We sing certain Ukrainian songs in the diaspora that are unknown or have been forgotten in Ukraine. I think the most powerful and saddest one is “Mamo.” It’s about a boy who during WWII was in the Majdanek concentration camp. (The camp was named after the Majdan Tatarski district in […]

Giovanni Zuliani (1843-1909) moved from Italy to Lviv and in 1892 founded a company specializing in mosaic and granite terrazzo prepared in Venetian style, marble ornamentation of walls and furniture, and all kinds of cement work. The company had branches in three other Galician cities: Stanisławów (Ivano-Frankivsk), Chernivtsi, and Krakow. […]

Terrazzo is a composite material made from marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other chips and poured with a binder. This material was used to pave many entranceways, stairwells, and communal spaces in Lviv’s buildings. It was often decorated with geometric designs, the year of installation, the name of the manufacturer, […]

The first houses in Winnetka were built in 1836.  Few of the nineteenth-century houses remain. The oldest surviving house is the Schmidt-Burnham House, which was built c. 1837. This one is now a museum. This red one was recently torn down 🙁

The trend of hand-painted signs continues on this newly renovated building on Lviv’s main square. This time, in addition to the usual Ukrainian, Polish, German, English translations, there is also French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. (Though there is a mistake in the Italian translation—should be “teatro” and not “theatre.”) A […]

I found an old benchmark in Przemyśl, Poland, located on a little post near the city’s central river, the San. You can read more about benchmarks in this post about Lviv’s benchmarks. The outer ring reads “Znak Wysokosci” (Height Marker), followed by 2 letters and 4 numbers, looks like AA-0001, […]

Old photos are windows to the past, to a forgotten world. I’m fortunate to have quite a few old family photos, which allow me to get a glimpse into the lives they led. I decided to share some of these photos with a correspondent from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who […]

The oldest Ukrainian-language grave that I found of an ancestor is my great-great-great grandmother’s grave. She died in 1883 and is buried in the village Luchkivtsi, about an hour north east of Lviv. Anna’s husband was a German man named Venceslaus (Karlo) Kuhn. The etymological spelling used is called Maksymovychivka. […]

Hidden behind a tall fence at the end of a small street in Kastelivka stands a villa called “Julietka.” It was built for private use in 1891-1893 by Julian Zachariewicz and his son Alfred, two famous Lviv architects. Next to the villa is an old stable with a sundial.

“With great pleasure I immersed myself in the streets, which I had previously passed without notice; I examined the buildings, every courtyard, gazed at the windows and the flowerpots on the windowsills, as though I were trying to find at least some trace of the old Lviv, that vanished world, […]