Walking Kyiv Streets with Larysa Skoryk
The reason The Day met with Larysa Skoryk, deputy chairman of the Society for the Preservation of Monuments and Cultural Sites, was St. Sophia Square, rather the fact that it had once again been “rejuvenated.” They have made it more “green”. A recent television program featured a cognac distillery and a separate scene showed how meticulously they made the barrels to contain the elite drink. What people have seen on St. Sophia Sq. are semifinished barrels serving as “pots” for trees looking sick, reminding one of Karelian birches.
When invited to take a look, Ms. Skoryk enthusiastically agreed; she hadn’t seen the new architectural “masterpiece” as yet...
ST. SOPHIA SQUARE’S NIGHTMARE
“Oh, my God! Mamma mia! I haven’t seen anything like that. The most frightening thing is that all they are building now is compilation, from beginning to end. Mr. Kukharenko is charming us with the authenticity of the environment. Good Heavens, it’s atrocious! A backwater provincial tavern with a couple of barrels displayed by the entrance. I thought that those horrible chains were the worst one could conceive. Kukharenko (of the municipal Department for the Preservation of Historical Monuments — Ed.) said at the time, ‘We’ll restore the square, make it look the way it had been a long time ago.’ I remember saying that they ought to see old photographs, showing precisely the way it had looked. The place had been practically empty, a handful of small houses. An altogether different environment, nothing of what we have here today. And they installed small cast iron posts linked with chains. It’s not bad taste, it’s a nightmare! But the barrels are the worst. Perhaps another allusion to our ethnic roots. A reminder of the coopers. Indeed, we already had Potters, Tar-burners, and Tanners. Now we have Coopers. One might as well call the place Bondarsky Maidan — Cooper Square. Just look at these poor cachectic trees! I say it’s a grave disease, gentlemen. The way the place was modified is so tragic, every moment in its history bespeaks a tragic consequence. Until they decided to turn it into a promenade, the place had a magic romantic aura. The whole longitudinal public square was buried in greenery, very intimate. Indeed, there were truly intellectual people involved, like Borys Likar and several others who prevented the felling of all trees. Still, the main green parterre was destroyed. I say parterre, meaning not only big trees, but also small ones, especially bushes, for they make an ornamental landscape complete. Even after they cut down some of the parterre the remaining composition wasn’t bad. But what they did to Bohdan Khmelnytsky Square is a hangover of the ugly Stalinist period, maybe even the tsarist-gendarme one when every city had to have a parade ground. It had to be vast and empty, allowing for a good range of fire and total exposure. Whenever I see Shevchenko Park these days I feel that it was restored relying precisely on that no-place-to-hide principle. And the public lavatory catches your eye immediately, like Noah’s Ark, it is so obvious. And it used to be kept discretely in the background, so no one could see anyone walk in and out. Now the main structure is not the Shevchenko statue but the Taras Restaurant and it seems to grow before your very eyes. Once a small pavilion in the bushes, now it is what it is. There was a similar ‘Brezhnev transition’ period in Western Ukraine when all residents whose courtyards faced the main highway were forced to replace solid fences with wire mesh ones. Moreover, no bushes were allowed to be planted in front of them, lest some insurgents hide there with guns ready. We are repeating our history. When I look at the beautiful Dnipro slopes I have the same impression. Of course, I agree that they had to be tidied up, but that didn’t mean destroying all the greenery. Precisely what they did in Independence and Khmelnytsky squares, so that the historic center of the city is turning into a concrete jungle. And now we have those barrels with withering trees. Now I know why they became popularly known as the new “Kyiv palm variety.”
“Talking of the protection of monuments, someone sawed off Khmelnytsky’s plumes. Right in the center of the city!”
“I seem to have heard something like that, but I’m not sure. I know that they vandalized the Cossack Mamai statue, I mean the bottle. Thank God, the Monuments Protection with their pseudo-authenticity and Kukharenko with his restoration projects didn’t destroy everything. Now they propose to transfer the mayor’s office from Khreshchatyk to a new building in Podil. It’s true that Podil had once been subject to the Magdeburger Recht, so there could be some sort of connection, but transferring the mayor’s office to the Hesse House that was never built makes no sense. That architectural complex has never existed, except for just one building. Fortunately, when maiming St. Sophia Square, they never thought of restoring it the way tsarist Russia had once wanted to see the Khmelnytsky statue. That project included a ‘cursed Jew’ being trampled on by Khmelnytsky’s horse and the whole thing was part of a ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’ long since worked out by the tsarist secret police. The composition included quite a number of other figures. I am surprised Mr. Kukharenko did not insist on restoring any of that. Just picture Ukraine’s international image if he did and had it his way! I mean I’m not really surprised by all those barrels, ‘Kyiv palms,’ and chains. Actually, I need a huge barrel for a production at the Bravo Theater, so perhaps Mr. Kukharenko will be kind enough to lend me one?
