A restaurant in the corner of Lviv's Old Market

Henry Marsh reminisces on his time in the historic city of Lviv, in the first of our series 'There's A Street in my Neighbourhood'

I first saw Staryi Rynok — the Old Market — in Lviv in the winter of 1995. I have a photograph of myself standing on the snow-covered pavement, wearing a fur hat. Nobody would dream of wearing such a hat now in Ukraine — they are associated with the past, and with Russia. Beanies have become universal. Besides, climate change has made winters much milder. Behind me you can see the crumbling, blackened facades of the ancient buildings that form the square, many of them derelict. Lviv is one of the historic cities of Eastern Europe. It had a large Jewish population and was a centre of Jewish learning. Many of the historic buildings around the square were once owned by Jews but there are very few Jewish people left now, after the mass murder of the Second World War.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been back to Lviv since 1995 — and on each visit I could see how the grim past was fading away.