On June 3, the mayors of Denver and Dnipro, Ukraine, signed a Friendship Cities Agreement, formally recognizing a relationship that had been developing through the efforts of people in both communities. It was an important moment for Denver and Dnipro, although the more interesting story may be what has been happening since.
For Marina Dubrova, President of Ukrainians of Colorado, bringing the two cities together was personal. Marina was born and raised in Dnipro and now lives in Colorado. She and Mark Dillen spent years developing the idea, making introductions and showing people on both sides that there were good reasons for Denver and Dnipro to know one another better.
“This project is deeply personal,” Marina wrote after the agreement was signed. “Helping establish this relationship between my hometown and my adopted home of Denver has been a mission close to my heart.”
The similarities between the cities gave them plenty to work with. Denver and Dnipro both have histories in mining and engineering and significant communities in aerospace, higher education, medical research, technology and entrepreneurship. Those connections made a compelling case for collaboration, but Marina never saw the relationship as primarily institutional.
“Beyond these economic and scientific connections, this partnership is about people,” she wrote. “It creates opportunities for cultural exchange, educational collaboration, business development, humanitarian cooperation, and lasting friendships between residents of both cities.”
She also credits the close cooperation between Ukrainians of Colorado and Denver Sister Cities International, along with the many civic and community leaders who helped move the idea forward. The mayors’ signatures gave the relationship formal recognition. The next question was what people in the two cities would do with it.
We received an early glimpse of that during the recent Colorado visit of Vitalii Moshkivskyi, Ukraine’s Consul General in Houston.
His schedule included a meeting with Denver Economic Development & Opportunity, where the conversation moved quickly into practical possibilities. There was considerable discussion of business and technology, Ukraine’s rapidly evolving drone manufacturing capabilities, connections between entrepreneurs, and ways Dnipro might participate in Denver’s startup community and a startup event next year.
Then the conversation wandered into areas that probably wouldn’t appear on anyone’s economic-development agenda.
The Consul General talked about piano and music therapy being used with Ukrainian veterans. It was a fascinating idea and one that may have natural connections to Denver’s music, arts, healthcare and veterans communities.
He also talked about coffee shops.
Coffee culture, he explained, has been growing in Ukraine, and cafés have increasingly become gathering places: A scarce resource in a country at war. People meet there, spend time together and read. An unusual concept that was growing in Ukraine because of an unexpected thematic decision. That decision was made by readers, authors, and publishers, to grow Ukrainian-language publishing.
The two ideas together were particularly interesting. Coffee shops are such an ordinary part of life in Denver that it is easy to forget the social function they serve. A café is one of the few places where people are allowed to simply linger.
Lingering in a war torn city can be dangerous. But the sense of community that coffee culture has brought to Ukraine, is thriving. Add books to that picture, particularly books being written and published in Ukrainian, something that had rarely been done before, and it offers a glimpse of contemporary Ukrainian life that is quite different from what Americans normally see in news coverage.
Ukraine’s publishing industry has continued to operate and grow despite the war. The Ukrainian Book Institute reported approximately 400 active publishers in 2025, about 40 more than the previous year, and more than 15,000 book and brochure titles published during the year. Ukrainian-language books have become an increasingly visible part of that literary culture.
For Denver readers curious about the city we have just befriended, there is a wonderful place to begin.
V. Domontovych’s On Shaky Ground is connected directly to Dnipro. The novel follows an art historian returning to Katerynoslav, the city now known as Dnipro and where the author spent part of his childhood. Written in the late 1930s and early 1940s and first published in 1942, the novel moves through questions of art, architecture, industrialization, memory and a changing city. A new English translation by Oksana Rosenblum was published in 2024.
Another excellent introduction to contemporary Ukrainian literature is Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees, the story of a beekeeper living in the “Grey Zone” of eastern Ukraine. There are many others now available in English translation, including Artem Chekh’s Rock, Paper, Grenade, Marianna Kiyanovska’s The Voices of Babyn Yar and Valerian Pidmohylnyi’s The City.
There is something appealingly simple about reading a book from another place. International relationships can involve delegations, agreements and official meetings, but curiosity can begin at home.
We have also had opportunities to encounter Ukrainian culture here in Colorado. The Colorado Ukrainian Festival at Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park recently brought together thousands of people for Ukrainian music, dance, food, art and cultural traditions. Organized by Ukrainians of Colorado, the festival also supports humanitarian assistance for orphanages, displaced families and communities near frontline regions.
And then, on Friday evening, another group gathered at The Cube to watch a film.
