Lost in Kyiv (Patreon)

In this video, I explore the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. We arrived in the city without a plan, just like the rest of our trip. Thanks to Vita, the young guy we met in Lviv, we got in contact with the local urbex community, or rather the new generation of it.  The previous generation has fallen apart. Some fled to the West, others joined the army, some are missing because of the war, and some are just no longer active. 

This new generation mostly consists of young people who partially grew up with the war. For them, urbex is a way to escape reality for a moment and have fun in a world full of uncertainty and hardship. You could tell how used they’ve become to the war. They talked casually about things most people can’t even imagine experiencing in their lifetime. At the same time, you could see that all that horror takes its toll, and that everyone carries some kind of pain with them. 

The group was unstoppable. Every day we went on mission after mission. I kept wondering how they managed to do this stuff all the time. It was exhausting and definitely not without risk. Later I realized they were partly doing it partially for us. They wanted to show us all the cool spots and make sure we had an amazing time in Kyiv. Our arrival was also a good reason for them to come together and just enjoy themselves for a while. 

A lot of people there knew my and Shiey's channel. When they called their friends, I could often hear my name and Shiey’s name mentioned in between the Ukrainian words. The longer we stayed in Kyiv, the bigger the group became. After four days we suddenly found ourselves with twelve people in a stairwell, taking turns climbing trough a small window to reach the rooftop. I had never experienced something like that before. 

Because of the different approach to urbex, and the language barrier, it was difficult for me to create a coherent video. Most of the time I didn’t know what the next plan was, and when I did, it often changed. At the same time I started getting closer to people in the group and making friends. Sometimes it was hard to fully focus on filming because I was genuinely enjoying the moment myself. It often felt unnatural to constantly push a camera in peoples face and document everything. We were also doing a lot of similar things, mostly climbing rooftops in the dark, which is not ideal for filming. 

Still, it gave me a unique opportunity to document some of the difficult realities the city is facing, like the power outages caused by the war. I think I managed to capture that quite well throughout the video. 

That said, I’m not completely satisfied with this one. It could have been more refined and more nuanced. There were many factors constantly shifting my focus. The exhaustion, living in a completely different reality, meeting new people every day, and always having to stay alert. Because even if the locals make it look normal, in a country at war it’s not exactly smart to climb rooftops with a high-end camera and film critical infrastructure. 

I hope that despite its imperfections, you still find the video interesting and meaningful. 

Thanks for your support!