RFE/RL's Katya Gorchinskaya has been looking at the mood in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv ahead of this weekend's local elections:
Coffee houses buzz with the din of outsiders. The streets are filled with the hustle bustle of locals going about their daily business. Living statues dotting the main square add a human element to the city's medieval past.
Lviv exudes an air of a place that is going in the right direction.
The sight of soldiers drinking in bars is one of the few signs of the war simmering on the opposite end of the country, some 1,200 kilometers away. Thriving tourism belies the economic hardship faced by Ukraine as a whole. And the city's place both in history and on the map -- it lies just an hour's drive from the EU border -- give it a decidedly Western feel.
"I feel comfortable here, I love living and working here," says Viktoria Bryndza, a young professional from Lviv. "Even the proliferation of tourists sort of strokes my ego."
The country's GDP is set to contract by 9 percent this year, but you wouldn't guess it by walking around Lviv. New restaurants open every month, and posters advertise new residential developments.
And while anger and disappointment rise nationwide, the mood in Lviv is one of cheerful confidence and joie de vivre.
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