The overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych took place in Maidan square – an extremely Soviet setpiece built to glorify revolution

The urban planners of the Soviet Union excelled at creating the spectacle of revolution. Huge wide boulevards for the marching public, culminating in immense squares for assembly and rally where colossal statues of Lenin exhorted in absentia. Long after the collapse of the USSR, they often remain at the heart of cities from Berlin to Moscow. But what happens to places like these when an actual urban insurrection hits them?

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My partner and I were last in Kiev three years ago; returning last week, we were astonished at how different Maidan looked. Pedestrian pathways ran through encampments and barricades four foot high. The ground was charred, the paving stones unreplaced. Armoured cars blared out rousing songs as the temporary stage was taken by an Orthodox priest.

The trade union building, recently occupied by the revolutionaries, was now a charred husk with most of its windows blown out, while McDonald's, having become a makeshift mental hospital at the close of the protests, was now a McDonald's again – to the regret of our friends who worried that the square would eventually revert back to being an empty, corporate plaza rather than the space it became during the protests (although apparently, the underground Globus shopping mall below Maidan stayed open throughout).

Elsewhere, the transformation was more subtle. Walking down 19th-century Taras Shevchenko boulevard, the turn into the Kreschatyk was denoted by the plinth of the Lenin statue – toppled last December and caked in graffiti, either in cryptic, esoteric far-right symbols or with the more obvious "glory to Ukraine".

The Kreschatyk boulevard was interrupted after one block by tents and surviving barricades in front of towering Stalinist castles. Grand archways leading to the side streets were blocked with tyres. The protesters had used the qualities of the Stalinist architecture – flights of steps, triumphal arches, wide streets and huge squares – to their advantage, blocking potential entry points and congregating on the free, open spaces. Kiev City Hall was graffiti covered, and occupying a mobile phone shop next to the branch of Oggi were the far-right paramilitary alliance Pravy Sektor (Right Sector)....