This year Kiev celebrates 20 years of post-Soviet history. The country's capital is an indicator of how Ukraine, which has always been torn between East and West, has changed and is evolving.

Kiev is a city with a real drive for modernisation. Twenty years after independence it is a mixture of old and new. The imperial look of its palaces, reflecting its Soviet past, and its historical buildings coexist with modern developments, to the point where UNESCO has threatened to take the city's historic sites off the World Heritage List.

The needs of the people have changed, along with what they can do: "Up until the late 1980s almost all buildings in this area were shared apartments. During Perestroika, when people got the opportunity to buy homes, the accommodation in this area changed. People started buying the flats and several of them to create new luxury homes," explained architect Georgy Duchovichny.

That is how an area in central Kiev became one of the most up-market neighbourhoods in the capital. Luxury boutiques have started to appear in the last few years as well as many international chains.

According to Igor Burakovsky, head of the Ukrainian Institute of Economic Studies and Political Consulting, Kiev encapsulates the history of Ukrainian economic development.

"The first consumer credits given by the banks originally or historically appeared in the city of Kiev, so it was relatively easy to get some money, to invest that in, for example housing, and it gave a certain boost to the development of the city as such."

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