[NetBehaviour] Kiev, Architectural Landmarks and Art Museums

[Alan Sondheim]

Kiev, Architectural Landmarks and Art Museums

Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1987
Printed and bound in the USSR

http://www.alansondheim.org/Kiev1.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/Kiev2.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/Kiev3.jpg
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P. 16: "In 1934, Kiev became the capital of the Soviet Ukraine,
which triggered a period of intensive construction." "The
realization of these plans was interrupted by the Great
Patriotic War (1941--45). Immeasurable destruction was caused to
Kiev by the Nazi occupation forces. More than 195 thousand
people, inhabitants of Kiev and Soviet Army soldiers and
officers, were either brutally murdered at Baby Yar or tortured
in the concentration camps at Darnitsa and Syrets."

Note: Not a mention of the Jews. The same occurs in the entry on
Darnitsa.

Kiev is transformed into a heroic Soviet. For example p. 17:
"In 1945, construction began on another city thoroughfare, the
Druzhby Narodov (International Boulevard)" ... On the same page
there is also mention of the "Park of Eternal Glory."

The map on pp. 50-51 includes "The Museum of Russian Art,"
"Monument of Lenin," "Monument to the October Revolution,"
"October Palace of Culture," "Branch of the Central Lenin
Museum," and "Monument dedicated to the reunion of Russia and
the Ukraine."

On p. 63, photograph of "Statue of Lenin." On p. 66, photograph
of the enormous "October Revolution Square." On p. 71,
photograph of an enormous "Monument dedicated to the reunion of
Russia and the Ukraine." On p. 79, map including "Monument to
the Insurgent Arsenal Workers." On p. 80, "a monument to Grigory
Petrovsky (1878-1958), A Soviet statesman," from 1970. This is
also enormous. On p. 82, a photograph of the "Supreme Soviet of
the Ukrainian SSR and the Mariinsky Palace." Again enormous.

In a central park, there is the "monument to the hero of the
Great Patriotic War, liberator of Kiev, The Hero of the Soviet
Union, General Nikolai Vatutin." Yes, it's enormous. P. 86,
there's the "Palace of Young Pioneers and Schoolchildren." P.
87, "A straight avenue bordered by pollarded hornbeams leads to
the graves of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War."

An enormous enormous statue seems to sit atop the "Ukrainian
Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945),"
p. 116.

On page 135, a photograph of the large "Memorial to Soviet
Citizens, soldiers, and officers, prisoners of war, brutally
killed by the Nazis at Baby Yar in 1941-1943.

On pp. 136-137, a photograph of the "Moscow Bridge." P. 145,
"Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the Ukrainian SSR."
On p. 153, "A second monument - two figures of Soviet Army
soldiers cast in bronze, not broken in the face of death - was
placed in the square of the Darnitsa Railway Station in 1970."

There's Leo Tolstoy Street, Lenin Street, Engels Street. The
Soviet architecture is monumental, blank, in a hyperbolic or
brutalist style. It seems to be everywhere.

Again, apparently no Jews died at Babi Yar (the spelling varies
in the book), even though at least 33,771 were buried there. No
Jews lived in Kiev. No Jews lived anywhere.

(N.B. spelling varies from sources.)

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