Hello to you, river of my destiny!

No, I cannot imagine myself
Without you, Dnipro, just as without the poplar
That has been rustling in my heart since childhood.

Mykola Vingranovskyi

The Dnipro is celebrated in poems and songs, on paper and canvas, in cinema and advertising. Shevchenko, Vingranovskyi, Vakarchuk… The Dnipro is a vivid, powerful symbol of the city and the country. The Dnipro holds the memories of Kyivans across generations. How many romantic adventures lie unspoken along Kyiv’s beaches, how many confessions has the Pedestrian Bridge witnessed… How many fishermen have quarreled over trifles near Poshtova Square, how many yachts and boats wait sadly for peace and their captains along the shore… How many graduates have greeted the sunrise on the Dnipro hills, how many wreaths on Ivan Kupala’s night have floated along these waves… The Dnipro is not just the main water artery of the country; it is a magnet, whose depth and expanse will always draw Kyivans and visitors to the capital.

The exhibition project “Summer in the Embrace of the Dnipro” presents works by Ukrainian artists of the 20th–21st centuries from the collection of the Museum of the History of Kyiv. Works by Serhiy Shyshko, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Yadviga Matseievska, and other artists are inspired by Kyiv’s Dnipro landscapes and reflect the enduring symbolic love of Kyivans for life by the water. The displayed paintings and graphics not only convey the river’s unique atmosphere and beauty of its banks but also artistically document events such as the construction of the metro bridge, for example.

Generations of Kyivans witness the building of new bridges and neighborhoods along the Dnipro, yet all remain loyal to these waves, these islands, these floodplains. With this project, the Museum team responds artistically to an eternal desire—to admire the Dnipro. With loved ones or alone, at sunrise or sunset, in the rain or under the sun, on holidays or weekdays, from the right bank or the left… The most important thing is to follow along the beloved slopes of the Dnipro.