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Living in Kiev: My First Three Months of Observations
Peter Santenello ^

Posted on 11/28/2018 8:40:32 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege

I came to Kyiv from Italy to visit some friends living here last summer. My intention was to spend a few days in the city, and then go on a long trip back to Rome, through Eastern Europe, via trains and buses. During those two weeks, I never left a two-mile radius in the old city.

While Rome and Italy felt stale, stuck in their ways, overly touristic, dying on the vine, and emotionally unstable, Kyiv showed signs of hope, strength and newness—like a strong flower poking through the hard dirt. There was a feeling of optimism in the youth—passionate energy firing into new restaurant concepts, into the coffees shops, into the craftspeople making everything from beautiful furniture to quality textiles. I felt Kyiv in the massive art installations in old buildings all over the city. I felt it in the sounds of a violin echoing off the concrete walls in the underground passageways...

I saw layers of stories beneath the rocks—of war, of blood, of euphoria, of joy, of architecture, of breakups, of love—each force never lasting long enough to create a one-dimensional identity, but long enough to make the city into what it is today.

...My good friend from San Francisco lives here. He hired six developers to help create his startup; there is no way he could have afforded to bootstrap this at home. Two other friends from San Francisco set up their sales and development team here because the workforce is good and the costs are low.

(Excerpt) Read more at petersantenello.com ...


TOPICS: Society; Travel
KEYWORDS: kiev; kyiv; startups; travel; ukraine
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To: reg45

A bunch of different spellings for the same place name.


Over in Central and East Europe they make reference books printing the names of each city in 4-5 languages. First time I was in Europe I didn’t understand what those book were about. Ha ha.


21 posted on 11/28/2018 4:36:57 PM PST by lodi90
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To: tlozo

Look but don’t touch. That type of Ukrainian bimbo goes to Dubai for the weekend. You don’t want to know what they do there.


22 posted on 11/28/2018 4:38:31 PM PST by lodi90
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To: tlozo

“They leave the West behind....”


23 posted on 11/28/2018 8:14:45 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: lodi90

Port-a-Potties, right?


24 posted on 11/28/2018 9:40:11 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Very interesting blog post. I really enjoyed it. Made me miss Europe.


25 posted on 11/28/2018 9:49:39 PM PST by Yaelle
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To: reg45

I remember Lemberg.


26 posted on 11/30/2018 7:55:18 AM PST by Lisbon1940 (No full-term Governors (at the time of election!)
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