Kyiv Is an Artist's City

After awhile, life overseas with a family becomes just as busy (or maybe even more busy) than life at home in the U.S.  There are work obligations, outings with friends, service opportunities, organization events, hellos and goodbyes and networking events with colleagues.  There are birthdays and sleep overs and play dates.  There are dinners and adventures and tragedies.  There are chores and surprises and errands.  In short, life happens.  I hate the idea that this incredibly rich and beautiful and chaotic life is passing in a whirlwind without any documentation , but honestly, there's just not enough time to live it and document it (actually, we've got lots of pictures, they just exist in a digital jumble waiting to be sorted and shared!).  But tonight I find myself with a few spare moments, so I decided to let the dishes sit unwashed (it's Darling Daughter's chore now anyway) and capture a bit of the city we live in and the morning we experienced.

But first I'll back up a little.  Yesterday was a crazy mess of kids' performances at school, work events late after work, a futsal tournament for Young Man, and a scout canoe trip put together by My Man.  I finally got to sleep around midnight after all the logistics were sorted.  Young Man and a friend headed out to intercept and join the scouts early this morning and then Darling Daughter, Funny Guy, and I set out to join a Kyiv City Mural Tour my office at work had arranged.  The day was perfect--sunshiney warm with a soft cool breeze.  This is really Kyiv at its best.

Our guide met us at Golden Gate metro stop and we walked through streets we don't generally see and learned about the beautiful (and fairly recent) tradition of giant street murals in Kyiv.  Before the Maidan revolution, city bureaucracy made it difficult for artists to receive permission to paint.  Now, however, with new construction and a more empathetic government, artists are more likely to be granted an apartment or office building wall to showcase their talents and message to the world.  In just two hours of leisurely rambling, we saw a bunch of murals, varying in artistic merit, only scratching the surface of the amazing street art Kyiv has to offer.

I loved how the kids saw the graffiti as artwork in its own way, how the joy of running around and playing outside with friends was as exciting as any of it.  I loved our tour guide's passion and the stories behind each picture.  I loved spending time walking slowly and seeing the buildings, the flowers, the colors.  It was a beautiful snapshot of our wonderful, chaotic life here in Kyiv.

PS  Check out Funny Guy's awesome geography project he brought home yesterday:

PPS  I wrote this in June.  It's now November.  :D  Just took a few months to put the pictures to the words.