“When my family and I moved to Kyiv in the summer of 2012, one of the things that surprised me was the colors of the buildings. I was expecting a grey city and couldn’t have been more wrong.

Colorful and glowing, Kyiv showed off its culture, beliefs and identity.

It was a happy and vibrant city under the bluest sky I ever saw, with the chestnut trees stretched upwards like sculptures, and the gleam of the golden domed churches almost outshining the sun.

Eighteen months later everything changed. The smoke of the Molotov bombs turned the sky grey, and the bells of St. Michaels cried for the wounded soldiers.”

Silvia Felizia