The Filter travel guide to a city at war. 🇺🇦

Kyiv, Ukraine is a city at war. We believe now is as good a time as any to publish a Filter travel guide to Kyiv—for two reasons. One, life goes on in peace and war. Two, nowhere on earth is forever a battlefield. War is a terrible thing, and these two truths ballast against that: war cannot stamp out every dear place and pleasure, and war is not final. This travel guide is for that day passenger planes will bring tourists to Boryspil International Airport, and for the people across Ukraine today.

We invite you to read this Filter guide and, at the end, read the Addendum for a snapshot of daily life, taken on Friday, 29 December 2023.

Filter is the travel guide made by baristas who actually live there, and Pasha Poltorakin is a barista who actually lives in Kyiv.

Sincerely,

Pasha from Yellow Place and Josh from Filter

Filter: What do you like to do for fun around Kyiv?

*Pasha Poltorakin is a manager at Yellow Place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photos courtesy of Yellow Place*

Morning run on Trukhaniv Island. It’s a perfect place for jogging. It’s a big island on Dnipro River, in the center of city, connected with a footbridge. I really love this place, because basically you are running in the forest with fresh air, and not going outside of the city.

Having a breakfast with friends is also a perfect variant to start a day. Places that I liked the most for breakfast—Spelta, Mirali, Bakehouse or Zavertailo in Podil district with a great variety of different types of breakfast in all of them.

In the last few years, the music scene in Kyiv was booming. A lot of different clubs were opened in the last 3-4 years and some of them are worldwide known. My favorites are K41 and Closer. Despite war, they are working, but in different way. Due to curfew in Kyiv, all events are in daily format and ending at 22:00. Nevertheless, everything that is organized in these places are marvelous and definitely worth visiting if you are in Kyiv.

Pasha Poltorakin is a manager at Yellow Place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photos courtesy of Yellow Place

Filter: If a good friend came to visit, where would you be sure to take them?

First of all—walk in an old part of Kyiv, near Zoloti Vorota metro station. Here is situated a lot of ancient sightseeing destinations such as St. Sophia Cathedral, Mykhailivsky Monastery, and Zoloti Vorota which used to be the main entrance to Kyiv in ancient times. It is my favorite part of the city. It is beautiful at any time of the year.

In addition, a lot of great cafes, bars, and restaurants are situated here:

HANH—a nice place to have a lunch, which specializes in Vietnamese cuisine.

Food Spot Corp.—a place that unites 3 different concepts in one: pizza, burgers, and Asian-style cuisine.

The coziest wine bar—Pure and Naïve, with a great variety of natural wines and marvelous summer terrace.

Kosatka—legendary place that has been open for 8 years and offers nice beer, ciders, and burgers.

And of course, I’ll take my friend to one of my favorite bars—Parovoz Speak Easy bar, Barmen Dictat, Saint Bar, and Hendrik’s Bar.

Filter: What do you like to do to escape the city?

Honestly, I don’t like to escape from the city. I love Kyiv and I’m comfortable with it all the time. But, if you want to feel nature I will recommend to book a house that is called The Riverbird’s Nest, just 40-50 kilometers from Kyiv. Lovely place with a fascinating view.

Filter: What touristy things in Kyiv are worth the hype?

Zoloti Vorota district with all the ancient cathedrals, Maidan Nezalezhnosti [Independence Square], Kreshatyk Street, and Kyiv caves lavra.

Filter: Where are your favorite quiet corners there?

Small botanical garden, near Universitet metro station. Situated in the city center, it is a perfect place for a slow walk, especially in spring.

Filter: What's another coffee shop around there that you really admire?

I really like all coffee shops from the chain One Love coffee. They were the pioneer of the specialty coffee scene in Kyiv and stand for quality and great coffee till now. [There is also] Humans Coffee, a coffee shop near my house, where I like to grab filter to go or stay inside and work for a couple of hours.

Filter: What makes Kyiv feel most like home to you?

People. My people makes Kyiv feel like home for me. The people that I found during my life here make Kyiv the place I love. They give a special vibe to the city and make me feel comfortable.

Filter: Where are you from originally, and how did you end up in the Kyiv coffee scene?

Originally, I’m from Chernihiv. It’s a city in the north of Ukraine. I moved to Kyiv 13 years ago to study in university. From the beginning, I started working as a waiter in Chashka espresso bar—one of the first cafés in Kyiv that was working with fresh roasted coffee. During my work, I understood that I was more interested in our main product, coffee. That’s why I decided to try to work as a barista. Thankfully, my team supported me and after tuition and internship I became a barista. I was working for a year as a barista in Chaska when I found out that a new project, called Yellow Place, planned to open. I sent my CV for the role of head barista and after a few interviews became head barista of Yellow Place and have proudly worked here till now as manager of Yellow Place coffee project.

