Last week saw the unveiling of a new fountain in front of Lviv’s Opera House as part of extensive celebrations to mark the start of spring in the city. Elsewhere, Lvivians mingled with coach loads of tourists at the nearby international jazz festival, or lounged in any one of the dozens of trendy new cafes and bars that dot the city’s freshly painted wedding cake facades. Meanwhile, this week the palaces and castles of the city will play host to an international festival of classical music as Ukraine’s Baroque western capital revels in a return to the extravagances of bygone ages. The city, it seems, has finally awoken from its long slumber.
For many years Lviv had been among Ukraine’s poorest big cities. Mired in corruption and cross-border banditry, the city only seemed to suffer from its geographical proximity to Poland and Slovakia. There was no real tourist trade to speak of, and the impossibly elegant Lviv architectural ensemble grew increasingly shabby and neglected. By the late 1990s the city had become a shadow of its former self, but since then a number of developments have combined to produce a renaissance which has seen the city blossom and returned a sense of swagger to the local scene.
The Orange effect
Lviv’s recent bloom is in many ways tied to the impact of the Orange Revolution. First and foremost, the event itself did much to introduce Ukraine to a global audience for the first time, a prerequisite if you are later to attract tourists. Lviv’s close proximity to the border and unrivalled historical charm made it the natural target of any tourist interest. However, it was the decision of the Viktor Yushchenko administration in early 2005 to lift visa restrictions on Western visitors that made a genuine tourist trade a possibility.
The impact has been tangible, with the city now home to one of Ukraine’s most vibrant bar and restaurant scenes to accommodate the steady stream of tourists. Three international quality hotels have opened in the city within the past two years, while the airport now receives daily flights from Vienna and a host of other European destinations. Lviv‘s local authorities have done much to facilitate the face-lift the city has received since the early 2000s. Mayor Andriy Sadoviy remains embroiled in a bitter dispute over the city’s EURO 2012 preparations, but he has also won praise for having assembled a city council team of young, western educated professionals who have managed to inject some life into the Lviv brand and transform the city centre into a genuinely tourist-friendly environment.
Window on the EU
On an international level, the expansion of the EU’s Schengen visa zone to Ukraine’s western frontiers has made Lviv one of the Union’s most important border towns. The region has seen a recent rise in number of investors looking at Lviv as a production base, and the region already boasts a diverse international-financed export economy dealing in everything from IT to textiles and dairy farming. Dutchman Klaas van der Veen is the regional chairman of the Lviv branch of the European Business Association as well as also running a Finnish-owned IT outsourcing firm. The Lviv branch of the EBA accounts for a disproportionately high number of the organisation’s 750 member companies nationwide, and Mr. van der Veen argues that the city is attracting investment largely because it boasts a European culture that makes it easier for international investors to feel at ease. His own company is one of a growing number who have decided to base their Ukrainian operations in Lviv rather than the capital city itself. “Our management went to Kyiv and they felt that on a cultural level, in terms of the local work ethic, Lviv was closer to our existing operation in Poland. People here have a western mentality,” he offers. The general lack of awareness about Ukraine internationally remains a barrier, Mr. van der Veen argues. “It’s not enough to have a beautiful city. You have to tell people about it. Lviv needs to be very active in its promotion to show people in every country of the EU what you have to offer.”
A linguistic advantage
Lviv figures have also featured prominently among the members of Yushchenko’s initial administration and under the current coalition. On a mundane level, their superior Ukrainian language abilities have been advantageous in making Lviv citizens ideal civil servants and politicians, while on a less tangible level the city’s self-professed European mentality has also proven itself in tune with the Orange movement. The current Cabinet of Ministers is full of people who were either born or educated in Lviv, while firms in the capital and throughout Ukraine are also often inclined to look to Lviv for high quality Ukrainian speaking professionals.
Regardless of the political climate Lviv has never been short of prominent personalities, and in a display of the city’s burgeoning sense of local pride a number of the most popular clubs and venues to have opened in the past year or so have taken on the names and images of famous Lvivians. The recently opened Masoch Café is dedicated to the infamous Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, a Lviv rogue how gave the world the concept of masochism. The café is a stylish and distinctly European affair complete with a wide range of bondage accessories and erotic sculptures, while outside stands the world’s only monument to Masoch, a work of art in itself. Close by is Kult restaurant, which pays homage to Lviv icons. The interior is literally covered with hundreds of portraits done in a cultish pop art fashion while the engraved menus feature everyone from Ruslana to medieval princes. Kult owner Petro Adamyk admits that Lviv was in the doldrums in the 1990s, but is confident that the current boom is built on firm foundations. “We should admit that somehow, over a period of time, Lviv lost much of its magic, but now we are slowly moving back to our glorious past.”
