Mapping the Smells of Kyiv · Global Voices
Image: <PERSON>
On Christmas Day in Britain, people sat down with their families and friends to eat dinner, open gifts, and muster a little holiday spirit. Over the break, artist and designer <PERSON> traveled to Kyiv, planning some innocent sightseeing in Ukraine's scenic capital. She didn't know it at the time, but Kyiv would be expecting her.
Known for “mapping smells” across the past five years in places all over the world, from Milan to Glasgow to Rhode Island, <PERSON> has acquired some celebrity. When her flight to Ukraine suffered a massive 24-hour delay, she turned to Twitter to vent her frustration.
“Ukrainian International Airlines had a problem with their flaps, and I lost the plot and tweeted something to that effect, and a data journalist in Kyiv texted me,” <PERSON> said.
Her tweet caught the eye of <PERSON>, a self-described “data hipster” and “procrastiworker” living in Kyiv. He reached out to <PERSON>, asking if she was visiting Ukraine. “Is it a work visit, and would you mind giving us a talk or some sort of presentation?” <PERSON> said <PERSON> asked her.
“When <PERSON> posted on Twitter that she's coming to Kyiv, I realized that this is a good chance to meet her and talk about smellwalking and smellmaps,” <PERSON> said via email. “It was pretty spontaneous decision, but I asked subscribers of my Facebook page about dataviz [data visualization] … and up to ten people agreed to participate.”
So, on Dec. 25, the small group “with notepads taken from various conferences and pieces of paper folded up, and a group of people who came from all sorts of backgrounds,” set off to record the scents of Kyiv in the winter. The results, it turns out, are glorious.
The smellwalkers’ route through Kyiv. Image: <PERSON>
<PERSON> is now in the process of creating a detailed map of where Kyiv’s wafting winter aromas lurk.
The “smellwalkers” recorded the city's scents, including smells like “the islands of summer,” “wet animal fur,” and “rusty metal.” <PERSON>, as a newcomer to Kyiv, found herself acutely aware of smells that may have bypassed accustomed locals. 739
“The charcoal that the food stalls were using right at the top of St. Michael’s church … [was] really, really distinctive,” <PERSON> said.
“Most people were grilling or barbecuing meat — so there were strong smells of that coming out — but what they were using as fuel was very different … these were big, dirty drum braziers with real charcoal in them,” she says. While noting the difficulties in “pinning down” the fluidity of smell, there were some scents she says that are very specific to Kyiv.
“One was very much the wood smoke — that came in a variety of forms. It came from the charcoal and it came almost as a background smell. The other is very specific in terms of the salo — it’s not something that I’ve ever witnessed anywhere else in the world, ever,” she said.
Kyiv's holy sites also presented unique scents that <PERSON> said the locals had trouble noticing. “It’s the labdanum (rockrose resin) inside the churches that’s used as the incense, which is called laddanik there. I noticed that, but it didn’t feature in the smell walk — nobody actually noted it down … there was just enough of that incense, candle, type smell that was floating out from its woodwork doors for me to notice,” she said.
Image: <PERSON>
While the trek across Kyiv was a novel introduction to the city for <PERSON>, the locals in her group experienced it as a new and intriguing perspective on something familiar. “ I worked for ten years in the pharmaceutical industry,” said <PERSON>. “The smell walk was, for me, like a new window into a country … that I love,” she said. “Inspiration is everywhere — herbs, flowers, fresh air, and trees … I was mostly impressed with how many smells are around me.”
<PERSON> noticed how mapping the smells of the city may open up new possibilities for conceptualizing Kyiv. 736