ERSATZ IS ERSATZ
Standing in front of the Khmelnytsky statue, one has to turn one’s head to see St. Michael’s Cathedral. Some consider it a national symbol of Ukraine. Larysa Skoryk does not think so.
“What is there to say about a kitsch such as St. Michael’s Cathedral? I think that experts will voice their opinion about this ‘creation’ one of these days. Les Poderviansky [popular Ukrainian writer and artist — Ed.] and a Frenchman visited the Lavra recently. He looked at the Dormition Cathedral against the background of the aristocratic Kovnir buildings, white against white, as a most refined needlework. (They painted St. Michael’s blue like a Ukrainian village home, although every cathedral was considered a ‘white swan’ in Ukraine). The French guest said the restored Dormition Cathedral with its rich gilding and decor reminded him of an Arab bed. If you look at St. Michael’s bell tower’s third tier, you’ll notice white pilasters and bas relief against a blue background. Not true. It’s just paint, an optical illusion. Well, we’ve always been good at telling lies. Now for the shape of the domes. It is noble and smooth at St. Sophia’s and rigidly wrong at St. Michael’s. Anyone more or less familiar with Ukrainian sacral architecture, or just sensitive to aesthetics, will say it’s kitsch. Very expensive but a far cry from the original. What they did was not restoration but a very crude falsification of our historical culture. The only gem preserved to this day is St. Michael’s refectory. Authentic and so very beautiful, spared by total destruction and professionally restored in the 1980s. All the charms are there, even with wood shingles the way it had been centuries ago. These are reminiscences that a modern good architect can use in compositions in the most powerful 21st century. Wood shingle is very good and durable, lasting 50 years. Gold leaf is much weaker. So what do we have? For almost eight years we have fought the idiotic idea of covering the roof with copper and gilding the cupola, because the original architecture is serene and without any gold embellishments. But tinsel and gilding spell very good money.
“The Church of the Nativity on Poshtova Ploshcha [Post Office Sq.] is another example of such fake restoration. One thing I want to know is, what are its foundations? There is a Metro line. The church is known to have accommodated the coffin with Shevchenko’s remains for just one night, on its way to Kaniv. It has no aesthetic value. There were plenty of such structures in Kyiv in the late 19th century. I asked why restore it, why not install an aesthetic memorial plaque, maybe a stele commemorating May 20-22, 1831, in a modern aesthetic chapel? The authentic remains of the Golden Gate are perishing, they must be saved in the first place. But that church on Post Office Sq. is sheer nonsense. If it were a real masterpiece that had to be restored — but masterpieces are not restored; they are created once and then it’s just copying and using plaster cast.’
“All right, suppose we leave the barrels and go see those “eggs.”
“FOR TREES WITHOUT ROOTS”
We went down to see another architectural “masterpiece” by a bank on Voznesensky Uzviz St. It is a new subspecies of the flowerbed family. Larysa Skoryk gently calls them “little eggs.” Indeed, what we saw, turning a corner, looked like eggcups.
“These eggcup flowerbeds are all over Kyiv. I was told that the monuments preservation department is responsible. They must think that the stuff is the best attribute of the historic environment. You find most of them around banks. Maybe a bank requisite? I call it obscene. As for ornamental greenery, I believe a motto like FOR TREES WITHOUT ROOTS! would be most relevant, because it’s the only way trees can live in Kyiv today.”
“The newly planted trees near Metrograd do not seem to grow.”
“Of course they don’t. How can they? There is nowhere to strike roots.”
“How do they solve the problem in the West?”
“In historic cities such as Rome, which is as densely built up as Lviv, every square inch within the fortified area was very expensive; people could not lay out parks, but they could plant something in their patios, they built an atria, although this practice was not characteristic of North or Central Europe. However, they always tried to put as much greenery on their patios as they could. In modern Rome, you see trees in solid and beautiful stone molds for roots — species that are well adapted to the climate and do not have thick and long roots. These trees compliment small public gardens. Nothing like our ‘Kyiv palms.’ Their balconies and terraces are also kept green and artistic. This luxurious facade of ornamental greenery makes up for the lack of it down in the street.”
(To be continued)
