Kyiv Journal
August 6–14, 2006
Monday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday, again This isn't funny…
It's now Thursday
You can see how faithful I am as a journal keeper. Anyway, the last couple of days were devoted mostly to work activity (that is why I am here), and sleeping off jet lag and the general stress of air travel for the portly. (An aside: through a convoluted series of events that I won't bore you with, I was bumped up to Business Class on Ukraine International Airlines for the flight in from Amsterdam. The seats in Business Class on UIA are wider, but you actually have LESS leg room than in standard coach class. Hmph!)
Yesterday was drizzling rain. Today started out cloudy but the sun came out in the afternoon, just in time for my first excursion into the city to see some sights and shop, accompanied by a very helpful guide from our office. (The weather here seems very much like Oregon in the spring, very unpredictable. This trip, by the way, was made in early August.) I visited 2 Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedrals (St. Sophia's, about 900 years old, and St. Vladimir's, a relative newcomer form the 19th century).
Approaching St. Vladimir's, we can see the domes above the trees in its park-like setting. It was built in the late 19th Century to commemorate 900 years of Christianity in Rus. It took over 30 years to complete. While the exterior is of impressive size, the interior spaces open to the general public are not that large.
The church is renowned for the quality of its art and decoration. Inside, every square inch of vertical surface (plus arches and ceiling... well, everything except the floor, really) is covered in gold leaf, painted decorations or pictures of saints. (Sorry, pictures of the interior would have required using a flash, and people were trying to worship.)
Traveling in the opposite direction, we come to Sofiyska Square, and the entrance to St. Sophia's Cathedral, Kyiv's oldest standing church. You can see the actual cathedral domes just to the right of the entrance bell tower. The original structure was built in 1037, and named after the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Comrade Stalin had the place turned into a cultural reserve. It is no longer a consecrated house of worship, but more a political symbol.
The cathedral has undergone numerous renovations over the centuries, and it now stands, in part, as a museum documenting those renovations. Sections of the white plaster that now cover the exterior have been removed to show the underlying stone structure, and decorative fescoes inside have been partially removed to show the original, and identical, design underneath.
Exiting through the bell tower, the view of golden domes across Sofiyska Square is stunning.
The monument to Bhodan Khmelnytsky (the Cossack who liberated Ukraine from the Poles in the 17th century) can be seen just to the left (above).
OK, I'll admit to some confusion. I usually have a good sense of direction, but somehow I got twisted by about 90 degrees. My guide did not identify this structure, and I initially thought it was
St. Andrei's, which is to the north. St. Mikhayil's Monastary of the Golden Domes is directly east of St. Sophia's, and judging
by the shadows in the previous picture (it was around 3 p.m.) I now think this is St. Mikhayil. (I later found a picture of St. Andrei's and this is not it.)
Monday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday, again This isn't funny…
