Pictures of the Lazy South
Globetrotters August Monthly Challenge — “Street Art”
I used to consider southern and seaside regions in different countries dissimilar to their other parts. There’s always something laid-back and sluggish in Southerners’ everyday life. This laziness is reflected in various aspects, for example, in street art: in most cases, it is good-natured and sunny. Today I’ll show you some pictures from Kherson city, southern Ukraine.
Searching for street art depends on the current moment, as most pictures don’t live long. I suppose this keeper of the ruined house doesn’t exist already:
Other art is more fundamental. A big group of sea monsters live on the walls of the city water utility.
If you pay attention to the details, you’ll see even a witch riding one of the fishes:
But monsters not only from the sea occupied the walls…
More peaceful picture: a sad bird.
A big part of the murals was created obviously by one artist. They have a very peculiar style.
This is the wall in the center pedestrian street (and a colorful man is well blended into it).
I’ll dilute street pictures with a couple of interesting sculptures.
Murals created by other artists (not the unknown one mentioned above) are noticeably different.
What is the photo story without cats?
It is worth noting separately the thematic design of the “Кіт на даху” (Cat on the roof) Caffe.
It was close to the city center, and I was supposed to become their regular customer… if not that sad fact that it didn’t survive in lockdown.
It had about 400(!) cats in the design, but I could see only outside ones. One more piece of evidence that the total lockdown of the first covid month was stupid: the virus continued to spread with terrifying speed, but a lot of small business was killed.
I guess I can also consider Soviet mosaics as a variety of street art, too — some past markers that disappear quickly.
And even specific manhole covers with city symbols.
By the way, what about a house fully covered with textures outside? I think this is great, something from Aztek or Maya culture. Russian shellings damaged this building, and I don’t know how bad it is now.
My story would be incomplete without mentioning the sea spirit of the city and many related sculptures (despite the fact they aren’t street art at all). Kherson is located dozens of kilometers from the open sea, but all the time, it feels like it’s literally around the next corner.
Even St. Nicholas here is the patron of sailors first of all.
My last street art photo from Kherson is very symbolic: naive and kind child daubs on a fence with barbed wire and an abandoned brewery behind. I thought I wouldn’t miss this city, but I was wrong.
That was 2020: the year of closed borders and a boom in internal tourism. Kherson became one of the main spots for travelers in the Ukrainian south. I used it as my basic rookery for exploring the region, including such gorgeous places as Askania-Nova or pink lakes (once I write about them too). The city looked pretty neglected, though, but it had a prospective future.
Everything collapsed in 2022. Kherson was occupied since the first days of the full-scaled russian invasion. It was eight dark months of hunts for dissidents, people disappearance, tortures in basements, and imposition of hostile reality.
Liberating in November was a holiday for citizens, but it finished quickly. After all, it means permanent random shellings from the occupied area; also, a big part of the city was flooded for days after destroying Kakhovka HPP.
The Kherson population decreased a few times. The remaining people play every day in the roulette with vast chances of dying under MLRS shellings in any part of the city. I don’t know if at least one picture from the photos above remains. I don’t know, will the city come alive after the war inasmuch crazy maniacs nation behind our borders.
I also admire the endless fantasy of Latin American artists. Here are great examples:
by Sara Burdick
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