Kyiv Days for the End of May Celebrations on 24-25 May

Daftar Isi [Tutup]
    The city’s annual holiday, when it pays tribute to its fine self, is coming up. Here’s what to do during one of springtime’s finest celebrations.
    This year Kyiv Day in effect started early with the big multimedia Gogolfest event and will finish up on Sunday, 25 May (just in time for the mayoral elections). After casting their ballots Kyivans can take their foreign friends to Mystetsky Arsenal to check out the Electro-acoustics project that’s playing there. The project unites musicians representing various diverse trends in modern electronic music and each year there’s a different mix of talent. Electro-acoustics was founded in 2003, when the Kyiv audience heard them play in collaboration with a number of French composers.

    This year Electro-acoustics is doing a show heavy on improvisation and the fine cellist Vladyslav Makarov will be up there on stage with them. Those with thin blood might want to bring a sweater, as the Arsenal can be rather chilly well into the summer. ‘A Book is a Weapon’ – if you agree with that sentiment, visit the Kyiv Forum of Publishers on 22-25 May. The forum is using that line as a slogan. This is the first time that Kyiv has hosted the International Forum of Publishers, where modern literature fans can take a look at over 100,000 new books. There are public readings, musical performances, and literature and jazz evenings as well as roundtable discussions with cultured types like the editors of literary magazines. The Forum will take place at the Lavra Gallery and the Honchar Museum. In addition, publishers will sell their products at a discount right on Khreschatyk, which will be closed to traffic. If you like being out in the open and you’ve got a kid, head for the Pyrohovo Open-air Museum, which on 24 May will host a kite festival, for the sixth year. Numerous kites will be flying above the collection of old rustic buildings that make up the Museum – at least if the weather is nice.
    Climbing up the Wall
    On the same day, near the Druzhby Narodiv arch off European Square, there will be an international wall-climbing tournament, with rock-climbing aficionados scurrying up a facsimile of a cliff face. Spivoche Pole near the Lavra will host the Songs Near the Dnipro choir festival on 24-25 May. So if you’re into folk songs performed by talented amateur groups, this is where you want to be. If singing isn’t quite your thing but fishing is, Hydropark will host a fishing championship over the course of the same two days. What else is going on? On Maidan Nezalezhnosti on 24 May there will be a bicycle festival, which on 25 May will move to 1 Blakytna Vul. And the Run Under the Chestnuts footrace will take place on the morning of 25 May. Anyone can join! Needless to say, 25 May at 19.00 will witness the traditional free concert on Maidan. The list of performers is a secret, so as to surprise everyone. Don’t forget about the free ice cream being given out at the city zoo and the prolonged working hours for public transport, so that everyone can get home after the late-night celebrations. This year the city administration seems to be putting a little more effort into the Kyiv Days celebrations than usual. There are suspicions that the authorities are just trying to ingratiate themselves with the electorate on the occasion of the 25 May elections, and there have been complaints that budget money is being frittered away on idle entertainments. Whatever – if the weather holds, it should be a good party, and at least this year there will likely be no spectre of political violence hanging over Kyiv Days, as there was last year, what with President Yushchenko mobilising interior ministry troops in his battle with the prosecutor general. One unpleasant point is that Kyiv Day corresponds with the beginning of the water cut-off season. Starting 26 May inhabitants of Podil, Svyatoshynsky, and Shevchenkivsky regions will wake up to find that they’ve got no hot water for the next two weeks, as the city starts its yearly mysterious maintenance rituals.. Check the times of Kyiv Days events at day.kmd.gov.ua, and don’t drink too much!
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