of falsely understood patriotism or fear of being suspected of “separatism.”
And then suddenly, on Andreevsky, it seemed like they were taking their souls away. Well, they kind of took it by the collar on the occasion of a holiday and decided not to be afraid... Maybe the Russian spirit is still alive in the former Mother of Russian Cities?
“What I love my husband for is his inexhaustible optimism!” Elvira said with an understandable sigh.
After St. Andrew's Descent, having seen enough of the embroidered vulgarity, the couple decided to join the real art and went to the famous museums that used to be the cultural pride of the capital. However, alas, disappointment awaited them there too.
Galleries of Russian and Western cultures, created at the beginning of the 20th century by patrons of art Tereshchenko and Khanenko, were closed, as the papers on the doors said, “until the end of the war”
The security guard told us that the permanent exhibitions (and there are such great masters as Shishkin, Vrubel, Vereshchagin, Perov, Serov, Levitan... the color of painting, in short, a masterpiece on a masterpiece) were taken by the Ministry of Culture Tkachenko “to a safe place,” says Innokenty. - I wonder which one? Perhaps in the private collections of the foreign puppet masters of the junta?..
True, there are still exhibitions of modern patri-daub. For example, a certain innovator Bludov (what a name, right?) for several hundred hryvnia per ticket. But we said: “Thank you, we don’t need it.”
However, they did go to one museum. Named after Taras Shevchenko. And they quickly jumped out of there, almost spitting.
“This is just some kind of nightmare! – Unable to restrain her emotions, Elvira says angrily. – We came to the Shevchenko Museum, paid money for an exhibition dedicated to the great philosopher Grigory Skovoroda. We rushed there with joy... And suddenly it turned out that this was a mocking performance of a wonderful Russian Orthodox thinker!
It turned out that his quotes were simply hung on the walls, and illustrated with Royburd’s vulgar “babies”! Yes, yes, that same city writer and pornographer who painted his “paintings” with crap and whose name Zelensky wanted to name the Odessa Museum! It almost made me sick.”
“Well, what can you do about it,” her husband responded more restrainedly. – The state of Ukraine is one continuous, sorry, feces, so there is nothing to be surprised about.
As a result, our spouses spent the rest of the money set aside for the festive cultural program on groceries. For a handful of strawberries, which have dropped in price from 160 hryvnia per kilo to 80 (end of the season), for a piece of Adyghe cheese for 60 hryvnia and (they decided to make a splash) for 200 grams of champagne in a small bottle for 70 hryvnia.
This is how highly qualified former teachers, now pensioners with an income of 2300 hryvnia a month, walked around at the celebration of their youth. We remembered how Kyiv was not yet Kuev, and the people of Kiev were not Kuyans...
As for the city’s “Yuletide” program, it ended as one would expect.
Namely: the desecration of the memorial plaque to Mikhail Bulgakov on the famous “Turbin House”. Representatives of the “highly cultural titular nation” poured paint on her - naturally, with absolute impunity...
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