Two dozen cats live and work in the cafe at 1A General Grigorenko Street, in Lviv. They “work” as psychotherapists, bringing relief to customers stressed out by the war. People go there to drink coffee, eat cake and pet the cats. The cafe stays open even when a missile attack has caused power cuts throughout the city. Alik Olisevich sometimes goes along to make sure that the cats themselves are keeping calm.
Olisevich is Lviv’s best-known – and possibly oldest – hippy, and the keeper of the city’s hippy movement archive. He can most often be found in the Virmenka cafe in the Armenian quarter of the old town, an institution that has been operating since the 1970s central to Lviv’s hippy history. Local students occasionally pop in to see the old-timers – hippies, and writers who seem to have been sitting there since the place opened more than 40 years ago.
Near the bar, there is a small noticeboard with names written on bits of paper. The names are of people for whom a “suspended” coffee has been bought. Sometimes, my Lviv friends send me photographs of this noticeboard with my name pinned to it – a gentle reminder that they are waiting for me.
I have always been happy to go to Lviv, but the last time I was there was 26 February 2022 – the second day of the new Russian aggression – and I did not visit the Virmenka cafe. I drove into Lviv in my people carrier, picked up six passengers and drove towards the Carpathian mountains and the border with Hungary. The war put my relationship with Lviv on pause. But I’ll be back there soon.
The city of Lviv is kind of like a book – a leather-bound historical adventure novel. Despite its antique appearance, the character of the city is modern. (Although sometimes people dress up in historical costumes and walk around arguing about whether Sigmund Freud’s father ever visited Lviv.)
It is not easy to get your head around this city’s history. It was founded in the middle of the 13th century. In the middle ages, it was the capital of the Galicia-Volhynia principality. Later, in 1772, it became part of the Habsburg empire. From 1918 to 1939 Lviv belonged to Poland and was called Lwów. It was then that the city began to speak Polish and fell in love with cabaret. After the second world war, Lviv became a rather grey Soviet city, but its love of colourful spectacle and noisy parties remained.
Soviet power was not welcomed in Lviv or any part of western Ukraine. Ukrainian anti-Soviet partisans fought against the “Soviets” until the late 1950s and although the city always felt the scrutiny of special services, the love of freedom flourished. When the hippy movement reached the Soviet Union in the mid-70s, Lviv became one of its centres.
Hippy pilgrimages from various regions of the USSR to Lviv frightened the KGB and every effort was made to stop them. But the hippies’ lack of interest in all things political may have made it more difficult to label them as dissidents. Somehow, in Lviv, the movement survived.
Lviv’s westernness was recognised by everyone and, if a Soviet film required a European-looking location, it was almost always filmed there. For example, the Soviet film series based on Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers was shot in Lviv in the 1970s. Perhaps it was because of this film – in which long-haired French musketeers fought with the vile Cardinal Richelieu – that Lviv’s residents tolerated the hippies quite happily, unlike in Moscow or Tambov, where posses of “volunteer citizens” rounded them up and forcibly cut their hair short.
On a sunny, summer day, Lviv looks like an Italian medieval city somewhere on the Mediterranean, but there is no sea near Lviv. There is not even a river. The Poltva flowed through the city until, in the late 1830s, engineers started to direct the flow underground. In several of his historical adventure novels, Yuriy Vinnichuk – one of Lviv’s best-known writers – has described the Poltva as broad and navigable. Lviv artists also sometimes depict the city with sailing ships. However, old engravings show that the Poltva was narrow and rather shallow.
In the early 2010s, activists from the city’s intellectual circles began a campaign to bring the river back above ground. Hydrographers, geologists and, of course, writers were involved in discussions about the project. A book of poetry and prose dedicated to the Poltva was published to attract wider interest. However, the city authorities remained unimpressed by the idea and gradually enthusiasm died down. The real Poltva still flows through underground tunnels, while an imaginary one lives its own life in novels and paintings.
Lviv residents like to call their city the “cultural capital of Ukraine”. The Russian aggression made this a reality for a while. The entire cultural elite of the country flowed in, filling the streets and cafes. In the evenings, writers and poets organised public events and discussions, and during the day, they volunteered at the city train station, meeting trains crammed with refugees from all over Ukraine.
Air raid sirens are still heard regularly, but few residents react to them. From time to time, Russian missiles damage critical infrastructure, depriving the city of electricity and water. Most of the refugees have already left and Lviv is getting used to the noise of electricity generators in front of shops, restaurants and cafes.
The opera house is open and that is where Olisevich, the eternal hippy, works as a lighting technician. The bookshops are open, too, and offer “Lviv novels” by Yuriy Vinnychuk. And calming services like Grigorenko Street’s cat cafe will be in demand in Lviv, and throughout Ukraine, for a very long time to come.
• This article was amended on 17 April 2023 to note that it was in 1772 that Lviv became part of the Habsburg empire.
• Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov (translated by Reuben Woolley) is published by MacLehose (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
