The Charming Kate

Kyiv is always full of life, with so many people that sometimes you feel like the world is too small to accommodate. How often do you take a ride on the metro and have an unexpected or unpleasant meeting with your ex or a school-bully, or maybe someone’s not-so-fresh armpits at rush hour? On the otherhand, Kyiv is full of extraordinary, funny, beautiful human beings, and What’s On wants to know about them all!

Vivid and Sensual

The weather outside is gloomy, but that doesn’t really matter when you are more than 100m deep into the earth. On Arsenalna’s platform, I see a figure in a striking blue coat, fresh white trainers and auburn hair. This combination is eye-catching and I’m immediately drawn into conversation with the charming Kate. Talking to her is easy and familiar, like a friend you’ve known for years.

1. Where are you headed right now?

As it is getting late, I’d say it is time for me to get home.

2. What do you do for living?

I am studying but also teaching, which has actually taught me a lot about myself. But the most interesting part is not knowing who I will be in the future.

3. What is the most important thing in your life at this moment?

Meeting people who are open to this world and ready to share their peculiarity and uniqueness. I wish more people would look for themselves and find out that the world is much bigger and more exciting than it may seem at first.

4. What was the last song you listened to?

Sodade by Cesaria Evora – the lyrics are so simple, yet so powerful. The title of this song introduced me to a word that has stuck with me for the last five years [Ed. Note: variant from Portuguese saudade – a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament]. Sometimes the feeling of saudade feels so close, as if I’m right on the edge of grasping it…but the next moment I know that it’s gone and I understand that to truly feel it you need to be Portuguese…

5. If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?

To teach people to love, purely. And most importantly, to love oneself.

6. What bothers you about our politicians?

Politics is a filthy game, it is what it is, there’s nothing new. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this subject isn’t a priority for me.

7. What’s your favourite venue in Kyiv?

I can’t think of one specific place. But the best places are those that are found by accident in a part of town that you have never explored before.

8. What colour socks are you
wearing?

Yellow! They brighten up my day when the weather is like this.

9. Where are you from/in what part of Kyiv do you live?

I live near Obolon but actually I am from our great “Fayne misto” [Ed. Note: Ternopil].

At 105.5 metres, Arsenalna is the deepest metro station in the world!