It was weird to be in Kiev for two reasons.
- It’s a big city and it feels like it. Tbilisi and Yerevan, the cities I’d most recently been in, are good-sized cities that each have more than a million inhabitants, but Kiev is on another level. It’s a metropolis. There are a lot of people, a lot of buildings, and a lot of traffic. It was slightly disarming.
- I’d lived in Kiev for two or three months as a missionary back in the summer of 2006. The city itself hasn’t changed much in the intervening 7 years, but my situation sure has. It was great (though also very strange) to just walk down the streets alone and do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
Overall, I like Kiev. Though a bit too big and bustling to be a charming city, it is definitely a fascinating one. I think it’s one of the world’s great cities. I spent about a day and a half doing hardcore, morning-till-night sightseeing and there is still so much I didn’t see. I spent most of that time eating (I love Ukrainian food and made sure I had all my favorites: borscht, syrniki, varenyky, chicken Kiev, etc.) and visiting a bunch of the city’s different churches. If you haven’t been able to tell by now from these blog posts, I love religious architecture, and Kiev has more beautiful churches than anywhere else I’ve been. It was also a bit of a shock going from the rather subdued religious architecture of the Caucasus to the colorful and ornate churches of Ukrainian orthodoxy.
Below are 27 photos from the couple days that I spent in Kiev last week.
Processed cheese (плавлений сир) and a loaf (батон) of bread. I don’t know how many times I ate this as a snack/meal during my two years in Ukraine, but it’s still tasty.
A man fishing at the Hidropark on Venetian Island, an island in the massive Dnieper River that bisects Kiev. The upper and lower portions of Pechersk Lavra are visible there on the Right Bank of the river.
The Great Lavra Belltower. At 316 feet tall, it was the world’s tallest freestanding bell tower when it was completed in 1745.
All the Saints Church at Pechersk Lavra
The Bell Tower and Dormition Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra
Gate Church of the Trinity, probably my favorite building in the Pechersk Lavra complex
Looking over part of the Pechersk Lavra toward the Dniepro River and Kiev’s Left Bank.
Mother Motherland (Родина-мать), Kiev’s largest World War II memorial. It’s 335-feet high—about 30 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. There’s a great World War II museum below the statue. It includes some grisly reminders of how terrible the war was, including a pair of gloves made out of human skin.
The hammer and sickle on Mother Motherland’s shield
The peace tanks in front of the Mother Motherland monument
Here I am (the one on the left) at the peace tanks in the summer of 2006.
More World War II memorial sculptures near the Mother Motherland monument
Fornetti is a chain of little baking kiosks. They’re everywhere in Ukraine (and Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria, as I now know). I used to get these all the time, and they’re still tasty 6 years later. These ones have cherry and apricot fillings.
A menorah commemorating the 30,000+ Jews killed in two days at Babi Yar, a ravine in Kiev. The ravine is directly behind the menorah. During the Nazi occupation of Kiev, over 100,000 people were executed here. A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE! You can read more about it here on Wikipedia.
Babi Yar Ravine
The larger Babi Yar monument that’s located about a mile away from the actual ravine itself.
A beautiful building in downtown Kiev
St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral
Apparently this hedgehog is a beloved 1970s Soviet chartoon character. Here’s a YouTube video of the cartoon.
I randomly saw a photo of this somewhere online and had to see it when I realized it was in Kiev. It took a bit of searching, but I found it! I love seeing stuff like when I travel this because it’s the kind of thing that you don’t see everywhere. Definitely unique.
St. Andrew’s Church, my favorite church in Kiev
St. Michael’s Monastery
The House with Chimeras, one of the more unique buildings I’ve seen. It’s a government building of some sort.
A closer look at the figures on the House with Chimeras.
The weekend that I was in Kiev, the city was celebrating the 1,025th anniversary of the baptism of the Kievan Rus. There were signs everywhere and celebrations/concerts throughout the city.
Part of Maidan Nezalezhnosti (aka Independence Square), the main square of Kiev
The rest of of Maidan Nezalezhnosti (aka Independence Square), the main square of Kiev