Kyiv

KYIV

Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is one of the most beautiful and ancient cities in Europe. Now it is more than 1500 years old. It has the population of nearly 3 million inhabitants, covers an area of 790 square kilometers, and year by year it is rapidly expanding.

There is a legend about its foundation. Once there were three brothers, one was named Kyi, the second Shcheck and the third Khoryv, and their sister Lybid. They founded a city and called it by the name of Kyiv in the name of their oldest brother. The monument erected in their honour, stands on the bank of the River Dnipro.

In the late 6-th and early 7-th centuries, during the reign of Volodymyr the Great, Kyiv consisted of two parts – the fortified Upper City where the court of the princes was located, and Podil, the lower part of the city, where artisans, fishermen and merchants lived. This part developed into a busy trading district as ancient Kyiv was a large commercial center of East Slavs. Its beneficial position on the important waterway, which linked the city to the Black Sea, promoted its growth. With the establishment of Kyivan Rus in the 9-th century, Kyiv became its capital. It played an essential role in the development of written language, literature, painting and architecture.

Thus there is an abundance of places of great historic value in the city. In the times of Yaroslav the Wise the Golden Gate and St. Sophia’s Cathedral were built. The Golden Gate, dating back to the 11-th century, in the distant past was the city’s main entrance. The foundation of St. Sophia’s Cathedral was laid in 1037 to commemorate the victory over the Pecheneg tribes. The first library in Kyivan Rus was established on the grounds of this cathedral. The other places of historic interest in Kyiv are the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – the Monastery of the Caves whose incredibly fascinating architectural complex speaks of the exceptional talent and skill of geniuses of many generations, St. Andrew’s Church, the Maryinsky Palace and many others. Monuments and memorial plaques on the facades of the buildings tell the story of important events and personalities that have played a great part in the history of the nation. Here the outstanding philosophers, artists, architects, poets and scientists lived, worked and dreamed of a better life. In Kyiv there are monuments to Prince Volodymyr the Great and Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Taras Shevchenko and Hryhoriy Skovoroda, Ivan Kotliarevsky and many other prominent people of Ukraine. Kyiv’s history is full of dramatic events and glorious deeds. Throughout its age-old existence, Kyiv was frequently attacked by enemies but never failed to put up a heroic defence against invaders.   

Nowadays Kyiv is a large political, industrial, economic, financial, scientific and cultural center of Ukraine. It is the residence of the President of Ukraine. The highest body of state power of Ukraine, the Supreme Soviet, and the Cabinet of Ministers, government offices, ministries and various committees are also housed here.

The considerable part of the country’s industrial might is concentrated in Kyiv. The city has highly developed machine-building, ship-building, precision tools and electrical measuring instruments, light, food and other industries. There are companies specializing in electronics, aviation, and chemical production. The industrial output of Kyiv’s enterprises also includes motorcycles, excavators, audio and video equipment, furniture, clothing manufacture, etc.

Kyiv is the center of science and education. The National Scientific Library, the Central Botanical Garden, and the Main Astronomical Observatory are located there. It is the seat of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Taras Shevchenko University, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, many scientific-research institutes, various higher and secondary schools and colleges. Students from different countries of the world are enrolled in Kyiv’s numerous educational establishments.

Kyiv’s cultural life is rich and varied. The city attracts hundreds of tourists from this country and abroad. They go sight-seeing and enjoy the beauty of the city. There are a lot of fine museums, exhibitions, art galleries and theatres in it: the State Historical Museum, the Shevchenko State Museum, the Museums of Ukrainian, Russian, Western and Oriental Fine Arts, the Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art Museum, the Natural History Museum, and many others. Tourists may get acquainted with unique exhibits found in the Museum of Historic Treasures of Ukraine, with artifacts dating back to the 6-th century B.C. The T. Shev-chenko Opera and Ballet House, the Ivan Franko Ukrainian Drama Theatre, the Lesya Ukrainka Russian Drama Theatre, the Operetta Theatre, the Musical Comedy Theatre, the Puppet Theatre are greatly appreciated by Kyiv audience and guests of the capital. There is a conservatoire, philharmonics and several huge concert halls in the capital. Spectators are sure to like the performances by famed vocal or dance companies as well as popular variety shows.

Kyiv is old yet eternally young. Side by side with the relics of the past there are magnificent multi-storeyed buildings, Metro stations and TV towers, fashionable stores and supermarkets, up-to-date stadiums, tennis courts, swimming pools and gyms, modern structures of comfortable hotels to accommodate tourists and business persons, cafes and restaurants with Ukrainian, European, American and Eastern cuisine, marvelous theatres and cinemas, wonderful parks and squares with fountains and other attractions, night clubs and discos, offering numerous facilities for entertainment and recreation.

