Chapter 3 · 2 years · Kyiv

2019

Home in Kyiv

No desert this year. Instead, a home: the Kurenivka Palace of Culture, 1,200 m² in Kyiv, alive from May until the pandemic.

1,200 m²

of a former Palace of Culture in Kyiv

1,300+

guests at the housewarming

500–1,500

people at every Precompression and Decompression

Why a home

Tired of renting halls

After two burns the community was growing on its own. Precompression before the burn and Decompression after it had become Kyiv's favourite parties, and every one of them meant finding and renting a venue all over again. Sasha Ovsianko kept pushing one idea: Kurenivka needs a place of its own.

So in 2019 the camp found one. The team built it out for Precompression and paid for the work with ticket sales. The housewarming drew more than 1,300 guests.

Art of the year

Vitya's head

Over the year the Palace hosted parties, art and a giant sculpted head in glasses, Vitya's head, made by artist Rostyslav Dudchenko. He built art for every Kurenivka decompression, and six years later he would bring Blue Bull to life.

Now what?

The morning after

The morning after the first party, for the first time, nothing had to be taken down. And with that came a new question: now what? A permanent home needs a working model, with a bar licence, studio rents and taxes. The camp had dreamed about the space more than it had planned for it, and the team disagreed about where to take it. The original core went separate ways.

All of that year's energy went into the Palace, and Kurenivka didn't make it to the playa. The Palace stayed open until the pandemic closed it.