The Murals of Kyiv

After the Maidan Revolution and the Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, murals began appearing in Kyiv — many with a military theme, but by no means all. In the subsequent 11 years, artists from 28 countries have created over 140 murals all over Kyiv. You can find a detailed map and info on all of them here. Here is a selection that spoke to me as I was wandering the city.

This is my favourite mural in Kyiv, created by artist Kateryna Rudakova with support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A little girl holds up a drawing saying “Passport Ukraine I am a Citizen” in Ukrainian. See the hashtag #IBelong at top right. In the background we see the famous Swallow’s Nest clifftop castle in Yalta in the Crimea.

There are several ways to view this. In one sense, It draws attention to stateless refugees worldwide, who have no passports or other proof of citizenship, no home to go to.

More specifically, it draws attention to millions of Ukrainians trapped in Crimea and other occupied regions who have been forced to take Russian citizenship, and who can be summarily arrested and disappeared just for speaking Ukrainian on the street, their nationality entirely denied to them.

But it also draws attention to the mixed reception that refugees from the East have received. When refugees from the East fled in large numbers to Kyiv and western Ukraine, first in 2014 and then in much larger numbers in 2022, they were regarded with widespread suspicion by their Ukrainian-speaking hosts. “These refugees speak the language of our enemy, they know no Ukrainian at all, how can we trust them? They could be spies.”

The Russian Empire and the USSR suppressed and to a fair extent eradicated Ukrainian language and culture in the eastern regions. In the 1800s the Ukrainian language really only thrived in the West around Lviv, which was part of Poland or Austria for centuries until 1939. Western Ukraine was spared the pogroms, the Holodomor, and all the other prominent features of Russian-Soviet barbarism until the twilight of Stalin’s rule.

Post-independence, the result was a sharply linguistically divided country. In Lviv, everyone forgot the Russian they’d been forced to learn in post-war Soviet times, and speaking Russian would be met with blank stares. While until 2014, most Ukrainians in the East saw little reason to learn Ukrainian, with Russian being more useful across a wider area.

Western Ukraine was the home of the pro-Western parties that launched the Orange Revolution in 2004, while Easterners tended to vote for pro-Russian parties, having little connection to the EU but strong economic ties to Russia and often relatives there.

Kyiv was the dividing line, a bi-lingual city but most residents had a clear preference for one language or the other.

The ease with which Putin captured the ethnically Russian-majority Crimea and Donbas in 2014 stoked suspicion of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and Putin himself thought most would support his wider invasion in 2022. Instead, Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians have risen to the defence of Ukraine en masse, enduring exceptional hardships along the way.

The hostility (gratuitous document checks etc) toward Russian-speaking refugees in the West has died down, but western Ukrainians still resent how little effort some refugees make to learn Ukrainian. Children in school anywhere in Ukraine have to learn it because all instruction is in Ukrainian, but Ukrainian refugees in e.g. Poland are still speaking to their children in Russian.

Poem dedicated to soldiers leaving their homes and families to fight, called

FOR THE SAKE OF FREEDOM

And the day will end, and the sun will set,

Birds will fly and you will see it, whatever the weather

And your heart will beat faster, and you will say goodbye —

Ukraine

Volodymyr Manzhos’ famous “Victory” mural: a Ukrainian cossack (the haircut is a dead giveaway) gives a swift kick to the Russian bear.

A soldier in a field of wheat. Ukraine is a massive food exporter, mainly to the Middle East.

Putin initially assumed he could capture the port at Odessa (or at a minimum shut down traffic in and out of it), thereby starving Ukraine of foreign exchange.

Instead, Ukraine owns the Black Sea. Russia has had to abandon their main Black Sea naval base in Crimea (the protection of which was the original causus belli) and hole up far to the east.

This mural towering over the entrance to a pub honours the Healers.

At left, Swiss businessman Henri Dunant co-founded the International Red Cross in 1863 after witnessing the staggering suffering and lack of care at the battle of Solferino in 1859.

At right, Ukraine’s first responders.

BB King outside a popular pub

Most murals are painted on big side walls, but this one is tucked into an apartment entryway. You can see the intercom and buzzers at right.

Ukraine’s fighter pilots are vastly outnumbered, but they still take the fight to Russia.

This mural is called “The Rebirth”. It’s just a few doors down from Dream Hostel on Andriivsky Descent, the atmospheric 1,000-year-old street leading from the formerly walled medieval Old Town on the plateau down to the fashionable riverside Podil district.

This is your more run-of-the-mill “Whaa??” modern art. The talk balloon says “Do yu laik zis muvi?” (i.e. “Do you like this movie?” in English with a thick Slavic accent)

In a playground