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Motyl: Misrepresenting history at the Kyiv Museum
Does Kyiv have a history?
If you go to the Museum of the History of the City of Kyiv, you’re likely to conclude that the answer is a resounding No. You’re also likely to conclude that the people who set up the Museum at its present site a year ago have no idea of what the purpose of museums is.
The museum is currently lodged in a fancy new building on Khmelnytsky Street, just across the street from the Lesya Ukrainka Theater of Russian Drama. The building was constructed amid substantial controversy: its ornately neo-modernist, glass-and-steel-and marble, “Late Yanukovych” style doesn’t quite jive with its surroundings, while its very placement in a formerly open space creates a sense of intrusiveness and crowding on an otherwise leisurely thoroughfare. (To be slightly fair, the recently constructed German Embassy just up the road is just as much of an eyesore, and the Germans can’t blame their bad taste on the woes of transitional societies.)