The Kyiv Independent

Hi! This is Valeriia Snopkova. I’m the Video Production Manager at the Kyiv Independent, and I’ve been in this role for about a year now. I joined the Kyiv Independent back in October 2023 as an editorial assistant, but this is actually my first time writing an email for our community! I’m usually b

Hi, this is Kateryna Hodunova, a War Desk Reporter at the Kyiv Independent, and welcome to a new edition of Team Recommendations. Today, I'd like to recommend "Pamfir," the feature-length debut of Ukrainian director and screenwriter Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk. The film follows Leonid, nicknamed "Pam

Welcome to a new edition of Team Recommendations. I'm Yuliia Beba, Membership Retention Manager at the Kyiv Independent, and today I want to recommend a novel that has deeply moved me at different moments in my life, filled me with hope, and reminded me of the simple joy of getting lost in a great s

Hi there, This is Bogdana, I’m the communications manager at the Kyiv Independent. My job is about making sure that the work of our journalists reaches wider audiences. You might have also seen my work in a different role, as a photographer for some of our e-store collections like the Trident and Vy

Hello everyone, this is Oleksandra, community manager of Kyiv Independent. You may know me from my support emails or from Discord, where you can see me adding you to the chats. The topic of this recommendation email came directly from our Discord community, where you may have seen pictures of printe

Dear Kyiv Independent community, this is Myroslava Chaiun. I'm a reporter with the Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigations Unit. You may have seen some of the investigative documentaries I've worked on. This year, the weather in Ukraine hasn't really let us enjoy spring. As soon as temperatures

Dear community members, My name is Daria Kolos (or as you may know, Daria Kotielnikova previously). I've been working at the Kyiv Independent as a digital marketing manager for more than two years. Last weekend I visited a new exhibition in Kyiv called "Joy" ("Radist" in Ukrainian). One installation

Dear Kyiv Independent Community, I’m Asya, the community manager at the Kyiv Independent. Some of you may already know me, or even have had direct communication via Discord or email. During my university years, I discovered Kyiv’s Lesya Kvartyrynka festival, a creative project that has stayed with m

Hello, I'm Yuliia Taradiuk, reporter at the war desk of the Kyiv Independent. Today, I'm excited to share my first recommendation with you! Given that I usually write stories about the Russian occupation, Ukrainian soldiers, and Russia's air attacks on Ukraine, I couldn't help but recommend war-rela

Hello, dear members! This is Yana Zhuryk, membership growth manager here at the Kyiv Independent. Today, I’m popping into your inbox with a personal recommendation. This is my first time recommending something for our community, so I’m genuinely excited to share it with you and hope you’ll enjoy it.

Hello, dear members of the Kyiv Independent community, My name is Anastasiia Mozghova, and I am the executive producer of the War Crimes Investigations Unit. Before I joined the Kyiv Independent, radio was one of my passions. While at university, I was a member of an online student radio station — I

Hi to the members of the Kyiv Independent community! This is Myroslava Chaiun. I am a reporter and researcher with the War Crimes Investigation Unit at the Kyiv Independent. This is my first time writing a recommendation for the community, and I have come to you with something sweet. Actually, it's

This is Francis Farrell, reporter here at the Kyiv Independent, coming to you today with my first recommendation for the community in quite a long time, and one that I'm very excited to share. This one is for the music lovers — especially, perhaps, classical music lovers — but it's not some old comp

Dear Kyiv Independent community members, Hello from Kyiv. This is Olesia Meleshko, office manager at the Kyiv Independent. I am writing to recommend the Ukrainian folk band ShchukaRyba, as I believe Ukrainian traditions deserve to be shared and known. I remember when I first heard the band: I was si

Dear Kyiv Independent community members, This is Elsa Court, audience development manager at the Kyiv Independent. I love being able to talk to my colleagues in person, so I am happy we have an open-plan office here in Kyiv. There’s one clear disadvantage with this environment, however — it’s really

