MY PRESENT
When I returned home, I felt a very strong nostalgic feeling that made me take photos of things that seemed very familiar to me or associated with my home in Ukraine. For some of the photos, I specifically made annotations and wrote what exactly moved me about them and what made them special for me.
Artists: Harry Gruyaert
Software: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Procreate
CRITICAL LINK:
CONTACT SHEETS:
SNOWFALLL CITY
SELECTIONS:
VILLAGE IN THE CITY
PEOPLE AND THE BUS
METRO/ UNDERGROUND
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
ANNOTATIONS:
This is an example of an authentic Ukrainian hut in winter. Its main features are brick walls, a chimney, a roof with a wave shape, which is why large icicles form, which is so characteristic of a Ukrainian hut. Near each hut there is also an electric pole and a fence on which the house number and street name must be written.
In winter, various berry trees and bushes are very common. For example, rose hips(like on this photo), lingonberries, and viburnum, which is also a Ukrainian symbol of love and beauty.
You can often find rusty bus stations that don't even have a timetable, or sometimes it doesn't even say which bus is coming, but they often have advertisements and there's 1 bench under the curtain of the stop. Very often, when I was going to dance lessons after school, I had to sit at the bus stop to wait for the bus to arrive, but I always got out 30 minutes before the lesson started, even though I only needed 15 minutes to get there, because I never knew how long it would take for the bus to arrive. When you're waiting for the bus, wait for luck.
A hurried morning in a small rural area. Graffiti on houses and various phrases that can be found everywhere and there are a lot of them. Snow-covered stones that create a passage for cars so that no one parks near the house. A man who is in a hurry to work. That woman who comes out of a wooden fence and a wooden hut. Melted dirty snow that leaves stripes on the white and fluffy snow. A very authentic picture of the routine of Ukrainians
Often, looking out the school windows, I saw the cleaners and thought about what their lives were like. Do they like their job? And if not, why do they do it most of their lives?
Snow plows and just janitors are the best people in the world. It may sound funny, but I always thought so because their work is hard but they treat it responsibly. Unfortunately, very often in Ukraine, children are given the example of cleaners as people with poor education and simply unsuccessful people, which is actually not true because they do one of the most important jobs, which is to take care of our environment.
Illuminated advertising boxes, which often depict posters of various events, can only be found in the Ukrainian metro(underground).
There are a lot of escalators in Kyiv, but in the metro they have their own special significance, for example, the longest and the escalator has a length of 55.8 and 46.6 meters, that leads to the Arsenalna station. This metro station is the oldest station in Kyiv, operating since 1960, and the deepest in Europe, which is 105 meters deep.
The metro is a very important transport in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine (Kharkiv, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro). So each metro station has its own historical significance, like a museum. You can often find large mosaics, painted walls, various portraits and some historical events that are still added in honor of the soldiers in the war.
Usually the metro is blue and yellow, but sometimes you come across metros that are completely covered in graffiti or painted by professional artists, or old metros that have white and red colors (they are very rare).
The flag of Ukraine is a symbol of the sky and golden wheat on the ground. The coat of arms or trident depicted on the flag is a symbol of the indomitability of the Ukrainian people and the indomitable struggle for freedom.
Since war started, quite often people put Ukrainian flag on the roof of a building or just near the windows. It is a sign of patriotism, a way of showing respect to the soldiers who fight for the freedom of the people.
Everyone who died in the war is put up a small flag in the centre of Kyiv, at this moment there is a field of flags created there because of the large number of dead.
Small birdhouses and houses made by hand are a shelter for animals, because in Ukraine we have a problem of animals being thrown out into the street and no one takes care of them. So the residents of the houses build shelters not far from the apartment themselves and feed the homeless animals.
In schools, in art classes, boys were taught how to work with wood and were shown how to make small birdhouses by hand, so they can often be found on many trees.
In winter, as soon as it snowed, after school everyone would run to slide down the hills. Cardboard boxes, plastic bags, tires, and many other things were used in my childhood when we went with our friends to slide down the snowy hill.
After spending some time playing outside in snow my socks and pants were all wet, my hands and nose were red and numb, but it was worth the memories of a happy childhood .
It was interesting to see how after a snowy morning, various traces appeared in the evening on the snowy areas, such as bird tracks, long lines from sleds, tire patterns, various traces from human feet. Also seeing how trees and other plants made their way outside in search of the sun.
As a child, I really enjoyed being sleighed, not only because I didn't want to walk, but also because it was a journey. Sitting there, I listened to the crunch of snow under my mother's feet, the prickly frost that pierced and stung my cheeks and hands through thick gloves, the beautiful scenery, and sometimes the sound of the sleigh rubbing against the asphalt.
A shoe repair or cobbler's shop is a small shop among small streets that you can smell from far away due to of its unusual smell of oil and resin.
The small window that comes out of this store, where you can see all the collections of different heels, different oils and gels, a sewing machine, a zipper and heel pads and much more was something indescribable. Some old man probably works in such a store who has his hands full for 30 years of work but repairs shoes for his last penny.
A small grocery shop that can be found in almost every block near every house. Although it is widespread, but it is no less unique. Its peculiarity is that they sell and often have their own special products that will not be the same in other stores. Such as pies with potatoes or cabbage, chebureks with cheese or even waffle cakes. One of these shops sold the best chocolate cookies, which were sprinkled with powdered sugar on top and had a soft chocolate filling inside. It was moderately hard on the outside and moderately soft on the inside. I could take 5 of these after dancing classes and finish them all off on my way home.
All my 15 years I lived in similar buildings, which had an average of 10 floors, sometimes reaching 30 or even more. Near them were often located electrical units that supplied light to the houses in that block. What irritated me most was the sound that came from them, and more often they simply buzzed loudly.
But when the evening came, when the sun set and the white changed to yellow-orange windows, life in them became something magical and unique. This is something that you could watch for hours until night fell. And when night fell in Ukraine, you can almost always see a lot of stars in the sky or even a shooting star.
I was always scared to look at the sky through the boundless space in it and the realization of how small we are and how big the world is, however the stars were so unusually attractive that despite my fear, I still looked at them.