Kyiv's main artery runs for a little over a kilometre between Bessarabska Square and European Square, passing through Maidan Nezalezhnosti on its way. The wedding-cake Stalinist apartment blocks on either side, the rebuilt main post office, the central department store TsUM, and the heavy stone Trade Unions Building all date from the postwar reconstruction.
At weekends Khreshchatyk is closed to traffic and becomes the city's promenade — buskers, food stalls, street artists, families on roller skates. On a summer evening it is the easiest place to feel the rhythm of Kyiv.