From XXI into XIII.

by Yulia Leniv (Ukraine)

Making a local connection Ukraine

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The Earth is full of wonders, undiscovered worlds, unexplored countries, and cities. But the most magnificent is to find such places just under your nose, without crossing the limits of your country. In my travel list you can find a lot of truly beautiful and unrepeatable places, cities and countries, that will never vanish from my memory. However, one city on this planet managed to conquer my heart forever. I’m going to tell you about one of the nicest cities in my motherland – the city of Lviv. Do you want to know what Lviv is? Close your eyes and let this text sound in your head with the voice of a young Ukrainian girl. Imagine you standing on a wide street, embosomed with quarters of ancient constructions, which have managed to subject time into their will. Facades of these buildings emanate pomposity, pride, mightiness. No, it’s not buildings, it’s honorable ladies with fans and highly respected gentlemen with cigars and monocles. Keep your ears open – they are talking to you. Open their doors and look inside their souls and you will see thousands of feet running down the ancient parquet. Drag your gaze away from these beauties and look under your feet. This paving stone remembers more than the Pyramids and Easter Island Heads. It seems like in the next second the coach drawn by four raven-black horses will jump out from behind a grandiose house with a white stucco moulding. Lviv is the city that hides numerous fragments of history. Austrian and Polish conquerors, Russian Red Army and free Ukrainian folk paced across its land. For all its centuries-old existence, the city of Lviv was the part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Volhynia, the administrative center of the Russian voivodeship and a free city of independent Ukraine. And up to this day, it continues to be a moral and cultural capital of clerisy in western Ukraine. Let’s come back to our small journey across a big city. Take my hand, and I’ll walk you straight to the most secret fibers of its heart. A moment – and we are already staying in front of the Lviv Town Hall, subtly locked in arms of dozens of ancient buildings. Thousands of people put their souls, hearts, and minds into these constructions. Every house and every stone in it screams about its culture and legacy. Listen, they are whispering in your ear in different languages - Polish, German, Italian, Armenian, Hebrew. These houses are actual polyglots! Heroes of classical mythology Neptune, Amphitrite, Diana, and Adonis encircle the square from four sides, being on guard of the city’s histories for a lot of centuries. Do you see a light building in baroque with a roundish green roof and gigantic pillars? This is filled with history Dominican cathedral, that majestically rises above the historical center of Lviv. Skilfully cut out stone angels on the facade of the building enshield the peace of citizens, and sophisticated plasterwork adds a unique spirit of the Baroque art. Let’s move slightly away from the city center and plunge into a majestic world of memory and peace. Lychakiv Cemetery is the living monument of those who have gone long ago. Let’s pass by marble angles, bronze people and stone statues, that guard the peace of the great Ukrainian and Polish leaders, patrons, writers, poets, and artists. This is the reminder for tourists and Lviv citizens about the brevity of life, the great force of memory, the immortality of art. And now I have to let your firm hand go, for it will take more than one year to explore this city. You have seen just a tiny part of a fabulous European-Ukrainian city, worldwide known cathedrals, squares, and streets. Several years won’t be enough to see the whole Lviv, and the whole life won’t be enough to look deeper and understand its beauty and history. There is an infinite quantity of unexplored worlds around us, that are ready to be opened and give us amazing adventures and memories. And even if for someone these worlds have an end in the form of borders between cities or the customs office, for us they will always be new infinite universes.