Ash and Crayons, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky, follows Ukrainian children living with the consequences of war. The screening was part of Dr. Vincent Piturro’s Cube Cinema Series and was presented in conjunction with Ukrainians of Colorado.
The film combines documentary footage and interviews with extensive animation created by Ukrainian artists. The animation becomes particularly important when the children describe their experiences during the war. In these cases, no footage may actually exist and rather than trying to recreate those moments as conventional documentary scenes, the filmmakers move into an animated world.
Visually, there is an unusual sense of depth to some of these sequences. Foreground and background move against one another, creating an almost parallax view. It allows the film to enter a child’s memory without pretending that what we are watching is documentary footage of the event itself.
Dr. Vincent Piturro, Professor of Film and Media Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver, led the discussion afterward and helped the audience think through some of these choices. His observations about animation, perspective and documentary construction gave everyone a little more language for understanding what they had just watched.
The children’s stories also follow a recognizable narrative progression. Their lives have been interrupted by events entirely outside their control, and the film does not minimize their injuries, displacement or loss. But it also allows us to see them continuing forward, with grace, interests, relationships and ambitions. In many ways, each child’s story carries elements of the hero’s journey.
A documentary about children and war could have been constructed almost entirely around suffering. Ash and Crayons isn’t. The children are allowed a future in the narrative. The viewer needs to be able to imagine them moving forward, and perhaps that is necessary if the film is asking an audience not simply to witness what happened but to care about what happens next.
The audience itself added another dimension to the evening. There were Ukrainians and Ukrainian Americans, along with people who have spent considerable time supporting organizations working in Ukraine with medical supplies, counseling, humanitarian assistance and infrastructure. Mark Dillen was there representing Ukrainians of Colorado and talking about the organization’s work.
There were members of Denver’s arts community as well, including Sara Leitch, Chief Advancement Officer of Opera Colorado, which opens its 2026–27 mainstage season in November with Verdi’s Macbeth.
Anne Chermak Dillen raised an interesting possibility during the conversation afterward. A film doesn’t necessarily have to reach an enormous audience to have influence. A short section of a film like this, seen by a member of Congress or congressional staff at a particular moment, could potentially help someone understand an issue in a way that a report or briefing might not.
There were film scholars in the room thinking about technique, people from the arts thinking about storytelling, Ukrainians bringing their own experiences to what they were seeing, and people involved in humanitarian work who knew something about the circumstances behind the children’s stories. Everyone had watched the same film, but they had not necessarily watched it from the same place.
That seems worth remembering as Denver begins its relationship with Dnipro.
In only a few months, the connection has already taken us into conversations about aerospace and drones, startups and universities, veterans and music, coffee shops and books, festivals, children, film and animation. That isn’t an especially tidy list, but cities aren’t tidy things. They contain engineers and musicians and children and professors and shopkeepers and artists, all at once.
Marina described the Friendship Cities Agreement as “a bridge between two incredible cities—one founded on friendship, mutual respect, shared values, and hope for the future.”
She and Mark Dillen did an extraordinary amount of work to help create that bridge, supported by Ukrainians of Colorado, Denver Sister Cities International, the City of Denver and many others.
“This Friendship Cities Agreement is just the beginning,” Marina wrote. “We look forward to developing educational, cultural, humanitarian, and economic initiatives that will strengthen the bond between Denver and Dnipro for generations to come.”
No one knows yet which of those connections will become lasting programs. That will take time.
For now, Denver is getting to know Dnipro.
Friday night, that happened in a darkened theater, among people who stayed in their seats after the lights came up because there was still more to talk about.
Become Part of Denver’s International Community
Denver Sister Cities International creates opportunities for people in Denver to build relationships with communities around the world through cultural exchange, education, business connections and citizen diplomacy. If you would like to learn more or become involved, we welcome you to join us.
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The relationships described in this story don’t happen through a single event or program. They grow through introductions, conversations, cultural programs, visiting delegations, student and educational exchanges, community partnerships, and the work of people willing to stay connected across borders.
That is the work Denver Sister Cities International helps make possible across all of our Sister City and Friendship City relationships.
A gift to DSCI’s General Fund supports the organization behind these efforts, giving us the flexibility to welcome international visitors, develop new partnerships, support our city committees, create cultural and educational programming, communicate these stories, and pursue opportunities that often begin with a simple introduction.
If you believe there is value in helping people in Denver know more of the world—and helping the world know Denver—we hope you will consider making a gift to Denver Sister Cities International.
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