I went down Beketov street. It connects some of the best Urban-style streets of the city. Every turn has something surprising waiting for you. From fully retro-styled pharmacies to the most obnoxious store designs.
While I was looking at the newly paved footpaths I came across something very interesting.
I think it was the German artist Emma who really took this idea and literally blew the internet up. I saw her work everywhere. Twitter, Reddit, 9gag, there was no place left. The idea was so simple and yet one of the most powerful works of modern art I came across.
I am obviously talking about street fashion inspired by manhole covers. It is literally street fashion. Her words sort of replayed in my head and I remembered her saying something along the lines of how every country has a different approach and design to these things. And how manhole covers are something so easily overseen but the work that goes to designing these are so underappreciated.
As I looked down on the manhole covers I realized I was standing in between 5 completely different designs all in one place. Each one has a unique style and they may mean something to the municipality and help sort them, but to me, they were an underappreciated form of art.
Raubdruckerin is the company Emma started up. She started it somewhere in Germany (I believe). She paintied them and then stamped the t-shirts on the fresh paint to create some amazing apparel.
Many people might look at this as trivial or even frivolous (as Emma rightfully assessed). But when considering the collective of manhole cover designs from all over the world then you can begin to look at them as a form of art. I couldn't help but appreciate what I was surrounded with, as most people neglectfully walked past, and thought of coin collection as something akin to what Raubdruckerin was doing.
I was surrounded by busy people either leaving from work or going to work and busy cars that turned the street into complete chaos. I also noticed that Beketov street is now rocking the shiny lights hanging from building tops, the type that was only found in Sumskaya street for almost half a decade now.
I believe this is a deserving addition to the street. Just like Sumskaya, Beketov st. also is very important, has a huge historic significance, and has grown into a massive hub for all sorts of businesses. The street is always very busy.
This is what it looks like at night:
To reiterate my point from last week's entry, the problem of cars is becoming more and more apparent now. I want you to scroll up and look at the pictures again and focus on the cars. What do you see?
Beautiful cars, right? Teslas, Audis, Mercedes, BMWs, Chevs, Vovlos etc etc. The problem? There are just too many of them. Or rather very few parking spaces.
Every time I take a stroll in any of the streets in the city I realize that Kharkiv wasn't built to hold so many cars. You may have seen in my posts that the pavements are massive and very spacious. At any given time a huge group of people can all walk beside each other with no real congestion.
However, the roads are a different story. They do not have parking spaces like most metropolitan cities do. Most cars, like the Tesla above, the Lada, the Audi, are forced to park on the street. There is no place for them to park. This is creating a lot of traffic since the roads are narrowed down by parked cars and there is little to nothing that can be done. Not to mention this is extremely hazardous.
You've heard of two-tone watches and two-tone gold. Let me introduce you to the two-tone building. It comes in white gold and rose gold. I found this building to be extremely hilarious.
I have two guesses. Either the workers got lazy or the funds to repaint the building went dry before the paint did. The real reason it is funny is that this building is actually a government building and I think it has something to do with the science of music or arts.
The plus side is that the building fully matches the two-tone pavement that leads you here.
As usual, I kept an eye out for businesses with cool decor or designs. I wasn't disappointed.
This is a ladies' beauty salon that went with a very inclusive white and baby blue colored ribbon. It is the holiday season so most businesses usually decorate the entrances. This salon was one of the more subtle yet appealing ones.
Next, we have the 7th Sklad restaurant. I honestly like the fact that they didn't go all out but at the same time didn't go overboard. And it matches the lights from the street, so that's a bonus point.
Then there was this beautiful and bright entrance to Beatrice. I think they are stuck in a time loop because wasn't Halloween over like a month back? Nevertheless, still beautiful.
Aaaand, the winner!
No, that isn't a random vandalized shop. That actually is a vape shop and the "design" was intentionally handmade by the employees. I guess this is what they call "hip" nowadays.
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