The entire camp decided to attend a music festival in Kyiv over the weekend. There would be little to do here by myself and the team needed an extra van driver so I joined them. I visited the festival with the rest of the group on Saturday briefly, but spent most of my time sightseeing around Kyiv, taking advantage of having a couple of days to explore without many other commitments. I stayed in the same AirBnB that I used back when traveling from the states in 2025. It's in a quiet part of Kyiv not far from the central railway station, close to the international hotels where diplomats and other foreign VIPs stay so it's never been struck by the Russians. The first two nights were quiet as the weather was uncooperative for drone strikes, but as expected Sunday night was met with a massive attack. 582 drones and about 40 missiles launched by Russia. The explosions started around 12:30 AM. All of the activity was on the other side of the city from me, but the flashes from the blasts and rumbling of the explosions still woke me up several times.
It's difficult to describe to outsiders just what an amazing city Kyiv is. You really have to experience it in person. I'll try to highlight the things that strike me about it, as an American or compared to other big cities I've visited. Kyiv has a population of about 3.1 million and the greater metro area is just over 4 million. The first thing you notice is that the city is nearly spotless. There's just a conspicuous absence of litter. In 2+ days of exploring on foot or electric scooter, I saw exactly one McDonald's wrapper. Even vacant lots and empty spaces are clean. It's not because someone is coming through daily to clean up the mess, it just doesn't occur to Ukrainians to throw their crap on the ground or out of their car windows. It's not even common to see cigarette butts on the street, which is surprising considering it seems everyone in eastern Europe smokes.
Another thing you notice is the variety. There are parks everywhere. Tiny sidewalk cafes mixed in with mid-rise buildings and modern high-rise structures. Karaoke joints and pharmacies mixed in with restaurants and apartments. Most importantly, people live everywhere in the city. There's almost no area you can find where there isn't housing mixed in with whatever else is going on in the area. There isn't the kind of segregation where one area is commercial, another is retail, another is industrial. Housing is woven into the fabric of the city and coexists with everything else. A 16th century cathedral like St. Sophia's or St. Volodymr's will be across the street from mid-rise buildings from the 18th century holding apartments and flats of housing stock.
I saw exactly one person panhandling in two days, and just one other individual that seemed to be having mental health problems. You get the sense the rest are being taken care of and not dumped on the street to fend for themselves.
The city is also incredibly easy to get around on. Soviet-era electric trams still run along trolley rails alongside upgraded modern ones with A/C and WiFi. They'll take you across the city for $1-$2. A Bolt (like Uber) will pick you up in minutes and take you to just about any destination in the city for $5-$10. There's electric scooters you can rent for 10 cents per minute and ride them to wherever you're going. All the major thoroughfares have pedestrian tunnels for crossing underneath - they double as air raid shelters. Some of these pedestrian tunnels are filled with stores like flower shops and convenience stores. Another thing you notice is that women seem comfortable walking around the city at night by themselves, seemingly without fear of being assaulted or annoyed.
The music festival we visited was held on the campus of an historic Ukrainian film studio campus. Our NGO group was there on Saturday and Sunday along with thousands of other Ukrainians music fans. The festival ended Sunday night around 11PM. At 1AM the campus was struck by multiple ballistic missile. Two smaller studio spaces were burned down but the greatest loss was that the costume archive containing over 100,000 pieces of period Ukrainian clothing going back to the 17th century was destroyed. The area had nothing of military significance, the point was just to erase another part of Ukrainian history and culture. Many of these artifacts were kept hidden and preserved throughout the years of the Stalinist purges and erasure of Ukrainian identity, but wouldn't survive Vladimir Putin.
While my neighborhood was quiet, the rest of our group had to flee their lodging arrangements and try to sleep in the Metro tunnels. Having been partying all weekend they were already tired and hung over before being kept up all night by bomb blasts. Since I slept better I drove around Kyiv collecting them, watching the people of Kyiv clean up the broken glass, sweep away the ashes, and get on with their lives. The rest of the camp fell asleep in the van while I drove them the two hours back to Anysiv.
Russia's economy, its society, and its culture is all headed for collapse. Do not mourn its passing. It belongs on the same rubbish heap of history as the third reich.