Filter: Can you share about your role at Yellow Place?

I am a manager of Yellow Place coffee. For now, we have 2 coffee shops and roastery. Our first coffee shop is situated in a flagship store of the Goodwine chain. Goodwine is a project of Wine Bureu LLC – importer of wine, spirits, fine food, and beverages. Goodwine is something like Harodds in UK or Galeries Lafayette in France. It’s a market with high quality products with focus on wine. Eight years ago, we decided to develop the direction of fresh roasted coffee in our market and started to sell coffee from local roasters. After this, Yellow Place as a coffee shop appeared. The main idea was to introduce this type of coffee to our customers, and I can say that they loved it. After 3 years, we launched our own roastery. From the beginning we worked with best green coffee suppliers in Europe, such as Nordic Approach, Falcon, Belco, and focused on specialty coffee only. Two years ago we opened our second coffee shop and a new roastery in a gastrohub that is called Garage. It’s our flagship coffee shop where we serve coffee in-house and to-go as well as selling coffee in bags.

So, I’m in charge of everything that happens in our projects, starting from the team to assortment of coffee in our roastery.

Filter: Once the war is over, what are you most looking forward to that isn't a part of life now?

To see civil planes in the sky over Kyiv.

Filter: If you could move to any place in the world just for the coffee scene, where would you move, and what shop would be the biggest reason?

I won’t move anywhere. Coffee scene in Kyiv and in Ukraine is brilliant and I don’t want to change it.

Filter: What have I not asked that you'd love to tell about?

I just want to invite all the readers to Kyiv after the war ends. It’s a beautiful city and I believe that everybody will love it.

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ADDENDUM:

Filter: We are trying to hold in tension two realities which Kyiv faces each day: there is war, and life goes on. Most of this article has been about life going on. Could you share about how you experience the war on a regular basis? What is different about life in wartime Kyiv?

Honestly, it is a very hard question to answer. Words couldn’t describe what me personally, and all people in Ukraine, experienced for the last two years. And it’s hard to understand, if you don’t pass through it, but it’s very important to know.

I want to describe just one day from my life, that happened not more than a weekend ago, the 29th of December. I woke up as usual on the 29th of December at around 7:00 in the morning. It was Friday, so I started my usual morning routine before work. Look at my phone and find out that air alarm was announced at 5 or 6 in the morning. Neither me nor my girlfriend heard it. I woke her up, said that it’s air alarm in Kyiv and start brewing coffee. Yeah, I understand that for people from abroad my behavior is strange—it is an air alert in my city and I start brewing coffee. That’s why I need to explain, that sometime, we have air alerts 3-4 times a day. It’s awful, but for this two years it became something usual and common for everybody. It is impossible to live normal life and to react to all air alerts, especially, when most of it, but not all of course, are fake. That’s why, all people in Ukraine have different channels in Telegram messenger, which gives you information why an air alert is announced in your region. For example, if MIG-31s take off somewhere in Russia, air alert is announced in the whole Ukraine and via this channel you know that this type of aircraft is in the air now. Also, this channel gives you information not only about aircrafts, but about anything that are in airspace and could be potentially dangerous for specific regions, such as drones, rockets, etc.

So, that morning I didn’t check this channel and started doing my own things. But my girlfriend did and replied to me, that it was not a fake air alert and some drones were launched this night and right now, rockets are launched. And right after these words we heard explosions. I think everybody understands that it is scary to hear explosions in your apartment. Moreover, you don’t know if it was strike of a missile somewhere or the work of air defense of the city. After this, we heard another explosion that was more loud than the previous one. The nearest bomb shelter to us is Universitet metro station, 10 minutes by foot, so we decided to stay at home, because it is more safe than going outside, because air strike or debris of rockets could fall anywhere and it is safer to be in the building. And you just sitting in your apartment, reading which types of rockets were launched, their route, and after few minutes heard explosions. After explosions, you try to gather information—what it was and what damage it caused.

At some point, I saw a message that it was a fire in Podil district, the area where our second Yellow Place and roastery are situated. I worried that a missile could strike Garage, and ruin everything that were situated there. I started to look at cameras in Garage to understood was everything alright or not. Thankfully, everything was good, but rocket debris fell just 500-700 meters from our territory, and from one camera I saw a column of smoke near our building. After air alert stopped, I drove to Garage to make sure that everything was fine. I drove through Kreshchatyk Street, the main street in Kyiv and saw smoke coming from different spots from the city. It was a surrealistic picture, but more surrealistic is to understand that it’s really happening in 2023 in the middle of Europe, and the whole world is looking at it as a livestream and pretends that everything is fine.

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Yellow Place operates 1 roastery/cafe and a second cafe location in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Yellow Place cafe at Mechnykova Street, 9

Yellow Place cafe & roastery at Mezhyhyrska Street, 82

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