Kiev buildings come in all shapes, colours and styles, and account for a surprisingly genuine and authentic portrait of the city.

I will talk about Kiev and its highlights more properly in a bit, I promise. It’s just that, as I went through the unimaginable amount of photos of the Ukrainian capital I took while I was there, I realised that I had a lot of photos of its streets, especially its buildings. I’m not talking about ‘special’ streets or buildings, but just seemingly ordinary, nondescript spots around the city.

I do like photographing random spots here and there, because, aside from the ‘mainstream’ sights and highlights listed on travel guides and websites (most of which are undoubtedly a must), those seemingly ‘ordinary, nondescript spots’ are the very dots and lines that shape the urban landscape of a city as a whole.

In Kiev, though, this aspect must have clearly struck me a lot, so before moving on to describe Kiev as I visited and explored it, I thought I’d put together an overview of some urban spots I must have found interesting, unusual, unique or just plain odd, and therefore chose to photograph.

Occasionally you might also notice and recognise bits of (very) well-known places, but those are indeed exceptional occurrences.

It’s mostly about the streets and especially about the buildings. These do really come in all shapes, colours and architectural styles and contribute to what I see as a surprisingly genuine and authentic portrait of Kiev as I saw it.