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The article is written by expat. And I think Kiev is a great city to be expat in. It's beautiful, it's vibrant and if you're not in 9-to-5-with-2-hours-commute rut you can avoid a lot of negative sides of living there. Having ticket out helps.

My immigration timeline is the same and since 2008 I go to Kiev every year and things do change. Some for worse, some for better, some changed for worse and then for better. I think I understand what author meant by youthful energy. It's there all right. Despite everything there are happy young faces on the streets and in parks. Funny kids in rad glasses and bow-ties (and when I was teenager sporting long hair was asking for trouble). Chasopys co-working space is abuzz with people collaborating either in person or over internet. New attractions, new places, new events. I hope this energy won't dry out.

Kiev is not as bleak as described in parent post. Life is fucked up by war but the city is worth visiting. Worth moving there too if you're on adventurous side of expat tribe.

I'm living in Kyiv right now and it this seems like the most reasoned response in this chain. Expats tend to have an overly optimistic view of Ukraine because they don't have to deal with the day to day bullshit native Ukrainians endure because of eastern violence, corruption and needless bureaucracy, but Ukrainians I've met also tend to see the US (and I would assume the "West" in general) as overly idealized because of Western media and misleadingly opportunistic headlines.

Considering the amount of Ukrainians in say, Czech Republic, working shit jobs, it is probably not a good place to live in.

Wow, talk about exaggeration... I live in Kyiv all my life, but travel to San Francisco frequently. And the latter feels MUCH more dangerous (especially around the Tenderloin area where most startup offices are located). Drug addicts, homeless and mentally ill everywhere on the street, it smells piss, it's hard to walk for 10 minutes without someone yelling obscenities at you, gun violence is ridiculously high, etc. With the new bright president in the US, it may get much worse — hate, anger and division spread like plague. You can find negative points like this in almost any place on Earth.

I traveled the world quite a bit, but never felt like relocating to any other city — sure, they are huge issues, but if you surround yourself with good people, it's wonderful to live here.

That HIV story exists in many countries and is probably not true.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/pinprick.asp

Perhaps, but the AIDS epidemic when I left - 2008 - was nevertheless at its highest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Ukraine#/media/Fil...

Sure, I definitely don't mean to minimize the impact of that.

It doesn't seem that out of control, higher than most western nations but still no where near a lot of African countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_...

From the map it looks like Russia may have lowered the average in their behalf.

"the country is being literally, fucked, by Russia and the West on the other side as some neo-proxy war circa 1960"

Not sure I'd put both Russia and the West on the same level here, Russia literally invaded and annexed parts of Ukraine. It sucks though

I assume a lot of the appeal to Westerners visiting Ukraine is they are effectively much richer than back home.

You are, of course, right; But the blame is on both sides. Russia, UK, and US signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. When the time came to pay the Piper...everyone chickened out and essentially allowed Russia to show aggression unchecked.

You're not wrong, but I'm not sure how else it could have turned out. War between the US and Russia has been avoided for a reason. Perhaps if they were a part of NATO, which carries the serious threat of equating an attack on any member as an attack against all members. But of course everything Russia has done in Ukraine over the last 10 years has been in an effort to stop any remote chance of Ukrainian membership in NATO, to avoid that very problem.

Some blame NATO expansion as "triggering" Russia, but honestly, what does Russia expect after occupying Eastern Europe for 50 years. Those Eastern European countries don't want a return to that. Harsh, autocratic Soviet policies guaranteed antagonism.

I think the thinking is Russia wants Sebastopol as a navy port on the black sea to counteract Nato --as well as Putin having to act tough in order to have the Russian people on his side. Russia is somewhat nationalistic and the people are loath to see them suffer further deterioration to the image of a relatively strong Russia. It's basically the only card he has to play.

So from a geopolitical standpoint, they are kind of between a rock and a hard place. The west wants to sanction Russia and Russia wants to show it is still a formidable force as well as needs to have a deep water port in the black sea.

Please don't repeat Russian propaganda. Before Crimea invasion Russia already had deep water port in the Black Sea - Novorossiysk.

> The AIDS epidemic literally almost swallowed the whole country.

