To misquote my guidebook, in the beginning there was Kyiv. Before Ukraine or Russia or Moscow came into being, there was Kyiv.
Kyiv’s had an interesting history, most of which I’ll gloss over. A lot of it was bombed in the late 30/early 40s and a lot of ancient monuments and churches are actually reproductions built in the last twenty or so years. Kyiv, even 100 years ago, must have been almost unrecognisable.
Now it has a lot of churches. I’m sure its museums and restaurants are great but they’re not my thing. A church with a golden dome on top? I’m there.
My own experiences with churches have mostly been the English kind, squarish, with a tower at one end, stone grey and weathered from hundreds of years of rain. I still find Orthodox churches very exotic and I still have difficulty believing this is Christianity because it’s so different to the kind we have in the villages of my home county. Onion domes, gold, head coverings – this all feels more Middle Eastern to me. But then again, where did Christianity start?
My first church in Kyiv was the Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a senior monastery with caves dug beneath. The Dormition Cathedral, at eye-level is more house-shaped but it’s topped by seven green and gold onion domes. It’s a 21st century reproduction, the 11th century original having been destroyed in 1941. That big chunk of masonry under its own miniature roof outside is a surviving piece of the original. It’s free to go inside the Dormition Cathedral, although you need a separate ticket for some churches and museums within the Lavra. Orthodox churches here require women to wear a head-covering (although I saw a few tourists who’d missed that detail and no one seemed overly bothered). I never put on my scarf without my brain shrieking “Not my religion!’ I don’t mind doing it; it’s what’s done here and it would be rude not to. But I don’t know how to wear a headscarf. I think I looked like a six-year-old with a scarf on my head.
What I did begrudge is that you can’t take photos because some of the interiors are spectacular. So much gold! And stretching up so high! And as for the ceilings! Kyiv’s not big on postcards either, so you can’t get a picture of it across the road.
And something else took me by surprise – there are almost shops inside. I understand the selling of candles, great big bundles of them – there are always displays of lit candles, prayer candles or memorial candles. I was less sure about the assortment of miniature icons. Are they for use in prayer or worship? Books about saints, necklaces with religious symbols on – oh, all sorts. I’m sure there was actual religious purpose as well as significance to all of it – Ukraine doesn’t seem to be anywhere near mastering the art of the tourist souvenir shop yet and I doubt the first ones will appear in their cathedrals – and yet there’s something of the souvenir stand in these little shops.
I found the caves a bit disappointing. I was expecting a warren of caves under the ground and what I got was a winding tunnel through the back of a church, the walls plastered and whitewashed. This is where saints and holy people lie, mummified and visited by pilgrims and worshipers. Again, not my religion. I enjoyed that the way to light these narrow tunnels is by carrying in a taper (one drop of hot wax landed on my hand but I succeeded in not setting fire to my unruly scarf) but this bit didn’t live up to my guidebook’s expectations.
The Lower Lavra is more of the same, only with a better view over the Dnieper River. More churches, more gold, more tunnels. Worth visiting, definitely worth visiting, despite the lukewarm tone I just used on it.
Then there’s St Sophia’s Cathedral. This one is original but you have to pay first to enter the grounds and then to go into the cathedral. The grounds are nice. Quiet, on a Friday morning. The church is white with green and gold domes – I swear, a thousand or so years ago someone had a lot of green paint to get rid of – but the bell tower is baby blue. I didn’t notice it at first because it’s also the entrance gate. Yes, I should have spotted it before I even went in. If you only visit one church, this is the one generally recommended. Personally, I preferred the Lavras.
When you come back out, you’ll spot another gleaming cathedral at the other end of the road. This one is St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery and apart from the gold domes, this is the bluest thing I’ve ever seen, especially from the back, where there’s less decoration. This entire compound is free, including entry to the cathedral – either that or I just missed the desk by coming in the side gate.
I didn’t go into St Andrew’s Church because it was closed for renovations but I walked past it and it was very pretty. I’d already seen it from Podil, when I went on the funicular and it looked even better up close than it did from down at the riverside.
The last church on my to-visit list was St Volodymyr’s Cathedral, with allegedly the prettiest interior in Kyiv. I liked the outside most. It’s bright yellow, with bright blue domes covered in stars. The inside is an Art Nouveau confection – admittedly, my view was obscured by wandering in on Sunday morning while a service was going on but it was just too dark and dull. The abundance of candles that get lit while an Orthodox service is happening is amazing (and as for the smell of incense…) but I liked the less arty more gold interiors better.
That’s all the churches I visited. I passed a thousand others. I observed that people in Ukraine take religion more seriously than I’ve ever seen anywhere before. People stop in the street to make the sign of the cross outside any church they pass. How you get anywhere in Kyiv doing that, I don’t know. People do it again when entering and leaving a church. They kiss icons and now before them. All churches echo to the sound of old ladies sweeping or mopping the floors. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I’d heard Vilnius described as having a lot of churches. I had the impression Rīga had more than its fair share. But Kyiv has golden domes on every street and it’s amazing.