In my second week in Ukraine, I met Kateryna, an architect living in Kharkiv. At the market, we went to get flowers to lay them down at her favourite building in the city, which stands at Freedom Square. This beautiful building is – as you can see – very battered by the war.
Kateryna invited me to her home, in her flat that she chose so that she could look out for her favourite building. She was busy preparing for Orthodox Easter.
During my time in Ukraine, flowers were a recurring theme. It is very common there to give flowers to each other, without needing a reason. If you go for a coffee with a friend, you take flowers with you. The market where we got these flowers was bombed by rockets shortly after my return from Ukraine.