Residents of the Ukrainian capital have mixed reactions over the removal of a statue of Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master And Margarita. Born in Kyiv when it was part of the Russian Empire, the novelist and playwright penned sharp satire and criticized Soviet society. But the statue has now been taken down after Ukraine’s Institute of National Remembrance determined that Bulgakov also symbolized Russian imperial thinking — under which Ukraine was seen as a Russian province.
