Day Seven. The same poet. The city that gave him a square. The Long Way to Paris I did not plan Paris. Paris arrived the way certain gifts arrive, sideways, through the logic of a schedule that was already full, through an itinerary that had been built around something else entirely and then suddenly, improbably,…

Day Six. The same poet. The city that printed his words when his empire banned them. The 6 A.M. Train There is a particular discipline to the early morning train. Not the romantic kind of early, not the pre-dawn departure into mystery, but the practical kind: the alarm at five, the dark streets, the station…

Day Five. The same poet. The golden hour found him first. The Night Train from Split There is a particular quality to arriving somewhere by night train that no other form of travel replicates. You board in one world, surrender to motion and darkness and the rhythm of wheels on track, and when you wake,…

Day Four. The same poet, a different logic of arrival. The Detour That Was Not Optional There is a particular kind of decision that does not feel like a decision at all. It arrives fully formed, already made, and all you are doing is catching up to what you already know you will do. Standing…

The Weekend That Should Not Have Been Possible In 2007, Air Canada did something it has never done again and probably will never do again for such a low price. For a brief, improbable window, it offered a pass, an all-you-can-fly arrangement over weekends in low season that let you board any available seat on…

Day Two. The same poet, a different city, a different kind of finding. The City I Lived In Without Exploring For one month, Vienna was my address. I had an Airbnb there, a base, a place to return to between trains and planes, the kind of temporary home that a certain kind of traveller accumulates…

Today is March 9. Shevchenko Day. The birthday of Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko, born in 1814 in the village of Moryntsi, Kyiv region, into serfdom, into an empire that did not believe he had the right to a language, and who became, against every odds, the voice that gave that language back to an entire people.…

International Women’s Day 2026A year ago, I wrote that when we fail to value women, dictators rise. I stand by every word. https://krasun.ca/2024/03/08/when-we-fail-to-value-women-dictators-rise-100-reasons-to-honour-womens-vital-work-this-international-womens-day/ This year I want to say something simpler. Something that goes beyond politics and history and debate.Today we acknowledge the struggle. The long, ongoing, unfinished work of building a world where women…

The Video That Stopped Me A former classmate recently shared a video that has stayed with me since I watched it. American children, elementary school students, had written letters to Ukrainian soldiers. Not typed them. Written them. In Ukrainian letters, carefully copied from Google Translate, imperfect and sincere. “Dear Ukrainian soldiers, stay safe.” “Come home…

February 24, 2026 — Four Years Since Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine Four years ago today, the world woke up to the sound of explosions over Kyiv. Four years ago, millions of children woke up to russia’s full scale invasion. Today, a four-year-old child in Ukraine has never known a morning without the possibility of…