I first heard this song this past winter, and have been thinking about it for a while:

Instead of the fantasy world of boutiques and Porsche Cayennes and lip implants, I get the reality of my own neighbourhood in Ukraine: colloquial pronunciations, walls covered in graffiti and guys named Vasya, along with gossiping grandmas in summer slippers and people eating sunflower seeds.

I think people are exhausted by artificial glamour. They want familiar glamour – the wind blowing up the skirts of young girls, the elaborate tattoos of their neighbours, etc. They want places tourists don’t see – the strange, dangerous rows of concrete, where people like them are living and dying every day. And showing their asses – whether metaphorically or otherwise.

I walked through the park yesterday on my way home from the center. It was late and I was “high-fiving” the trees lining the outer street. I had my keys out in my hand – the serrated main key can easily be jabbed into someone’s face if necessary, and it’s always good to be able to get inside the building quickly. But the street was full of people, even on a Monday night, and I could hear them over Anastasiya Prikhod’ko in my MP3 player, and they seemed oddly happy. Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s the realization that crisis or no – the “regions” (neighbourhoods) will continue doing what they always do.