Tvoe Misto Media-Hub is now offering English-language stories and reporting from Lviv, population 724,000, the cultural capital of Ukraine and a city where tradition and innovation cooperate.
Lviv is known for its innovative tech spirit, exuberant street-singing, jazz-filled cafés, buzzing coffeehouses, elaborate restaurants, and frequent festivals celebrating a cuisine and culture nourished by the region of Ukrainian Galicia and the Carpathian mountains. A popular tourist destination for foreigners and Ukrainians alike, Lviv has a unique ethos as the world’s only majority Greek Catholic city, the nexus of East and West. On holidays the cobbled streets of the pedestrian-focused centre are filled with people wearing the traditional embroidered garb of the Ukrainian people: the vyshyvanka.
Named for Leo («Lion»), the son of the great 13th century king Danylo of Galicia, Lviv is sometimes called the city of lions, coffee, and rain – reflecting great things commonly encountered here, the lions in the form of a staggering number of statues and carvings; the rain sometimes in the form of snow; and the coffee, brought by invading Turkish armies, in many formats.
Located amid large hills including the High Castle and emanating from its stately central tower, the city of Lviv is a 90 minute flight to both Kyiv and Vienna, with many train connections around Ukraine and beyond. A crossroads city that has weathered many invasions, Lviv was a place of dissidence, art, and learning during the years of Soviet oppression. Together, these elements make Lviv a place of conversation and ideas whether in the Ukrainian language or in English.
Our Journalism: Through this website we invite you to learn about this ancient city and to engage with its ideas, artists, innovators, and thinkers. Since 2014, inspired by Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, or Euromaidan, Tvoe Misto (Ukrainian for «Your City») has served the people of Lviv with its unique form of public forum journalism, through which we keep open the public square by hosting regular problem-solving forums designed to solve one local problem at a time. We call this a journalism of decision. Each session hosted in our modern studio within 17th century walls is in essence a Mini-Euromaidan: democracy at work, powered by citizens.
We are independent, funded by a mix of advertising and by a group of citizens in many professions, the Friends of Tvoe Misto.
Tvoe Misto English is edited by Joe Lindsley, an American journalist who on Ukrainian Independence Day 2019 came to Lviv with American friends looking for their ancestral roots. Captivated by the Tvoe Misto public-forum model, he returned in 2020, the pandemic hit, and he has stayed, enjoying how Lviv reminds him of his favorite U.S. cities: the heritage of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the innovation of Austin, Texas.
