At 38 Velyka Zhytomyrska Street, you will find one of Kyiv’s most famous murals — Saint George Mural, created in 2014 by the artistic duo Interesni Kazki. The appearance of this mural is inseparable from its historical context: the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in Donbas became the impulse that brought the idea to life.
The mural depicts a Cossack with the head of a bird — an armed defender whose sword cuts a serpent in half. The serpent symbolizes a chthonic monster, biblical evil, and aggressive imperial ambitions, while the Cossack represents the traditional defender of Ukrainian land, a warrior of the heavenly host reimagined in the modern context of the struggle for independence and territorial integrity.
It is a reinterpretation of the archetype of Saint George defeating the dragon, yet expressed in the language of the present day — sharp, recognizable, and without unnecessary words.