Soul of the city: Kiev, Ukraine

It took me two weeks to work out what was wrong with Kiev and that’s because, on the surface of it, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it at all. Eventually I came to realise that all was not as it should be. Strolling its boulevards and broad streets, the European will feel at home amongst the grand 19th century architecture, after all this was an era when Tsarist Russia was so enamoured by life to their west that French was…

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The dictator has just left the building

A visit to the house of Ukraine’s former president Yanukovych With the success of the Maidan square protests in Feb 2014, President Yanukovych beat a hasty retreat to friendlier pastures with the aid of a Russian helicopter from his property on the outskirts of Kiev (or Kyiv as the Ukrainians would prefer to the russianised version we are familiar with). The citizens of Kyiv immediately jumped at the opportunity to find out for themselves if the rumours of the opulence…

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