I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Dmytro Soloviov for the New Books in Ukrainian Studies podcast about his book of photography released by Fuel Publishing in 2025 (with an introduction by the excellent Owen Hatherley.) Someone over at Fuel obviously has a thing for post-Soviet landscapes, and I thank them for their commitment to the subject. Their books are always beautiful and published to the highest standard, and Dmytro’s is no exception.

Dymtro is a force. A skilled photographer, he has educated himself extensively on a niche area of Ukrainian aesthetics. He brought this work to public attention first through his Instagram handle, and then through his unique architectural tours, which focus on modernism and are held throughout Ukraine.

Some places in Kyiv I love as if they were people—they are so singular they seem to have their own moods, histories, and needs. Dmtyro’s photos manage to capture that. Here are some of his photographs/videos of my favorite modernist building/sites in Kyiv:

• Kyiv Polytechnic University

• The Kyiv Crematorium

• The Kyiv Funicular

• The Flying Saucer Building

• The mosaics at the Kyiv Bus Station

• The Salut hotel

• The Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine

In the interview, we talk about how he got into this work, what he loves about Ukrainian modernism, the weak preservation protections for cultural heritage in Ukraine, and how he struggles with anti-Soviet sentiment as Ukraine continues to fight off Russia, including criticism directed against him personally for promoting Soviet Ukrainian artists.

You can also get a taste for more special places around Kyiv from this article I edited for The Atlantic, which Dmtyro contributed to: “Kyiv’s Sublime Urban Spaces Are in Danger.”

Finally, if you would like to go deeper on Ukrainian modernism, I have two strong recommendations:

1) The documentary Infinity According to Florian (2022), directed by Oleksiy Radynski, which chronicles the fight to preserve Florian Yuriev’s Flying Saucer building, a beloved local landmark that I have a particular attachment to, having lived across from it for a period of time in the mid 2000s

2) The documentary Ada (2023), directed by Alina Matochkina, which looks at the life of the inimitable Ukrainian artist Ada Rybachuk, one half of the famous AVRM duo who designed some of Kyiv’s most iconic modernist sites (Kyiv Crematorium, the Wall of Memory, the mosaics at the Kyiv Bus station, etc.)

Lead Photo: The interior of the Palace of Culture in Khoroshiv, Zhytomyr oblast by Dmytro Soloviov

For the New Books in Ukrainian Studies podcast, I interviewed Ukrainian poet Alex Averbuch about his new collection of poetry, Furious Harvests, which was published in a bilingual Ukrainian-English edition by Harvard University Press earlier this year. We spoke about how he dreams of his returning to his home in the occupied territories, his instinct to join in the chorus of Ukrainian ostarbeiter voices, the multi-cultural, multilingual dimensions of Ukraine, and more.

Related recommended reading:

• “Our Life Behind Barbed Wire: Alex Averbuch on Ukrainian Ostarbeiters,” Part 1 and Part 2, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2025.

• “My language has always been more interesting, more beloved, more significant [Interview with Alex Averbuch],” Linor Goralik, Colta.ru, 2018. In Russian.

• Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky, 2018.

Image credit: Ostarbeiter children, State Archive of the Sumy Region