The appearance of the city is unique due to the original blending of architecture with the surrounding landscape. The city is situated on the picturesque slopes of the Dnipro River, the longest river in Ukraine. One half of Kyiv’s territory is occupied by parks and gardens with plentiful greenery of trees, bushes and floral planting. One of the parks is the park of Immortal Glory with the Tomb of Unknown Soldier over which an eternal fire burns. The chestnut tree forms the main ornament of the city’s green attire and has become the symbol of Kyiv. The city is always associated with the candle-flowering chestnut. Day by day our capital becomes more and more splendid. Green hills and banks of the Dnipro are joined by wonderful bridges. The most interesting of them is the Paton Bridge, named after the distinguished Ukrainian scientist and academician E.A.Paton. This is the first all-welded bridge in the world. The underground takes Kyivites to new residential districts on the left bank of the river.

One can’t help admiring Khreshchatyk, the widest and the most charming street in Kyiv. Being the central and one of the busiest streets in the city, it is always flooded by heavy current of cars, buses, trolley buses and other vehicles. Nevertheless it looks like a park lane: it is a river of green and golden trees from early spring till late autumn that adds up to the beauty of the Ukrainian capital. No wonder that this admirable and hospitable city is the pride and glory of all Ukrainian people.

The Historical Places of Kyiv

          Inimitable in the beauty and variety of its green landscape, a garden city, a city of museums, Kyiv is one the oldest cities in Europe. Its monuments of the past are perfectly integrated with modern buildings, attractive hotels, cinemas, TV tower, Metro stations, banks and administrative establishments. As Kyiv's history is full of dramatic events and heroic deeds, there are many places of interest in it.

            Kyiv Pechery Lavra was created over a period of 9 centuries (11-18). The first written mention of Kyiv-Pechery Lavra is found in the “Chronicle of Bygone Years”. According to it, the monk Antony, a native of Lyubich in the Chernihiv Region, and his follower Theodosius founded the Pechersk Monastery in 1051.  It became an important cultural centre of Old Rus. Among museums located on the grounds of the Kyiv Cave Historical-Cultural Preserve there is the Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art, which comprises more than 50,000 exhibits. The museum has extensive collections of Ukrainian artistic folk kylyms (rugs and carpets), printed and woven textiles, embroidery, needlework, dress, woodcarvings, ceramics, pottery, porcelain, glass, and decorative painting dating from the 15th century to the present. Besides, there is the Ukrainian Museum of Books and Printing, the famous Ukrainian Museum of Miniatures, and the Museum of Historical Treasures, which collection is especially rich. Some of its artifacts date back to the 4-th century B.C. In 1926 the monastery ensemble of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was declared a state museum of history and culture.

            St. Sophia Cathedral   In 1037 St. Sophia Cathedral, an outstanding monument of ancient Rus and world culture, was built on the site of the 1036 battle against the Pechenegs, who had been constantly threatening Kyiv and devastating Rus lands, and in which the Kyiv warriors were victorious. The foundation of a new cathedral was laid during the reign of Prince Yaroslav the Wise. The St.Sophia’s became the centre of the social and cultural life of those times. Several schools and the first library in Kyivan Rus were organized on the grounds of the Cathedral.

         The Sophia Cathedral suffered destiny of many structures of Old Rus. It was ruined in the 13th century during the Tatar invasion and subsequently suffered many times from wars and religious strife. Metropolitan Petro Mohyla restored the cathedral in 1633 in the style of Ukrainian baroque. For centuries this remarkable building, the embodiment of the talent and assiduity of hundreds of thousands of its nameless builders, has astonished the vision with its magnificence and splendour and showed the great skill of the painters of that time. Its appearance has changed many times as the result of reconstruction. Numerous mosaics and frescoes have been discovered under the coating of later orna­mentation and restored to their former beauty. Of unique value, from the scientific and the artistic points of view, are the ancient mosaic decorations in the cathedral, which ornament the principal altar, the central dome, the arches and pillars. They preserved the portraits of the members of the family of Yaroslav the Wise. The cathedral has been declared a state monument-museum.

          Leaving St. Sophia Cathedral through the gateway, one comes out into Sophiyivsky Square. It is bordered to the right by a strip of trees and shrubs while in the centre of the square there is the mo­nument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the 17th century outstanding Ukrainian sta­tesman and military leader. He headed the Ukrainian people in their liberation war in 1648-1654, and after series of successful battles he established an independent Cossack State in the Dnipro River area.

