New Year, 1 January 2021

A happy new year to everyone.

Last night was the quietest new year I have spent in Kyiv. No crowds on the squares, restaurants closed or nearly so, and the fireworks scattered and amateur rather than organised.

What replaced it was interesting. Video calls open on the table for hours, with grandparents propped up on a screen at the end of the table so they could be at dinner without being at dinner. Awkward, slightly comic, and clearly better than nothing.

People adapt a ritual faster than they abandon it. That has been the pattern all year, in every holiday, and it is worth remembering as a general fact about how this place works.

To everyone who spent last night on a screen with people they wanted to be beside: I hope this year gives you the actual table.