PRETTY LEAVES! (sweet) I love the fall. Kiev is prettiest in summer. It’s a gree

PRETTY LEAVES!

(sweet)

I love the fall. Kiev is prettiest in summer. It’s a green city. (The green hides the poor condition of the commons – terrible roads, sidewalks, and dirty buildings.)

There is nothing like New England and Olde England in the fall. Nothing. Sigh. Although the whole Tennessee and Kentucky thing in the mountains is almost spiritual as well. But that’s true pretty much all year ’round.

Out of our window I can see the steeple of the church in my current cover photo. Still half green but lots of orange and yellow.

Ukraine is a poor and corrupt country. But you know, I remember the 1960’s when abandoned depression era houses were still standing in fields all around our house. It’s possible for neighborhoods, cities and countries to ‘come back’ with time.

Boston was a dump in the early 8o’s after decades of socialist influence in government. So was new york. But once we’d had enough of the ‘great society’ nonsense, crime was heavily punished and investments were made and the cities came back – mostly. At least they aren’t what they used to be.

The miracle city in the east is probably Prague. And Kiev is trying to slowly repeat that miracle, by prettifying one neighborhood at a time. If the government hand’ killed it’s ability to borrow the residential boom in kiev alone from development would carry the country.

In a city where the wage monthly wage is about $600, compared to say, Atlanta where it’s about $7,000, apartments are hovels, and decent one’s three times their salary. This is purely because of a shortage. And the shortage purely a problem of incompetence, corruption and lack of credit.

We seek pictures of Maydan, Kreshatik, Saksaganskogo, or where I live on Saghaidachnogo, and it’s beautiful sure. But the majority of kiev is those horrid soviet era apartment buildings with external porches enclosed in random wood and glass aftermarket panels, with dirty air conditioners and wires hanging off them, and rust, crumbling mortar, peeling paint, graffiti and unkempt lawns.

I mean, we’ve been tearing that stuff down in the USA as a ‘great society’ failure of family-destroying, civic culture-destroying, ‘manufactured slums’ for decades now. But people here still live in them.

It’s no wonder why everyone dresses well. Its inexpensive status signaling. It’s all they can signal with.

So I’m going to appreciate the people, the leaves and the ancient architecture, and hope that over time, all architectural remnants of the great soviet collapse are slowly replaced by something taht does these wonderful people justice.

🙂