VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY WAS ALREADY A CELEBRITY WHEN his first child was born in 2004. Back then, he and his wife Olena Zelenska often lived apart. He spent his days touring and promoting his comedy troupe in Kyiv, while she often stayed with her parents in their hometown of Kryvyi Rih, the city that Zelensky would later credit with forging his character. "My big soul, my big heart," he once called it. "Everything I have I got from there." The name of the town translates as "Crooked Horn," and in conversation Zelensky and his wife tend to refer to it in Russian as Krivoy-"the crooked place," where both of them were born in the winter of 1978, about two weeks apart.
Few if any places in Ukraine had a worse reputation in those years for violence and urban decay. The main employer in the city was the metallurgical plant, whose gargantuan blast furnaces churned out more hot steel than any other facility in the Soviet Union. During World War II, the plant was leveled by the Luftwaffe as the Nazis began their occupation of Ukraine. It was rebuilt in the 1950s and '60s, and many thousands of veterans went to work there. So did convicts released from Soviet labor camps.
Most of them settled into blocks of industrial housing, hives of reinforced concrete that offered almost nothing in the way of leisure, culture, or self-development. There were not nearly enough theaters, gyms, or sports facilities to occupy the local kids. By the late 1980s, when the population peaked at over 750,000, the city devolved into what Zelensky would later describe as a "banditsky gorod"-a city of bandits.
Olena remembers it more fondly than that. "It wasn't full of bandits in my eyes," she told me. "Maybe boys and girls run in different circles when they're growing up. But yes, it's true. There was a period in the '90s when there was a lot of crime, especially among young people. There were gangs." T
この記事は Time の January 24, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Time の January 24, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
How Trump Won
THE FORMER PRESIDENT'S RE-ELECTION IS THE NEXT STEP IN A POLITICAL CAREER UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Zak Brown The McLaren Racing CEO on Formula One in the U.S., his team's chase for a championship, and the future propulsion of the automobile
The McLaren F1 team is in the running for its first Formula One constructors' championship since 1998. What's that like? I'm kind of living on the edge of my seat. That's why sport is always going to be one of the most engaging forms of entertainment for people around the world.
Say Nothing speaks volumes
IN 1972, AT THE BLOODY HEIGHT OF the Troubles, home invaders abducted a widowed mother of 10 named Jean McConville from her Belfast apartment. Her children never saw her alive again.
Portrait of the artist in his ninth decade
AS A CURATOR AT THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART, Eleanor Nairne is very particular about how an artwork should be placed. \"I always say that you have to ask the work if it's sat comfortably,\" she says.
No rest for the songs of Wicked
THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST HAS BEEN A FIXTURE in American culture for nearly 125 years. After coming to life in 1900 with L. Frank Baum's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she rose to prominence onscreen in 1939, portrayed by Margaret Hamilton as a sinister old lady intent on ruining an innocent girl's wish to go home.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
With Here, Robert Zemeckis stays true to his unlikely blend of new technologies and old-fashioned storytelling
TIME 100 CLIMATE
These are the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action
BABY TALK
UNSURE ABOUT HAVING KIDS? THERAPIST MERLE BOMBARDIERI CAN HELP YOU FIGURE IT OUT
The many horrors of the Pelicot rape trial
THE TRIAL OF DOMINIQUE PELICOT, THE MAN IN THE South of France who pleaded guilty in September to charges of secretly drugging his wife of 50 years, Gisele, and, over the course of about a decade, filming dozens of men as they had sex with her while she was sedated, would have been disturbing enough just as the story of an epically vile husband.
Health Matters
COVID-19 MAY NOT BE A PUBLIChealth emergency anymore, but you still need your yearly shot. In fact, it seems to peak about twice a year: once during the traditional respiratory-disease season in the fall and winter, and once during summer.