Kyiv

After more than three years away from Ukraine, it was finally time for me to come back and finally see what Kyiv is like in the middle of the winter. The following pictures have been taken over the course of six weeks.

Sunset on Bulvarno-Kudriavska Street

Parked car in a snowy alleyway

A man walking through Pavlivsʹkyy Sadok park

St. Michael's Monastery

Friendship of Nations Arch

View on Podil from the Friendship of Nations Arch

Podil

Recital at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine

People attending at the philharmonic recital

Statue at Taras Shevchenko Park

Chekhovs'kyi street

Observatornyi street

Crows flying overhead Assumption Cathedral

A family taking pictures from a viewpoint above the Dnieper

Landscape Alley

A man taking pictures from St. Andrew's Church

Podil and Rybalskyi Peninsula

A woman and young child in Volodymyrska Hill park

Statue of Cossacks under the Friendship of Nations Arch

View on the Dnieper from Parkova Doroha

Nous Toutes

On the 24th of November, between 12 000 and 30 000 demonstrators attended the march against gender-based and sexual violence organised by Nous Toutes in Paris.

Marching band in front of the Opera Garnier at the beginning of the Nous Toutes march.

Militant from Les Masques Blancs association carrying a sing saying “A woman is never responsible for the violence she is subjected to. NEVER” and an other one with “enough of rape” written on it.

A cross-dresser standing in front of the march as volunteers in charge of security clear the path.

Women holding a banner saying “I am not your panther nor your hoe”.

A person holding a sign from the french association Act Up Paris fighting against HIV, “penalized clients = infected whores”.

Young woman holding a saying saying “The planet, my pussy, let’s protect wetlands”.

A demonstrator holding a “enough of rape” sign.

“This body is mine! Do not touch me! Do not rape me!”

The Nous Toutes march walking past the Théâtre de la Porte St Martin

The crowd passing next to the Porte Saint Martin

People of all ages marching against gender-based and sexual violence.

Young boy holding a sing with Simone de Beauvoir’s famous quote “One is not born a woman, one becomes one”.

Militants from the Kurdish women’s movement in France holding a banner saying “the violence represent the despair of fascism; self defense is legitimate”

Tampon filled with fake blood alongside sings left on the ground at then end of the the march.

Pristina

The capital of Kosovo, which declared it's independence from Serbia in 2008, has a population of nearly 200 000. The city has known some major modification. During the Yugoslav Communist era the vast majority of Ottoman building, mosques and Orthodox churches were destroyed in a misguided effort to modernize Pristina. It suffered large scale destruction by the hand of Serbian Forces, during the Kosovo War at the end of the 90's, against which NATO conducted a number of airstrikes. At the end of the war, almost all the Serbs who used to live in the city fled Kosovo. Today the city, expending at a fast rate, is a mix of large avenues with brand new buildings and small cobblestone streets lined with precarious constructions.

A man ridding his bicycle on Bulevardi Nënë Tereza.

Çiftelia merchant playing music with one of his instruments.

Tow women waiting for their bus on the sidewalk of a large boulevard.

Mercedes AMG with a German number plate driving through a neighborhood under construction.

Çarshisë Mosque under renovation.

Two women walking past a taxi doing a u-turn in a small street of Pristina

Men standing in front of a fast food restaurant where hamburger are sold for 1€ on Svetozar Markoviq street.

Woman carrying her groceries on Edmond Hoxha street.

A middle-aged man and a child on the door step of a small grocery store.