*This article was featured in Smple Magazine 03/2021https://www.smple.world/magazine/2021/3/14/vignettes-from-kyiv1. The Butterflies It was morning, and I was talking on the phone when the butterfly flew in. It was orange and brown. I watched as it thrashed about the window. Its wings made soft thumping sounds against the glass. I ended the call and released it. The next day I was walking to ...

*This article was featured in Smple Magazine 05/2021https://www.smple.world/magazine/2021/5/9/5-rules-for-tutoring-a-russian-millionaireRule 1: Fake it till you make it Dimitri ushered me into a large office with walnut walls. I glanced up – it had a walnut ceiling too. Dazed, I focused on the man standing at the head of a long conference table. Anton was thickly built and dressed in black, his...

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Source: Blockworks YouTube thumbnail  In the courtyard, there is a giant statue of a fist grasping a pen. It is defiant, empowering and apt. The library’s grounds are decorated with hundreds of perfectly lined trees, gardens weaved into the architecture, and stairways of bright, white stone. The building itself is breath-taking in scale, modelled after a neoclassical design and capped with a v...

People have long been aware of the spectre that is data collection. For years, our habits, thoughts and interests have been recorded and regurgitated back to us through increasingly targeted content and ads. It has begun to seem normal. Algorithms that target consumer interests are everywhere - but have we finally reached the tipping point? Jokes about Google’s targeted ads - and their hilari...

A screenshot from Marynka Dovhanych's animation. The blue symbols that double as the soldiers' eyes also double as the Ukrainian trident.The culture war between Russia and Ukraine has been playing out for decades. As always, one of the key battlefields is language. Russian was the de facto official language of the Soviet Union and it wasn’t until 1989 that Ukrainian was declared the official l...

It is spring in Kyiv, but there’s a cover of snow. It dusts a fat fern tree. A van stands alone, stares at grey buildings, windows with a high cross frame like a just-slipped barricade. And cutting the frame, to the right, are sandbags. “This is what spring looks like,” says President Zelensky, head lifted lightly to the camera. “Spring is harsh.” A cloud slithers behind concrete. Something is...

It is spring in Kyiv, but there’s a cover of snow. It dusts a fat fern tree. A van stands alone, stares at grey buildings, windows with a high cross frame like a just-slipped barricade. And cutting the frame, to the right, are sandbags. “This is what spring looks like,” says President Zelensky, head lifted lightly to the camera. “Spring is harsh.” A cloud slithers behind concrete. Something is...

A screenshot from Marynka Dovhanych's animation. The blue symbols that double as the soldiers' eyes also double as the Ukrainian trident.The culture war between Russia and Ukraine has been playing out for decades. As always, one of the key battlefields is language. Russian was the de facto official language of the Soviet Union and it wasn’t until 1989 that Ukrainian was declared the official l...

People have long been aware of the spectre that is data collection. For years, our habits, thoughts and interests have been recorded and regurgitated back to us through increasingly targeted content and ads. It has begun to seem normal. Algorithms that target consumer interests are everywhere - but have we finally reached the tipping point? Jokes about Google’s targeted ads - and their hilari...

Source: Blockworks YouTube thumbnail  In the courtyard, there is a giant statue of a fist grasping a pen. It is defiant, empowering and apt. The library’s grounds are decorated with hundreds of perfectly lined trees, gardens weaved into the architecture, and stairways of bright, white stone. The building itself is breath-taking in scale, modelled after a neoclassical design and capped with a v...