Kostiantyn Ryliov

“FIGHTING PLATITUDES UNITES OUR THEATER AND The Day” Among the guests crowding the exhibition hall one could easily notice the stooped figure of the Lesia Ukrainka Theater’s vividly intellectual chief stage director Mykhailo Reznykovych clad in a light-colored suit. A bright spot...

The Fourth Kyiv International Fair Knyzhkovy Sad-2004 (Book Garden 2004) opened at the Ukrainian Home with due pomp at 11 a.m. on May 19. With trumpets sounding, it was announced that Taras Shevchenko wrote his Kazemat (Dungeon) on this very day [in 1847]. Forty minutes were devoted to a discussion...

To actually hear each other, you have to be at the same level to have full contact, as they call it in the Oriental martial arts. Of course, not in the combat but peaceful meaning of the word. This problem pertains not only to kings and their subjects. Ordinary fans can face it as well. Then the...

On February 23 the nation’s best cartoonists flocked to Kyiv for a conference called Protection of Free Creative Work of Ukraine’s Cartoonists. As suggested by its title, the conference, although timed to coincide with Homeland Defenders’ Day, addressed ways to protect cartoonists (who are...

“Keep in step with the revolution! Enemy watching — proceed with caution!” (From Alexander Blok’s The Twelve. Trans. by Alex Miller) The assignment we were given on an alternative day at the third level of Narbokov’s health-building courses to impersonate characters we found most annoying....

“I splashed paint from a glass, Smearing daily routine...” (Vladimir Mayakovsky) Remembering Mark Twain, I might say that I have been both Prince and the Pauper, both personalities separated by more than one year. In fact, my Pauper was rather a poverty- stricken rebel, what they call...

In our times of endless social transformations, when some systems collapse and others replace them, when the ice has truly melted, it is very hard to maintain equilibrium. When ice began cracking underfoot, everybody began to look for something to hold onto. Judging by the results of the polls...

[Continued from previous issues] ON THE CHARM OF THE FRENCH FEMMES AND VERSAILLES FOUNTAINS Suppose we digress a bit from the tourist account. The male (and partially female) part of my Kyiv audiences keep pestering me with questions about the charms of French women. I will try to answer...

[Continued from previous issues] NIGHTTIME SPECTACLE The Eiffel Tower at night looked like a golden queen, solemnly growing larger as our boat approached. Some of the Ukrainian passengers had dozed off, tired by our bus travels, and could have missed the sight, but for our pushing and...

(Continued form No. 20 of June 18) Graffiti here and there appear on the walls of rectangular buildings. An eye-sore if too many, here, amidst the monotonous German landscape, they liven up the atmosphere with cartoon colors. We arrived at the giant Pergamon Museum. It is imperial grandeur...