The biggest Ukrainian bookstore opened in the heart of Kyiv

Sense Bookstore on Khreshchatyk, the main street of Kyiv, was launched in test mode on February 16, 2024. Ukrainian writers and musicians Serhiy Zhadan and Irena Karpa attended the opening and premiered a music video for a song they co-wrote.

“Sense Bookstore on Khreshchatyk is special since it is located in the very heart of the capital and combines books, coffee, and a permanent event space for creating new senses. Unlike our first Sense Bookstore on Arsenalna Street, this one has three separate spaces for events, books, and coffee,” says the owner of the Sens chain, Oleksiy Erinchak.

Sense on Khreshchatyk has three floors. The first floor houses bestsellers, children’s literature, and a coffee shop. The ground floor is dedicated to bookshelves with fiction, non-fiction, and books in foreign languages (currently in English only), and the second floor is designed to host events.

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Among the many guests at the opening was Bohdana Neborak, a journalist and cultural manager, expressing her excitement about such a large bookstore opening on Khreshchatyk: “A beautiful large bookstore should have appeared in the heart of Kyiv long ago. Coming here and seeing a wide range of stunning books in my language, along with English-language literature, feels extremely inspiring.”

According to the bookstore staff, the opening day bestseller was an anthology of Ukrainian love poems written over the past two centuries, titled “No One Has Ever Loved Like This” by A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA Publishers, currently available only at Sens on Khreshchatyk. Guests were also buying poetry and prose books by Serhiy Zhadan and Irena Karpa for book signing after the event. Other poetry collections were in great demand as well.

Oleksiy Erinchak says that the work began four months ago and is still ongoing: “We plan to add more light, shelves, and books, while the second floor will be equipped for cultural events.”

Sens on Khreshchatyk covers about 1,500 square meters and its book collection already includes 42,000 titles with more to come.

Photos: Dmytro Larin

Translation: Sofiia Slaba

Editing: Tanya Mykhaylychenko