Every day in the Ukrainian city of Lviv there’s a little revolution, and it’s mostly fun. Each night its people go to bed a little less Soviet, and the city gets younger and younger. Colour is returning to the hotels, and the shops are now full of exotica like drones and iPods and fancy knickers. Even the city’s police look like teenagers in their European cars and spiffy new outfits. ‘We got rid of the old fatties in the 2014 uprising,’ said our guide, Tymor. ‘Too corrupt, too pro-Russian.’

After one of the most extraordinary election victories in history, it will come as little surprise to learn that counter-culture rules, or at least inspires. Take the restaurants, for example. One of the...