            The Kyiv Mohyla Academy, one of the highest cultural achievements of our state, became a brilliant phenomenon in the Ukrainian culture and spirit. Its history begins at Kyiv Brotherhood School. In 1615 the lot of land in Podil was presented to a monastery, hospital, and school for children of “all positions and ranks”. The Brotherhood supported it both financially and intellectually. Sometime later the school united with the Lavra School of metropolitan Petro Mohyla: it was declared a higher educational establishment and was named Kyiv Mohyla, in honour of its patron Petro Mohyla, the most educated man of that era. Hetman Ivan Mazepa, protector of art and education in Ukraine, did much for the development of the academy. Until 1661 the Academy was the only institute of higher education of Eastern Europe. Its curricula comprised the Church Slavonic, Greek, Latin, Polish, French and German languages, poetics, literature, philosophy, geography, mathematics, physics, economics and history. Graduates of the academy became writers, publishers, translators, prominent diplomats and men of the church. Talented statesmen and illustrious persons studied within its walls: hetmans Ivan Mazepa and Pylyp Orlyk, the composer Dmytro Bortniansky, the great Russian scholar and poet Mykhailo Lomonosov, the Ukrainian philosopher Hryhory Skovoroda, and many others. In 1817, the Academy was closed by a tsar’s decree. It only resumed its work in 1991. Three departments work now in the University: the humanities, social and natural sciences.

            St. Andrew’s Church   Among the sights of Kyiv there is also St. Andrew’s Church. The recent archaeological excavations have revealed the evidence that sug­gests that there might be a grain of truth in the old legend of the city foundation by three brothers Kyi, Shchek and Khoriv on the hills above the Dnipro River. But the very first, "spiritual" foundation dates to the time when St. Andrew arrived at the place where Kyiv was to spring several centuries later, erected a cross on the top of a high hill and announ­ced several centuries in advance that a migh­ty city would sprawl over several hills and dales along the river boasting many beautiful multi-domed churches. The ancient chronicles say that the cross ere­cted by St. Andrew was preserved and was seen as late as 13th century when a wooden church was built on the hill where this cross had once stood. The church was called Vozdvizhenska that is "the Church of the Erec­tion of the Cross".

            In the turbulent centuries that followed, full of wars and fires, the Vozdvizhenska Church perished. In 1744 the Empress of the Russian Empire (of which Ukraine was a part then) paid a visit to the city of Kyiv. She was very much impressed by the beauty of the pa­lace and she enjoyed the view from the hill on the top of which St Andrew had once prea­ched, so much that she decided to have a new big church built there, at the sacred spot. The construc­tion began in 1747under the supervision of architect Rastrelli. It took six years to erect the church and fifteen more to decorate its interior. The church is situated on the hill, which is 90 metres above the Dnipro. If you look at it from the streets of the ancient Podil district, it seems to be floating in the air. When you walk inside, you cannot help being impres­sed by the lavishness and at the same gra­ceful beauty of the interior decorations, and looking at all these splendours one stops wondering why it took so long to decorate the church with paintings and stucco work. The church was consecrated in 1767. The beauty of the church and of the place itself where it sits, solemn religious ceremonies attracted a lot of people who came to worship and enjoy the sight. St. Andrew's Church has survived the Bolshevik atheism but the cross of St. Andrew di­sappeared in the storming years of the revo­lution of 1917 and the Civil War that followed. St. Andrew's Church is a true architectural marvel. One has to see it with one's own eyes. It is unique in its design and there is not a single one like it anywhere else in the world. Could it be that it has attained an ideal?

            Golden Gate The remains of Golden Gate, which is about a thousand years old, are one of the attractions of the city. In the distant past it was decorated with precious metals what gave the gate its name. At that time, when Kiyv was the capital of the feudal state of Kyiv Rus, as a large and powerful state, the Golden Gate was the main entrance to the city.

            The Kyiv Museum of Western and Oriental Art is a state collection of art works from Western Europe and the Orient. It was founded in 1919 on the basis of B. and V.Khanenko's private collection, which originated in 1870. The museum has three sections: ancient, West European, and Eastern art: The exhibits include ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art; paintings and sculptures by Italian masters, the works of Spanish artists, French painters. The Eastern collection contains sculptures and drawings from ancient Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia, India, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, Thailand, Japan, China, and Indonesia.

            Khreshchatyk    As one takes a bus ride through Khreshchatyk or strolls in the shade of trees it is difficult to believe that ages ago this was the sight of a deep valley covered with primeval forests and numerous ravines. Actually it was the valley called Khreshchataya, which later became Khreshchatyk, the main street of the capital. The valley first began to resemble a street at the beginning of the 19-th cen­tury when one-storeyed wooden houses were built; later on stone buildings were erected. During the Great Patriotic War Khreshchatyk was completely destroyed by the Nazis. As soon as the city was liberated, the restoration of the main street was begun. Its initial architectural style was predominantly classicism, a combination of decorative facades and stone-paved roads with an abundance of trees and shrubs, sunlight and space.