The angel is
the latest trinket I picked up in Lviv, the western Ukrainian city which is
sometimes called Ukraine’s Little Paris.
The statue was made by Olya Pylnyk, one of Lviv’s most celebrated
ceramic artists. Her works have been exhibited at the Green Sofa, an art
gallery on Virmenska Street that regularly highlights works by the city’s
artists. I happened across this figurine
a few doors down from the gallery, at one of the many new cafes and specialty
shops that have sprouted along the lane over the last year.
With its
many swirls and curves, the angel is a representation of Lviv to me and my own
love affair with a city that has slowly but drastically changed over the many
decades I’ve traveled there.
My first
trip to Lviv was in 1974, when I accompanied my father on a journey we made to
Ukraine in the dark days of the Soviet Union. Spying on foreigners was typical
then, so when we met secretly with my father’s first cousin at her home, she
immediately put her fingers to her lips at the door. She then lowered the drapes, grabbed a huge
pillow and placed it over the home phone to block inevitable eavesdropping.
Another trip
came in the late 1980s, when my mother, brother and I visited. Mikhail
Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika was in full swing then; the spies kept only a
half-watchful eye, so we wandered Lviv’s centuries-old streets freely. Conversations centered on hopes for a less
restrictive future. Stores weren’t
overly stocked then, but as a souvenir I purchased a cap at a hat shop on Ploscha
Rynok, the city’s Market Square.
Other trips
followed, but my full appreciation of Lviv came only in 2009, when the city
became home. Over the next two years, I
luxuriated in its essence. At every
step, Lviv revealed itself more and constantly surprised.
In the
city’s historic archives, I looked through land registers dating back to the 18th
century which were written in German and Polish, a reflection of the city’s
centuries-long political and ethnic complexity.
Scholars allowed me to peruse even older tomes, a number carefully
handwritten in Latin. These described
the history of towns and communities surrounding Lviv – or Lemberg as it was
known in German and Yiddish – chronicling in minutiae scandals, intrigues and
other noteworthy events.
In
discussions with Poles, I started to see the city through their eyes. With an
increasing number coming to visit, even for the day, Poles I realized would
likely never see “Lwow” as Ukrainian; Lviv’s Polish roots were too deep for
that. Yet some, like best-selling crime
writer Marek Krajewski managed to honor the city’s Polish past – Lviv plays a
role in his best-selling novels – while acknowledging the Ukrainian present.
Walking
along a sometimes eerily quiet Staroyevreyska Street in the old Jewish quarter,
in the architectural layout of its buildings and large empty spaces brought
about by the Holocaust and World War II German bombs, I learned about a
community of people who had lived and died in this corner of Lviv for over 800
years. In some doorways I could still
make out the deep crevices that had once protected the obligatory mezuzah. Time and again I returned to the blank spaces
where synagogues had stood, giving spiritual comfort to so many, before hatred
welcomed their eradication.
One New
Year’s Eve, in a bitter cold, I tasted what a similar celebration might have
looked like decades ago. While Ukrainian
television broadcast a splashy Kyiv fireworks display, my husband and I watched
as racing children braved ice in front of Lviv’s opulent Opera House – its
construction brought a virtual end to Lviv’s Poltva River, which now barely
exists underground – with an army of sparklers. A cheer arose at midnight and drops of
champagne hit icy ground as people turned to each other, hoping for a better
next year.
I
reluctantly left Lviv in 2011, but returned for a visit during the Euro 2012
football championship. What I found was
a city changed. Looking to the future,
it was trying to bring back the best elements of its past.
Virmenska
Street, first settled by Armenians in the second half of the 13th
century seeking refuge from Turks, was bursting with activity as revelers
frequented its many cafes. Staroyevreyska Street, once so quiet, sprung to
life. Diners enjoyed a warm evening at the many new restaurants lining the
street. I marveled at how, even after
the sun had long set, groups of young people strolled along the byway,
discussing the sector’s past. For
several years now, every summer the smallish Jewish community has held a
festival on the site where a synagogue once stood.
Then there
was the cacophony of languages. They had always been there, but in a more muted
form. This summer, sitting at a
restaurant on Ploscha Rynok where traders had centuries ago done deals, I heard
German, Polish, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish and even Hebrew. It made me think of a comment made earlier
this year by a pro-presidential parliamentarian who had lectured citizens in a
small western Ukrainian town about the importance of learning Russian,
ostensibly to better understand their countrymen living in the east. Perhaps, I thought, more highbrow Ukrainian
officials should travel to Lviv to get a sense of what an attempt at
multiculturalism is all about.
If memory
serves me right, it was the great Polish novelist Jozef Wittlin who said that a
person can leave Lviv, but the city never leaves them. Certainly, that is true for me.
I plan to
visit Lviv soon; there are more memories to collect. And I’m quite inclined to buy another angel.
Natalia A. Feduschak was the Kyiv
Post’s western Ukraine correspondent in 2010-2011. The freelance writer now
lives in Denver, Colorado.
