Slavik – Viacheslav Balabaiev, mural artist from Germany

From Mykolaiv to Frankfurt

Slavik started painting graffiti in 2004 in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine. He comes from hip-hop culture and is known in the scene by his tag “BVB”. From 2007 he supervised the “Dormashina Hall of Fame”, his hometown’s largest graffiti space; in 2009 he founded Ukraine’s first graffiti school and opened his own graffiti shop. He organised festivals, taught as a lecturer, co-founded the hip-hop collective “South Front” and spent around ten years travelling to major hip-hop events across Europe. One of his largest projects in Ukraine is the design of a sports centre covering more than 2,500 m².

In 2021 he created a mural of around 150 m² in Mykolaiv at the corner of Faleievska and Naberezhna streets: ships from the city’s shipbuilding history – including the “Sviatyi Mykolai” – and chess pieces opposite the chess club. The theme is personal: his grandfather ran one of the city’s shipyards for ten years, and his father built aircraft carriers.

Beyond art, Slavik brings experience as an interior designer for commercial and residential spaces, a decorator and a graphic designer – combined with management and marketing, so projects are finished on time and on target. In 2022 he moved to Frankfurt am Main.

Work in Frankfurt and Rhine-Main

At Bornheimer Hang he spent one and a half years designing FSV Frankfurt’s stadium, including a club crest of about six by four metres. Hessischer Rundfunk reported on it; Slavik said: “Ich lebe jetzt hier und möchte diesen Ort schöner machen” (“I live here now and want to make this place more beautiful”).

For German Unity Day 2025 he painted shop windows on Braubachstraße under the motto “We protect our democracy – together for freedom, diversity and solidarity”, as part of Tourismus+Congress GmbH’s “Jazz zum Dritten” event, together with city marketing and the mayor’s office. He combined historical quotes such as Willy Brandt’s “Berlin will live and the wall will fall!” with current issues. Hip-hop, he says, is his language and art is his megaphone.

From October 2025 he painted the campus wall of Sankt Georgen University with a large floral mural for its 100th anniversary, completed in 2026. In 2026 he painted a large mural on the theme of “air” in Neu-Isenburg for Offenbach district’s ENSO project for World Design Capital, based on a design by Miruna Costa – the Offenbach-Post put it on its front page. The two had met at a newcomer festival in Frankfurt.

Style and tools

Slavik works with brushes, airbrush, spray cans and professional paint sprayers – from photorealism, calligraphy and wildstyle to large facades. Modern tools such as AI, AR/VR headsets and lasers help with sketches and precise transfer to the wall. His belief: “When humans became human, they began painting pictures on walls.”