The death of a city (Kiev)

Kiev’s historic Podil neighborhood (Image: Max Pixel)

I was not expecting to feel this impending catastrophe quite so keenly.

Watching the live coverage coming from the streets, it’s easy to see that the Kiev of today is very different from the dusty, glumly Soviet city I visited for a few days in the summer of 1978. (I’ve written a longer piece about that trip here.) But the scenes call up some ghosts for me.