Kiev was a very vibrant city with rich history, beautiful architecture & religious monuments, rich culture, excellent food and above all very friendly and open people when we visited the city in October last year.
All this changed when Russia invaded Ukraine and war broke out again in Europe. With my photos, I want to share & remember how life in Kiev was just four months ago. It is very difficult to believe that now soldiers are fighting on the same streets we walked and people are dying at the places we just visited as tourists.
Life has seriously changed forever after war is a reality again in Europe. Have we nothing learned at all from history ?
So to give a different perspective to the daily war TV images here is how normal and peaceful life in Kiev was just a short time ago. I have not changed the text under the photos from the time we traveled which makes reading about our visit only four months later even more ‘unreal’.
We started our discovery of Kiev by visiting the historical very important central Maidan square.
In the 19th century, the Maidan or Independance square contained buildings of the city council and noble assembly, but since the start of Ukraine's independence movement in 1990, the square has been the traditional place for political rallies, including four large-scale radical protest campaigns: the 1990 student "Revolution on Granite", the 2001 "Ukraine without Kuchma", the 2004 Orange Revolution, and the 2013–14 Euromaidan.
Once the site of political upheaval the maidan is now a popular meeting point, music venue and Kiev’s main shopping area, closed to traffic on the weekend to enjoy shopping and entertainment.
Walking down the main street (Kiev’s Champs-Élysées) we pass by the Golden Gate, part of the city’s former walls, a curious mix of styles dating back to 1037 but restored to its former glory in 1982 as part of the region’s 1500th creation anniversary.
What makes Kiev special above and beyond the history, religious monuments and art are it’s people, everyone is very friendly and enjoying life even in challenging conditions compared to our western life standard.
Kiev is perfect for walking and when one gets tired the tram is always close by to pick you up.
So we walked more than 10km each day in cold & cloudy winter weather and used the furnicular to get to the upper part of the city regularly. But then the sun came out during our last day so I quickly “re-shoot” some of the mostly grey sky photos I did during the first days and Elisa was patient enough with me to re-visit the same places for a blue sky photo :-)
The funicular was build in 1905 and the 3 minute journey is very cheap with window seats providing a nice view to the city & river. Best to start at the lower Poshtova station, take the funicular uphill, then explore the park and Friendship Arch, before making the short walk into the historical upper town.
At the upper city funicular station we approached the People’s Friendship Arch, arriving there via the glass viewing deck – glass panels built into the walk way allowing you to see the huge drop below.
Opened in 1982 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the USSR, the huge 50 metre rainbow shaped arch drapes over a bronze statue depicting Ukrainian and Russian figures working together, although there has been recent talk of the arch being taken down, due to its historical connotations.
Once in the upper city we visited the three religious landmarks: Saint Andrews's church (a rare example of Elizabethan Baroque in Ukraine), the gold-domed St Michael’s Cathedral and a little further Saint Sophia, a spectacular cathedral dating from the 11th century and birthplace of Ukrainian and Russian Orthodoxy with a large ornate bell-tower and Byzantine-inspired mosaics.
Saint Sophia's cathedral is named after the 6th-century Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) cathedral in Istanbul, which was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom rather than to a specific saint named Sophia.
St. Sophia's Cathedral is one of seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ukraine and was constructed in 1037, one of the oldest and most beautiful of Kiev's impressive churches. Beautiful murals, ancient mosaics, and frescoes adorn the interior.
The first foundations were laid in 1037 or 1011, but the cathedral took two decades to complete. The impressive structure has 5 naves, 5 apses, and (quite surprisingly for Byzantine architecture) 13 cupolas.
Next we visited the sky-blue St. Michael's Cathedral, with its fabulously shining domes, one of the most beautiful and important Orthodox temples in Ukraine. Built in the 90s, it is a remake of the destroyed St. Michael's Cathedral, which stood on the territory of the oldest monastery of Kyivan Rus for over eight centuries.
The grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince Sviatopolk, founded the cathedral in the early 12th century. It is named in honor of St. Michael - the protector of Kyiv. Its nickname, the Golden-Domed Cathedral, comes from the fact that was is the first and only church with such extravagant domes in ancient Rus
St. Michael's Cathedral is famous for its unique mosaics and frescos, which are rightfully considered to be the greatest creations of the Old Russian monumental painting. Its mosaics are nicknamed ‘glimmering,’ because of their exquisiteness and shine.
When the temple was completely demolished by the Soviets in 1937, the valuable mosaics were rescued. Some of them were kept in the St. Sophia Cathedral, others were taken to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. After the cathedral’s reconstruction, all of them were returned.
Following our visit we walked cross eternal Glory Park with it’s monument of the unknown soldier and the eternal flame, taking in the views of the Dnieper River on our way towards the Holodomor Genocide Museum.
Holodomor, better known in the West as the Great Famine, was a famine that took place in the 30s when several million Ukrainians starved to death.
This unfortunate event, however, wasn’t a coincidence but it was a real genocide organized by Joseph Stalin himself in an attempt to eliminate Ukrainian nationalism.
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