The East and the West at the Same Time

If we take a pair of compasses, place their one arm in the circle with the name “Lviv” written beside it, the other arm – in the circle that says “Feodosiya” (the medieval trade city of Kafa), and start rotating this latter arm in the western direction, it will soon hit another circle labelled “Venice”. It is truly amazing that Lviv lies at the same distance from Crimea and Southern Italy. This almost magic, mystical geographical location of Lviv brings the East and the West, Asia and Europe closer together.

Lviv is the city of the West and of the East at the same time. It owes its unique location at the mystical intersection of global cultural and civilizational influences to its historical karma. The city is advantageously and conveniently located at the geopolitical junction of two civilizations, at the tectonic fissure of two different and, at times, hostile cultures. For centuries Lviv has been trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. It was the place where the mysterious, irrational and despotic East merged with the heroic, romantic and pragmatic West. The principles of tolerance and respect to that of foreign origin, which can become factors of establishing the same ideas in the New Europe of the future, have been developing in the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural smelter of Lviv for centuries.

Lviv became the point of contact of two cultural worlds, an equidistant cultural and trading Mecca, which always worked as an invisible magnet attracting extremely talented people: architects, sculptors, artists, craftsmen, merchants, and public figures. They came here not only for innumerable and wondrous riches – majestic temples, luxurious palaces, stores filled with the most diverse goods from all over the world – but for the high level of culture and education, for intensive intellectual life. No matter where you came from – Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Greece or Armenia, – behind the walls of Lviv you would always find safe refuge and the opportunity to do what you liked most, to develop your skills and talents to the fullest …