Life brought me to Dnipro, just for a few hours, but I want to share the impression with my readers. I've been to Dnipro several times before, but the period when I had enough time to walk around was many many years ago.
Here is the building which was recently on the top news after one of the russian missile attacks. I wasn't planning to visit it, I was passing by in a car.
But then I decided to stop, to take more photos. Sooner or later all russian crimes should be paid.. including this one.
It looks like the people's life was cut off. The ordinary life of ordinary people of Ukraine. Who became the victims only because they are Ukrainian. Probably the vast majority of the citizens of this building spoke russian in their daily life because Dnipro as a city was more russian-speaking. But "russian world" came to "defend" them, to defend them from their freedom, to enslave them and kills them, slower or faster. Where russian world comes - there is no culture or prosperity, only destruction, and death...
Then I had some time to visit the city center. I put "Menora" hotel into GPS, and understood there is some parking problem in that particular area. That's good, it means despite russian attacks, the big industrial city is living its life. I parked around the mall not far and took a walk towards Astoria hotel as a friend suggested.
Astoria is a historical hotel, where my friend stayed a while ago and 100 years ago it was a base of Nestor Makhno, a famous anarchist figure and military leader of that period. According to one of the novels of Valerian Pidmohylnyi, when Makhno had an office there, he also used to execute his enemies there.
Just nearby is the house with a memorial plate that tells that Valerian Pidmohylny was working in that building. Recently novels of Pidmohylny were republished, and especially "The City" (Misto) is popular among youth, as it's considered one of the first Ukrainian urban prose. For me, it was especially interesting as this novel shows the atmosphere of Kyiv 100 years ago. How different the city was back then! And Pidmohylny has also several short stories which feature anarchists and Nestor Makhno and even the same Astoria hotel.
Then I visit an old bookstore, and I remember that it was the one which I visited many years ago, maybe 15 or so... It was so long time so I'm not completely sure, but the conversation with the bookseller tells me that it was the same location. We buy several books there. Time to go, but probably someday in the future I'll have more time to walk on the Dnipro streets...
