Kiev

Experiencing Kiev has been a nice benefit of my excursion from Russia to visit Chernobyl. This morning I took a taxi from the archaic ‘Hotel Slavutich’, the Soviet-era hotel I’m staying in while in Kiev, to Livoberezhna station, where I rode the metro into the center of the city. I had heard great things about Kiev before I came, and while it still feels underdeveloped, I was amazed at the golden-domed architecture of the various monasteries and cathedrals I spotted while riding into the city.

My first visit of the day was to St. Michael’s Monastery, a beautiful blue church with gold domes that was originally built in 1108, but rebuilt in 2001 after the Soviets tore it down in 1937. Murals of Jesus and his disciples line the walls leading to the entrance of the monastery, and the walkway into the grounds leads beneath a gigantic gold-domed bell tower. I spent a half-hour or so enjoying the grounds of St. Michaels – taking time to wander through the interior and circle the church; passing several monks dressed in black on the way – then headed back out and down the street to one of Kiev’s most famous sites: St. Sophia’s Cathedral.

St. Sophia’s Cathedral is a large whitewashed church with green accents and gold domes at the top. As I wandered through the interior of the church I passed by several 11th century mosaics, including a few original mosaics on the floor. It’s always interesting to me as I discover such artwork to myself to imagine what life must have been like for those who originally created it. The interior of the cathedral was cavernous, but let in plenty of natural light that lit up the gold-covered artwork and statues at the front of the cathedral. While wandering upstairs I found a 20th century art exhibit; an entire wall of intricately painted Ukrainian eggs forming a larger mosaic of the Virgin Mary. The piece was titled ‘Looking Into Eternity’, and was by a famous Ukrainian artist named Oksana Mas. The grounds of the cathedral also house the mansion formerly used by the metropolitans of Kiev (I’m assuming that the metropolitan was equivalent to a governor or mayor). The most interesting features of the mansion to me were the heating stoves in each room covered in intricately painted tiles, and the imported white marble tiles covering the floor in one of the rooms (imported tile must have been an incredible luxury during the time the mansion was used).

My favorite of the three churches I visited today was St. Andrew’s Church, which sits at the top of Andriyivsky Uzviz; a picturesque cobblestone street winding down a hillside in Central Kiev. The interior of St. Andrew’s Church was much the same as the other Ukrainian and Russian Churches I’ve visited – featuring gold-covered artwork at the front, several statues of angels and cherubim, and a wide tiled expanse with no pews for visitors to stand in while worshiping – but the real reason I enjoyed it was because of the exterior architecture. St. Andrew’s features dark green domes with golden accents that are very uniquely shaped and seem so exotic to me for some reason. I spent several minutes on a staircase leading up to St. Andrews snapping pictures, trying to capture what the architectural wonder really looks like.

After wandering to the bottom of Andriyivsky Uzviz I located the nearby Chernobyl Museum. All the exhibits were in Ukrainian, but I paid 50 extra hryvnia to rent an English audio guide that brought the museum to life. Although the museum was small, I spent over an hour inside observing each of the exhibits and listening to the audio description. Several exhibits were dedicated to the heroes of Chernobyl, who sacrificed their lives to stay on the site during the disaster and prevent further nuclear explosions. After passing by several cases displaying ID cards and photographs of the various engineers and other personnel at the plant, I watched a few short documentaries. One of them showed the excitement and optimism of the new workers at the plant when it opened in 1977, then contrasted it with the disappointment felt in 2000 when the workers carried out orders by the Ukrainian president to turn an emergency shut-off key that would shut the plant down forever. Other exhibits included a model of Chernobyl nuclear reactor 4 with a description of how it operated and what went wrong, and pictures of pine tree branches in the vicinity of Chernobyl that had been mutated due to radioactive exposure.

For many visitors, Kiev’s most intriguing visit is to a network of underground tunnels beneath cathedrals in a complex called ‘The Lavra’. The Lavra contains several exquisite Ukrainian cathedrals housed within whitewashed walls, but I took only a few minutes to duck into them so that I could get to the underground tunnels before they closed at 4:30. A narrow staircase led me beneath one of the cathedrals at the Lavra, and I followed several Ukrainian worshipers through the tiny whitewashed tunnels as their thin yellow candles flickered in front of me. The tunnels contain several mummified monks laid inside glass coffins set in niches in the sides of the tunnels. The monks are covered in intricately decorated tapestries and aren’t visible, but many of the Ukrainian visitors to the tunnels apparently believe that kissing coffin near the feet or faces of the monks will heal them of various ailments. There was an odd combination of eeriness and reverence inside the quiet tunnels, and I passed by several worshipers as they placed their thin, tall candles at various shrines and kissed the glass coffins of the monks. Exploring the underground tunnels at the Lavra with the Ukrainian worshipers was definitely one of those moments when I asked myself, ‘How in the world did I end up here?’ I like those moments.

I finished off my day at a tasty Ukrainian restaurant named ‘Pervak’ that was highly recommended in my Lonely Planet book. I splurged on dinner tonight and ordered borsch with pampushkas, ‘veal a-la ancient Kiev’ (veal with cherries baked in a honey-mustard sauce), two Pervak cranberry concoctions, and ice cream baked inside a pear covered with flaky crust and fruit sauce for dessert. I have to say that it was one of the more delicious meals I’ve had while traveling. I’ve become so conditioned to traveling on as tight a budget as possible that often times I overlook colorful experiences like eating at a nicer restaurant abroad. I’m thinking that now that I’m working and don’t have to be so conscious of that, I might have a lot more dinners while traveling like the one I had at Pervak.