Lada Luzina
| Kievskie vedmy | Witches of Kyiv Phantastic series. Folio. Kharkiv 2005-2020. 11 volumes, approx. 400 pages each. |
With the four chalk hills at its centre Kyiv was and is the focal point of Slavic witchcraft. Belief in this witchcraft is deeply rooted in the Ukrainian mentality and nearly one in three women in Kyiv has a practising witch, magician or healer in her ancestry. Kyiv has been considered not only the centre of the Christian orthodox faith but also the witches’ capital since time immemorial. Many Russian-Ukrainian artists (Mikhail Vrubel), authors (Mikhail Bulgakov) and musicians (Modest Mussorgsky) have drawn on this tradition.
The settings are all so authentic that the book can almost be read as an alternative guide book. With a detailed portrait of both contemporary and historical Kyiv the author tempts the reader into a world where reality is hardly distinguishable from the phantastic plot.
With scintillating ideas, witty dialogues and an exciting plot the author introduces her female protagonists, three young women from contemporary Kyiv: Masha – a respectable, highly intelligent history student who still lives with her parents while harbouring shy adoration for one of her fellow students. Dasha – a singer in a nightclub, she has seen it all, is street wise and down to earth. Katya – a successful business woman, emotionally cold, lonely and in the depths of her heart full of the desire for love. “By chance” the three of them meet for the first time at precisely the time and place of an old Kyiv witch’s death. Her magical powers are transferred to the three of them. From then on Dasha no longer just potters around the town on her old moped draped in the flag of the Orange Revolution. Suddenly she is able to ride above the domes on a broomstick and can’t believe it herself. In fact all three of them want to be free of these unbelievable talents. However, when two ritual murders take place in the town and Masha’s father comes under suspicion they have to intervene. In this book a real demon has returned to Kyiv and none other than the three witches are able to protect the town from his curse and from a third murder.
Wishful thinking when the author started to write the series, but already 15 years ago the young generation in Ukraine and especially in the big cities was full of positive plans, dreams and wishes for their own future free of old demons.
