Dmytro Levytskyi

“The long, overnight queue is seen as a miniature social system faced with the problems of every social system, formulating its own set of informal rules to govern acts of pushing in and place keeping, leaves of absence, and the application of sanctions. Cultural values of egalitarianism and orderliness are related to respect for the principle of service according to order of arrival which is embodied in the idea of a queue.” So claimed Leo Mann back in 1969 in his work Queue Culture: The Waiting Line as a Social System.
The queue is one of the oldest forms of organizing social life. In catastrophic times, the culture of queuing depends on how society will respond to challenges. It seems that the first thing that civilians face at the beginning of a war is queues. Queues at the store, at the ATM, at the gas station, at the exit from the city, at the military commissariat for mobilization. In a sense, understanding and controlling the queue is the main function of the state.
The project "Queues in Kyiv" is a research project into the culture of queuing in Kyiv in the period after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv is the largest Ukrainian city, which represents the most diverse scenarios of queueing caused by the war in the urban space: from queues at the first reopening McDonald's to queues at the central post office, where postage stamps are sold on the theme of war.