Wednesday 8pm: It’s as if there is no war – Lviv is celebrating itself.
Crowds throng the half-mile long piazza in front of the city’s opera house under the watchful eye of national poet Taras Shevchenko, looking down benignly from his plinth, and probably delighted by the spectacle.
Children scamper through the ornamental fountain; old men play backgammon with an intensity you can almost smell; babushki gossip, flashing their immaculate dentistry; Roma children as young as four try to sell you flowers.
A couple snog on one bench – unusual to see that in Ukraine – a sozzled alcoholic straddles the next one. He looks like he’s making love to it.
A girl sporting a T-shirt with the slogan Killer Tits (not in Cyrillic) scoffs candy floss with her boyfriend; teenage schoolgirls watch the musicians raptly, clinging together and grooming each other’s long tresses.
And then there’s what can only be described as the best street musicians in the world providing defiance/joy/inspiration.
Miles from Nowhere 