InterCities: Kharkiv with Ievgeniia Gubkina

InterCities is a six-part podcast series from Open City. In it, we travel to a number of cities and boroughs around the world that have transformed over time to discover what we can learn from these places’ achievements, struggles, successes and mistakes.

In this episode, our host Owen Hatherley is joined by the Ukranian architect and urban historian Ievgeniia Gubkina. Gubkina was born in the northeastern Ukranian city of Kharkiv and lived there until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, after which she fled with her teenage daughter and now lives in London in exile. Today, she talks to us about her upcoming publication “Kharkiv Architectural Guide” and we use it as a lens through which to explore the city’s changing architectural iterations. From a university hub to the capital of Soviet Ukraine​, the avant-garde scene in the 1920s to the Stalinist-era "reconstruction" of Kharkiv's modernist buildings, we get a deep insight into the city’s past and a sober reminder of its present.

TW: The content of this episode can be distressing for some people as it mentions suicide. If this affects you, contact the Samaritans, a free and confidential service available 24 hours a day. https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

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Photo credit: Owen Hatherley portrait © Antonio Olmos

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