Kyiv - Ukraine - page 74

87 Tsiferblat E3
88 US Embassy C1
Transport
89 Advance Train Ticket Office C3
90 Avtonstantsiya Kyiv B4
91 Kiy Avia A3
92 Kiy Avia G3
93 Ukraine International Airlines E3
Sights
Some of Kyiv's main attractions are half-day adventures and not always terribly central.
So, rather than plunging right in, it's highly recommended you warm up with an initial
stroll.
City Centre
Maydan Nezalezhnosti SQUARE
OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP
(Independence Sq; Maydan Nezalezhnosti) Be it celebration or revolution, whenever
Ukrainians want a get-together - and they very often do - Independence Sq is the na-
tion's meeting point. This is a new phenomena and so is the name of this huge fountain-
filled space flanked by Stalin-era buildings and presided over by a kitschy post-Soviet
statue of a winged female atop the Independence Column .
Nothing of note happened here until pro-independence students set up a tent camp in
the early 1990s, when it was still called October Revolution Sq. After the USSR col-
lapsed, the urge for change was so strong that even the perfectly normal Ukrainian word
ploshcha - square - sounded too Russian. That's when the word maydan, related to the
Arabic medina, was salvaged from the nation's linguistic attic and put into use.
Since then it's been a mindboggling succession of festivals and protests. The Orange
Revolution put Maydan into the spotlight in 2004 - check out graffiti preserved from that