Category Archives: Mostly Tourism

Ukraine’s National Museum of Art

A beautiful but decrepit building in the center of Kyiv holds this fantastic art. Visiting was great for my soul. I’m reminded that I’m part of a long story. It makes me anxious for professional success, so that I can go back to writing.

(click image for high-resolution version)


Kozak Mamay, singing about the great kingdom which used to be here . . . before the Mongolian apocalypse. We were kings.


In the background is the Podil region of Kyiv. We used to live there.


A portrait of Repin — he’s the artists who painted many scenes of Ukrainian life, include Ukraine’s most famous painting Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks


“Taras Bulba”


“A Victim of Fantaticism”


I love this picture. Look at the warm lights in the village homes.


Bohdan Khmelnytsky enters Kyiv


Appropriate facial expressions for communist art. Appropriately pathetic meal too.


We recognized this right away. It is an old picture from the park near our home.


Lower pictures is a Jacques Hnizdovsky (the diaspora’s most famous artist)


Tallinn


The museum was conducting a survey about some artist’s work which had been destroyed at the nearby Arsenal Museum. One of the questions is whether the Arsenal Museum should be boycotted.

Ukraine’s red and black flag

While most national flags represent lofty concepts like fraternity, courage, patriotism, etc, Ukraine’s blue over yellow flag, perhaps reflective of our demeanor, is simply the sky over fields of wheat.

So we need something more serious when the shit hits the fan.

The red and black flag is an old Kozak flag representing blood on the earth. It was also used by Ukrainian partisans during WWII who fought both the Nazi and Soviet Armies, and resisted the Soviets into the mid 1950s.