Ukraine 1

Thanks to Spoon for this...

I live in Zaporozh'e, South of Ukraine. The hardcore scene is doing badly over here. In the city with a population of 800 thousand people only 10-15 people are involved. There are no shows in Zaporozh'e at all. There are no hardcore bands either. I'm a musician myself by the way and I'm trying to start a band but there are almost no musicians interested in hardcore. In a neighbouring city Dnepropetrovsk things are going much better. The scene there is comprised of approximately 500 people maybe even more now. The shows are happening regularly and there's a local band Double Trouble that plays NYHC. Very good scenes can be found in Kiev, Odessa, Simferopol' and Khar'kov. Most of the shows are taking place in Kiev of course since it is the capital of the country. The most recent band that played there was Death Before Dishonor.

As for the spirit of unity and community, I can't tell you much but I know that where there's a scene of some sort things aren't going too well. The most prominent Ukranian bands are:

xDeviantx (Kiev)

xDeclarationx (RIP)

.aspire. (Odessa)

Double Trouble (Dnepropetrovsk)

Humble Opinion RIP (Kiev)

Keep On Fighting RIP (Sebastopol)

Opozicija RIP

Spunky Yank

Still (Odessa)

Uprise

For me personally hardcore is more than just music. I can't say I'm heavily involved but I'm not a bystander either. I think for many people this is just something new, something cool to stick with and that's it.
By the way a Ukrainian based International Hardcore Punk Archive was launched recently.