Dear Kyiv Independent community members, This is Sweta Brik-Jones, the e-commerce marketing manager at the Kyiv Independent Today, I want to share with you the artwork from Ukrainian artist Volodymyr Manzhos — who is not only an acclaimed muralist, but is also my cousin. I remember visiting my cousi

Dear Kyiv Independent community members, This is Daria Kotielnikova, digital marketing specialist at the Kyiv Independent. Since I’m a huge fan of Ukraine’s representatives at the upcoming Eurovision song contest, I really want to recommend that you check out Ziferblat. Ziferblat is a band of three

Dear Kyiv Independent community members, This is Mykolaj Suchy, researcher at KI Insights, writing to you from Kyiv. This week I attended the Ukrainian premiere of Oleh Sentsov’s newest film “Real.” This film isn’t easy to watch, but if you can, please see it. The film is a single, uncut shot taken

Dear Kyiv Independent members, This is Jason Blevins, the creative video director at the Kyiv Independent. I want to share with you a film I recently discovered, “Enthusiasm: The Symphony of Donbas.” It was filmed in the Donbas in 1929 to promote Stalin’s first five-year plan. Its director, Dziga Ve

Dear readers, This is Lisha Shmidt, donations manager at the Kyiv Independent, and today I want to tell you about a book that broke my heart into a million pieces: “My Women” by Yuliia Iliukha. This book won BBC Book of the Year in 2024. At the award ceremony, Iliukha said: “I won with a book that I

From: Anna Yakutenko, production manager at the Kyiv Independent Every time I am at an international party, I have a small cultural mission: to showcase Ukrainian music by taking control of the speakers. The one band that never fails to grab everyone’s attention is the ethnic band DakhaBrakha. If th

Hi everyone, Irynka Hromotska here, the photo editor at the Kyiv Independent. Today, I’d love to draw your attention to a beautiful and heartfelt Ukrainian film, “Stop-Zemlia” (“The Floor is Lava”), directed and written by the talented Kateryna Hornostai. This coming-of-age drama is a tender portray

Hi everyone, It’s Dominic Culverwell, the business reporter at the Kyiv Independent. The summer is officially over here in Kyiv as the last warm days come to an end. While I didn’t get around to reading everything on my summer list, there is one book in particular I’d like to recommend to you. It’s

Dear Kyiv Independent members, This is Elsa Court, a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Today I’d like to recommend a series of Ukrainian YouTube videos that aren’t just entertaining and informative, but also have great English subtitles. Misha Katsurin is a Ukrainian restaurateur, and together wi

Dear Kyiv Independent members, This is Chris York, one of the Kyiv Independent’s news editors, here to recommend to you the Ukrainian band called “Go_A.” I've been listening to Go_A for nearly three years now, and I still have no idea how to describe them. Officially at least, they're "folktronica,"

Hello from Yerbolat, head of marketing here at the Kyiv Independent! I’d like to recommend to you the Ukrainian folk band Pyrih i Batih (or “Pie and Whip” in English). It was May 21st, at a big concert hall in downtown Kyiv, where Ukrainian journalists gathered to choose the winner of the Georgiy Go

A warm hello to our Kyiv Independent community members, This is Andrea Januta, one of our reporters, bringing you your next recommendation to introduce you to more Ukrainian culture. I’m happy to recommend the first volume of “Contemporary Ukrainian Prose & Poetry,” published by Vogue Ukraine last y

Dear Kyiv Independent members, This is Nate Ostiller, a news editor at the Kyiv Independent, here with the next recommendation for you. I highly suggest watching the award-winning 2018 film “Donbass,” which I think is one of the best depictions of the murky and cynical first stage of Russia’s war ag

Dear readers, Disclaimer: After reading this piece you’ll become one step closer to Ukraine. Hello from Kyiv. This is Daria Voytenko, project manager at the Kyiv Independent. Nowadays, people share a lot of interesting and exciting information about Ukrainian history, traditional culture, and custom