I think you abuse the word "literally" a bit. Ukraine has had a huge problem with AIDS, and the HIV infection level at 1.3% of the whole population is horrible. That's a far cry from "literally almost swallowing the whole country" though.

> Pulled over? No problem, just put a 50 in the passport and hand it over non-challantely.

I can personally vouch that this is true. I traveled to Kiev in 2010 to present at the local PyCon. On the way back home to the airport my taxi was pulled over for "speeding" (he was not). The situation was resolved by an exchange of cash, no ticket necessary.

It was 7 years ago. We have all new patrol police, new government services, etc. Of course corruption still here, but things are changing. Hope you will visit this year's PyCon to ensure

Let me add that I loved Kiev during my visit. The taxi incident was the only encounter of corruption on my entire trip.

It should be known that the US isn't immune to this graft either (e.g., my aunt passed her driving test in Chicago via a conveniently placed $20 bill).

Did you pay? Or the driver?

wow, all that HIV needle stuff! I've heard those urban legends in early 90ies, and I'm from completelly different area.

So, you got out, good for you. But things've changed. Not everything is nice, but skinheads are a fad of the past now, for example.

The comment author went into a yellow newspaper grade rampage here, (huge) overstatements like

> the country is being literally, fucked, by Russia and the West

> the whole country is / was about to explode

> people ... are literally trying their hardest to get out before they get killed

> When the power goes out at night, almost everyday they think the Russian have finally decided to bomb them.

and urban myths from the 90s (like the HIV needle story) included.

"slums of Kiev" might sound scary, but a lot of cities anywhere have their less interesting places. No matter what country you are from, if you want a life you will want to be out of those as soon as possible. And even then by "slums" I suppose the author meant sovietic social housing, where a lot of decent people lived and do still.

In ukrainian message boards, on news resources and youtube comment sections you can find statements of similar quality, but less thick. Those are usually left by pro-russian trolls to stir some "debate" that ends in slurs and swearing, not to say author is one.

Some points are valid like the president one, but even the best of us make mistakes by not taking an active enough stance.

To conclude, this post is not on a technical matter, but at least the author could try to keep it cool and constructive.

edit: of similar quality, but *more thick

I have spent time in both Kyiv and Lviv and have to say your account of the situation seems to be complete different than what I experienced. Do you think what you're saying is still accurate for someone who left what seems as a long time ago and has never been back. The power didn't go out on us and I saw no skin heads. I didn't experience this Neofacism you speak of. Are you sure your not talking about Moscow?

How come you don't spell Kyiv properly?

> How come you don't spell Kyiv properly?

Both spellings are proper.

Edit - should revise somewhat. Has to do with slight differences between Russian, modern Ukrainian and older Ukrainian, as well as changes to how Ukrainian is transliterated.

Not sure why this got downvoted. He did question the veracity of the OPs claims, but did it in a pretty polite way.

Spelling it 'Kiev' is the 'Russian' way. Good Ukrainians spell it 'Kyiv', because that's how the Ukrainian nationalists do it. Also, there's no fascists in Ukraine, if you ask Ukrainian nationalists. Asking if he's talking about Moscow is akin to calling him a Russian shill.

The propaganda is strong in modern Ukraine - don't dare question the new pro-west narrative. Never mind the fact that Poroshenko has a lower approval rating than Yanukovych did (still can't touch Yushchenko's 3% approval rating though).

> Good Ukrainians spell it 'Kyiv', because that's how the Ukrainian nationalists do it.

Not really, that's how it's tranliterated from Ukrainian. "Kiev" is a transliteration from Russian.

> spell it 'Kyiv', because that's how the Ukrainian nationalists do it

Wow, this is some Kremlin-grade propaganda here.

> the country is being literally, fucked, by Russia

I have my doubts.

The AIDS epidemic literally almost swallowed the whole country.

I appreciate your input overall, but you're making more than a slight exaggeration, here. Even countries with the world's highest HIV infection rates were never "almost literally swallowed" by the epidemic.

+1 Born and raised in Ukraine. The current government is equally corrupt. The bureaucracy is epic, good luck opening your business there, they may simply lose your documents.

Unfortunately the stories about the needles are true.