Carvings of lions and cherubs above a doorway
Monochrome Madness,  Photographic techniques,  Travel galleries,  Ukraine

Gallery: seeing Lviv in black and white

May 24, 2023 / 33 Comments

When I visited Lviv in 2010 I described it on my Virtual Tourist page as a beautiful city ‘waiting in the wings’. By this I meant that it was ripe for tourism but hadn’t yet been discovered by the masses, nor did it yet have the infrastructure to deal with them. What it did have was beautiful churches with elaborate interiors; a lovely main square surrounded by historic townhouses; broad avenues and narrow winding streets; quirky cafés, a striking opera house and monuments of all kinds and styles.

Lviv was a host city for the European Football Championships two years later. Hopefully that would have had a positive impact on its tourism infrastructure. I had it in mind to go back one day to see, and to take my husband who wasn’t with me on that 2010 visit. I was sure he would love its faded charms and friendly welcome.

But I didn’t go back. And of course at present such a visit isn’t to be recommended, even though this is one of the westernmost cities in Ukraine and far from the front and the main fighting. I feel for its people, as I do for all Ukrainians. So this Monochrome Madness post is dedicated to them and especially to my friend Victor, our host in Lviv and now in exile in Poland.

Addendum

I did return to Ukraine, although not to Lviv, in 2013. We had a chilly but fabulous trip to Kharkiv to see Newcastle United play FC Metalist. I posted about that trip a couple of years ago: Where Lenin once pointed the way to …?. Sadly that post has been overtaken by events and is now out of date. That eastern city has been very much in the line of fire during the war and has suffered considerably.

As always I have used Silver Efex for all my edits.

Sculpture of a man on a horse

A small sculpture on the Black House, a famous Renaissance building on Rynok Square

Statue of a man in waistcoat and tails

Sculpture of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian writer who lived in the city for a time

His name gave rise to the term masochism, and the statue is outside a masochist-themed café. If you slide your hand into the left pocket you will get something of a surprise!

Classical statue of a man with a beard and trident standing on a fish

Statue of Neptune, one of four classical statues in the corners of Rynok Square

The others are Adonis, Amphitrite and Diana

Outside the Latin Cathedral aka the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Sculpture of a man with a beard holding a book
Modern style bust of a man with a long moustache on a stone pedestal

Monument to Ivan Pidkova, a Cossack leader who was executed in Lviv on June 16, 1578

The name Ivan is in Cyrillic metal letters, while his last name is replaced by a metal horseshoe (pidkova means horseshoe in Ukrainian)

Worn statues of a woman in a cloak and two cherubs

In Lychakiv Cemetery, the burial place of the city’s intelligentsia, middle and upper classes, as well as its war heroes

Weathered statue of a woman's head, with a bird perched on it

Also in Lychakiv Cemetery, one of the most evocative and photogenic I have visited anywhere

A little bit of selective colour on this one, also from Lychakiv Cemetery

Faded rose hanging from an iron ring
Simple crosses on tombs with names and dates

And here, in the Polish Eaglets Cemetery, Lychakiv Cemetery

This is a memorial and burial place for Poles who died in Lviv during the Polish-Ukrainian (1918−1919) and Polish-Soviet Wars (1919−1921)

Wooden church with several domes nestled among trees

Kryvka Church in the Lviv Museum of Folk Architecture and Culture

I visited Lviv in 2010

33 Comments

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