Dear readers, This is Anya Belokur from the social media team with a review of Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees, a novel about the ambiguous zones of both military conflicts and human nature. The first thing that strikes you when you open this book is that it was published in 2018, right in between Russia’

Dear readers, Sofa Koretska, office manager at the Kyiv Independent, here today to remind you how incredible and ingenious Ukrainians are. In 2019, a group of well-known musicians in Ukraine with the support of the Ukrainian water company Morshynska created a symphony using natural water — the river

This is Dominic Culverwell, Kyiv Independent business reporter. As a long-time fan of Ukrainian electronic, rap, and folk music, I wanted to recommend some of my favorite artists. Despite Russia’s horrific attempts to eradicate Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian artists are still performing for crowds, ev

Dear readers, This is Anya, social media manager at the Kyiv Independent. When I was asked to write a review for you all, there were many obvious-seeming options; Ukrainian books and movies about the war are being translated and subtitled in unprecedented numbers, giving me ample material to choose

This is Dinara, a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Covering news amidst a war in my country means writing about countless Russian crimes against places, people, and things most precious to my heart, including Ukraine's nature. Today, I want to recommend a movie that can make the latter closer to

Dear readers, I am Martin Fornusek, a news editor at the Kyiv Independent, hoping to convince you to watch my all-time favorite Ukrainian movie: “My Thoughts Are Silent.” This 2019 comedy-drama charmed me with its subtle humor, surrealism, and oh-so-relatable humanity. It’s the one movie that I love

Hello dear readers, I hope this newsletter finds you well. I’m Alexander Query, one of the Kyiv Independent’s reporters, and as winter is settling in Ukraine with its cohort of Russian strikes and darkness, I thought it’d be the right time to share one of my favorite Ukrainian movies to watch under

Alexander Khrebet here, reporter with the Kyiv Independent. I’m breaking with tradition today, bringing you a Ukrainian music recommendation instead of the usual book or movie review. A former colleague of mine here in Kyiv once confessed to me that he was also a bass guitarist, playing in the then-

Hi everyone, I’m Elsa – I’m a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Now that the days are getting colder and darker, I thought it would be a good idea to recommend a Ukrainian film that made me laugh to cheer up our members (for 90 minutes at least). “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” is a film by Antonio Luki

Hello, everyone. My name is Iryna Matviyishyn, and I am a video reporter at the Kyiv Independent. I'm here to recommend a wonderful Ukrainian documentary that will hopefully touch your heart and shed some light on the lives of Ukrainians in Donbas after Russia's invasion in 2014 – "The Earth is Blue

Hi! It’s Anna Myroniuk, head of investigations at the Kyiv Independent. I am writing this film review at the request of our community manager. I guess you can tell by my job title that I don’t normally cover topics like culture, but once I heard what movie was in question, I gladly agreed. Arkadiy N

Dear Kyiv Independent supporters, I am Alexandra Keeler — social strategy consultant and (occasionally) writer at the Kyiv Independent. I am based in Canada (diaspora; mother’s side), but have been spending more and more time in Ukraine, and hope to increase that expenditure. I wanted to share a rec

This is Francis Farrell, Kyiv Independent reporter writing this short recommendation; I’m not one to normally do a lot of film or book reviews as I don’t look back very fondly on high school English, but this is one Ukrainian film that I am pretty crazy about, and one that I think everyone should wa

Hey Kyiv Independent supporters, This is Kate Tsurkan. I used to work on the news desk but as of this month I’ve made the shift to culture reporter, so I’m excited to start off by recommending you one of the many Ukrainian novels that are now available in English translation. Volodymyr Rafeyenko's “

Dear Kyiv Independent community members, We’ve received a lot of requests from our members for recommendations for films, books, and art from and about Ukraine. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of recommendations from some of our team members to get you started getting more acquainted with Ukrainian