An excerpt:
On a sultry Saturday evening in August, hundreds of young Kievans have descended on a vast courtyard a few miles from the city centre. As a DJ spins electronica in front of a 20-ft LED screen, some partygoers stand in a paved open area bobbing their heads to the music, while others crowd the bar or sneak off to a leafy grotto to chat and canoodle.
The scene evokes late 90s Williamsburg, not the capital of a crisis-wracked country at war. “Lately there are so many more shows, so many more interesting parties like this,” says Ilya Myrokov, a 25-year-old dentist with a bowl cut, shaking his head as he sips beer from a plastic cup. “Compared to two years ago, it’s like an explosion.”
Last year, Ukraine’s economy shrank by 12%. Its slow-drip, two-and-a-half-year conflict with Russia has killed nearly 10,000 people and displaced about two million in the east of the country. But if the Maidan revolution, which ousted a Russia-friendly regime in February 2014, has largely failed to install the transparent, democratic government its proponents envisioned, it at least appears to have democratised Ukrainian culture.
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Tuesday, August 30, 2016. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.