Kyiv's brief glimmers of joy amidst war: 'Never in my life have I seen so many beautiful people in one place'

Funeral in the morning, music festival at night: Hard to imagine a day of greater contrasts. On Saturday, August 8, in Kyiv, several figures hurried into the metro heading south. Dressed in embroidered dresses, linen shirts, with glitter on their faces, men and women crowded into the carriages. Just a few hours earlier, some of them, dressed in black with flowers in hand, had taken the same line to Maidan Square, in the heart of the Ukrainian capital, where, under a summer rain, they paid a final tribute to Oleksiy Yukov, a well-known Ukrainian volunteer who died at the front. His mission had been to recover and repatriate, with his team, thousands of fallen soldiers left on the battlefields to ensure they received a proper burial.

But by early afternoon, everyone was on their way to celebrate. The colorful crowd exited at the Exhibition Center station, the site of the second edition of Vyriy – a music and visual arts festival and, above all, a brief escape from lives marked by war. In Ukrainian folklore, vyriy refers to the paradise where birds migrate for the winter. Amid the crowd waiting at the entrance of the VDNG, a vast Soviet-era complex hosting the festivities, compliments floated in the air: "You are so beautiful!" "And so are you!"

The festival called for an "elaborate look," with an "uninhibited ethno style, wild, natural and free." Revelers from across Ukraine vied for originality. Witches from Gogol's tales mingled with horned demons of every color, a Christ figure and even a Ukrainian version of French singer Philippe Katerine, who appeared at the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, painted blue with daisies in his beard.

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