Today is Kyiv Day. And once again, the city greets the occasion not in peacetime finery, but under the long shadow of war. Air raid sirens still interrupt the morning, the night is not always quiet, and the metro shelters more than passengers. Yet Kyiv endures. Founded in the year 482, Kyiv is not merely old. It is ancient, in the way only cities shaped by rivers and blood can be. It did not rise with Russia, but long before it.