Garbage Scenes Around Kiev

Taking pictures of garbage is one of my favorite pastimes. I do it when I go hiking in Crimea or the Carpathians (where garbage is most out of place) and recently have been pulling out my camera more and more often in Kiev.

Garbage has its own aesthetics. It can be strikingly dramatic, colorful, grotesque. It tells a story about the side of things we don't always see.

Here are some recent shots from Kiev:

This is a view of the artists' market on Andreevsky Spusk that so many foreigners know so well. Paintings are put up in makeshift sheds covered with plastic on an empty plot of bare ground. Behind the impromptu market is a communal waste heap of plastic, glass, food scraps and waste (left by homeless people). Right next to these heaps there is a nice old building with expensive apartments. With little vegetation to stabilize it, the slope is gradually eroding.

Here's a lake near Petrovka metro station.

A closer look at the garbage reveals the usual plastic and glass bottles, drink cartons, and a bit of furniture.