Love at a Distance

A Chihuahua in a dress leans against the leg of an activist during an animal rights march in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. Photo: Ukrinform/Barcroft Media.

Tea for Two

A cyclist rides past people wearing animal costumes during heavy snowfall in Kiev, Ukraine. Photo: AFP/Sergei Supinsky.

Cash for Your Trash

The Ukrainian city of Lviv – long noted for its Habsburg-era buildings and vibrant cafes – is in the throes of a trash crisis. Who is really to blame? [Read more].

• Dan Peleschuk, Trash talk: how beautiful, progressive Lviv became overrun with rubbish, The Guardian, April 24, 2017

Overflowing garbage on the streets of Lviv. Photo: Bumble Dee/Shutterstock.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Zhytomyr, Ukraine: Brown bears play in a shelter run by the international animal charity Four Paws for bears rescued from circuses and private restaurants. Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images.

Pysanka Square

Kiev, Ukraine: People look at large Easter eggs on display in the city centre. Some 500 traditional Ukrainian pysanky, painted Easter eggs, are exhibited before the celebration of the main holiday of the Orthodox church. Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Kiev, Ukraine: Masked protesters carry banners reading “Sex work is my work! My work is my choice!” during a rally in front of the parliament building. Photo: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Ukrainian publishers have reacted angrily to their government’s ban on importing books from Russia, claiming it will create a black market and damage the domestic industry. The ban, passed by Ukraine’s parliament, is the latest front in the battle between Kiev and Moscow that has been running since Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian forces seized power in parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Books from Russia account for up to 60% of all titles sold in Ukraine and are estimated to make up 100,000 sales a year. [Read more].

• Danuta Kean, Ukraine publishers speak out against ban on Russian books, The Guardian, February 14, 2017

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita”

A Window in the Wall

Kiev, Ukraine: A man walks on a snow covered street as temperatures got as low as minus 20 degrees celsius. Photo: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA.

Demarcation line

Avdiivka, Ukraine: A tank from the Ukrainian forces is stationed outside a building in the flashpoint eastern town of Avdiivka, just north of the pro-Russian rebels’ de facto capital of Donetsk. The Trump administration severely criticised Russia for the first time with its newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, lambasting Moscow for its military intervention in Ukraine. Photo: Alexey Filippov/AFP/Getty Images.

Winter is coming (but he forgot his wallet)

A cashier awaits clients as she sells tickets to a public toilet in central Kiev, Ukraine. Photo: Gleb Garanich/Reuters.

Caïssa Award

FIDE (@Fide_chess)

The World Chess Federation has decided to award Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) the 2015 Caïssa Cup, both for her achievements and her personal and direct engagment in most of the organizational matters related to the Women’s World Chess Championship match held in Lviv, Ukraine.

Lviv, May 19, 2016. Former Women’s World Chess Champion Mariya Muzychuk wearing Ukrainian embroidered shirt to celebrate the Vyshyvanka Day while at a city-wide kids’ chess tournament. Photo: Yevheniy Kravs/UNIAN.

Mariya Muzychuk
Photo: Yevheniy Kravs/UNIAN

Mariya & Anna Muzychuk
Photo: Yevheniy Kravs/UNIAN

День Вишиванка (Vyshyvanka Day)

Former Women’s World Chess Champion Mariya Muzychuk (L.) and her sister Anna wear Ukrainian embroidered shirts to celebrate the Vyshyvanka Day. Grandmaster Vassily Mykhaylovych Ivanchuk is seated amidst them. Photo: Chess-News.ru (‏@Chess__News).

Limelight

Slavutich, Ukraine: People light candles near the memorial to the workers who died during the clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. Photo: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA.

(Wild)Life in a Nuclear Desert

Orevichi, Belarus: A wolf looks into the camera at the 30km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Orevichi. Thirty years after the disaster, booming populations of wolf, elk and other wildlife can be found in the vast contaminated zone in Belarus and Ukraine. Photo: Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters.

Thirty Years of Solitude

The swimming pool in abandoned Pripyat, Ukraine. The city was evacuated 36 hours after the nuclear blast at Chernobyl. Photo: Lynn Hilton.

An abandoned kindergarden in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Photo: Lynn Hilton.

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Pripyat, Ukraine: A doll in a children’s gas mask is photographed at a kindergarten in the abandoned city near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Photo: Gleb Garanich/Reuters.

Ки́ївський метрополіте́н (Kiev Metro)

Kiev, Ukraine: Metro workers have presented flowers to passengers prior to Kiev marking International Women’s Day. Photo: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA.

Mary Poppins

Potocki Palace gate
Photo: lviv2016.fide.com

The Annunciation to Mary

Anastasiya Karlovich (@NastiaKarlovich)

Китайський новий рік （春節）

All photos by Evgeny Kraws

Chinese New Year is also celebrated in Lviv, Ukraine, just to welcome the upcoming Women’s World Chess Championship match when from 2 to 18 March ‪Mariya Muzychuk‬ will defend her title of Women’s World Chess Champion against 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) from China.