‘Like reading under the covers’: books flourish in blackout-hit Ukraine
“They have popped up like mushrooms after rain,” says Maria Glazunova, who works at the Dovzhenko Centre, Kyiv’s film archive. “They are lovely places where you can drink coffee, read, and just sniff the books.”
After the terrifying early months of 2022, and a brutal winter of drone attacks and blackouts, a crop of new independent bookshops is hardly what one would expect to find in the Ukrainian capital. But, in defiance of Russia’s ongoing invasion, they are springing up all around Kyiv.
In the central Pechersk district, Misto, meaning “city”, opened in December. At the time, were regularly casting Kyiv into
