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Dmytro Soloviov stops by the “Flying Saucer,” a concrete structure in central Kyiv nicknamed for its futuristic, spaceship-like form. Designed by architect Florian Yuriev and completed in 1971 as the home of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information, it’s renowned as a prime example of Soviet modernism. The disc-shaped cinema and lecture hall, inspired by the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, rests atop a horizontal hall of glass and steel. Today, the Flying Saucer is surrounded by a construction site where a new shopping center is taking shape.

Dmytro Soloviov. Photo by Elmira Musaieva courtesy FUEL

“That’s how it is in Kyiv—there’s no respect for the past,” says Soloviov.

Soloviov, a Ukrainian heritage activist and architectural photographer, is fighting to stop the destruction of this building and others from the same era. He does so by documenting them, collecting around a hundred examples, built mainly from the 1960s through the 1980s, in his book Ukrainian Modernism, published by London-based FUEL earlier this year. He also runs an Instagram account of the same name with more than 100,000 followers, and leads guided architecture tours in Kyiv to introduce locals to the city’s at-risk 20th-century architectural marvels.

"I had just become interested in modernism and couldn’t understand how this famous building was about to be turned into a mall,” says Soloviov of the Flying Saucer. “I realized that I couldn’t do much about it, but at least I could photograph it.“

Physics Department building at Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv. Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

On a gray Sunday afternoon in late June, while in Kyiv on a reporting trip, I join one of Soloviov’s walking tours. These well-attended excursions are just one of the many examples of how life in the city continues as normal by day, even as it is heavily bombed at night. This past spring and summer, Russian drone and missile attacks on Kyiv escalated sharply, claiming many lives.

Cherkasy International Airport, Ukraine. Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute's House of Culture, Kviv Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

Bold landmarks from the Soviet years like the Flying Saucer are far more appreciated by younger, more open-minded Ukrainians than by older generations. On the tour that I joined, no one appears to be over the age of 35. Soloviov points out that there’s a tendency among older people to see these buildings as unattractive.

One of the attendees, 32-year-old Polina Karpenko, was born two years after the fall of the Soviet Union. She works as a product manager at a Kyiv tech company and says she enjoys the aesthetics of the buildings that Soloviov brings attention to..

“Everyone wants to get rid of everything connected to the Soviet era, but there’s a lot to learn from this architecture,” she said. “The planning paid more attention to people’s needs, like healthcare and culture. Whole neighborhoods were built at once, and the infrastructure was better organized than it is today.”

House of Culture and Creativity, Dnipro, Ukraine. Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

The night after Soloviov’s tour is sleepless in Kyiv. Hundreds of Russian drones buzz through the air. In the shelter four floors underground in my old Soviet hotel at Maidan Square, I hear the dull thuds of missile explosions. Ten people were killed and about 30 injured before dawn when a residential building was hit. Soloviov stayed in bed in his apartment in the Podil district and hoped for the best, as many Kyiv residents do after more than three years of war.

Russian strikes are one of the threats to Ukraine’s modernist heritage. Since the full-scale invasion, documenting the losses has been an important part of Soloviov’s work. On his Instagram account, he posts pictures of the Palace of Culture in Pavlohrad, a 1970s building hit in Russian attacks last summer, along with other examples of destruction.

Zhytniy Market, Kyiv. Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

For Ukrainian Modernism, Soloviov traveled to some of the country’s hardest-hit cities, including his hometown Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine as well as Kharkiv and Sumy near the Russian border. One of the challenges there was avoiding forced conscription into the Ukrainian army. “Many locals who were supposed to show me buildings were reluctant to meet in public for that reason,” he explains.

Solovio also risked being picked up, as he had not yet begun studying at university and was therefore not exempt from being drafted. He says a friend in Zaporizhzhia hasn’t left his house in three years to avoid being conscripted.

V.I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, Kyiv. Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

Photo © Dmytro Soloviov, courtesy FUEL

Beyond the bombings, Ukraine’s modernist buildings are threatened by market forces. New development, corruption, lack of planning regulations, and ignorance of these structures’ cultural-historical value mean that many are being demolished or redeveloped, as in the case of Kyiv’s Flying Saucer.

These buildings are also threatened by Ukraine’s reckoning with its Soviet past. The process has been ongoing since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. Laws have been passed to remove monuments and street names that glorify the Soviet Union and communism. This past August in the city of Lviv, nationalist influencers tried to stop an event where Soloviov spoke about his book.

“Instead of protecting what the Russians are destroying, they want to throw away everything Soviet, because they see it as Russian,” says Soloviov. “But that is exactly what Putin claims: that everything Soviet is Russian. Often dismissed as Russian colonialism, these buildings were created by Ukrainian architects who tried to shape a better world for the people of Ukraine.”