Sunflower Underground: a Kyiv Memoir

It is 1997, Britain has a new Prime Minister, Oasis are dominating the charts and the warm winds of change are blowing across Europe. Ukraine and the European Union announce their new relationship at a televised concert with an historic speech. Richard was at the heart of it. Had he witnessed the start of the countdown to war, or was he helping to prevent one? This is the start of an adventure which takes him to the edge of history on the eve of the 21st century.Based on a true story, Richard is a student from Oxford who ventures to Ukraine to teach English in a Kyiv language school. He soon discovers an underground political movement devoted to reviving Ukrainian national identity in the aftermath of the Soviet Union. Through an extraordinary sequence of events, Richard meets a young singer with a bright future and an elusive professor with a secret past – and an old soldier reveals more than he could ever know.Richard experiences the beauty, the crime and intrigue of life in Kyiv. It is a story of how being in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time, can influence events. The author skillfully links these events to Ukraine’s current fight for survival.