“Let’s go skating!”

Youth quickly builds goal posts from potential firewood and assembles a tennis table from random boards like a constructor. Here people play improvised chess or snowballs, do exercises or race one another, to warm up. Today’s Euromaidan is an improvised sports arena. The only difference between winter games in the Maidan from Sochi, where the Olympic Games will start on February 7, is that here sport is in its original form.

“In the world of my childhood there was more sport than today; now sport is a luxury for children. Because of the post-Soviet transformation the society has not recovered from its trauma, and many things remain distorted: the space around is exhausted and drained. Therefore we need to learn to equip our world. For when you get out of your house and see the crowded space around you; see that the entire service is pierced with kindness to people; when new-baked loafs and hot milk are sold in the ground floors of houses, there must be a skating rink nearby. So that children and adults could skate there. And everywhere, where there is snow, elevated music should be heard,” The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna writes in her traditional editorial column.

Read in the new issue of Route No. 1 what books Ukrainian champions read before the competitions, famous Ukrainian athlete Annamari Chundak’s recommendations for beginning snowboarders, and secrets of sport success from biathletes Vita and Valentyna Semyrenko. We prepared for you the list of the world’s best skating rinks and many other things.

Starting on February 7, you’re welcome to buy the new issue of Route No. 1 “Let’s go skating!” in news stalls or to order it on The Day’s website.