The Upper Old City

On Monday, June 20, Pavlina took us for a walking tour of the hills of the old city of Kyiv. (I continue to be grateful for information and pictures available at Wikipedia.org)



 

This old 1890's postcard picture on the left shows the rise of the land looking south from the lower river level.  The St. Michael's and St Andrew's churches (shown left and right) will define our area.  We began our walk on the upper level, behind both churches shown, at the  Zoloti Vorota--the "Golden Gate"  The photo on the right is how the former remains, excavated in 1832, were preserved into the 1970's.  It was one of three southern gates in the fortification of the upper city constructed by Yaraslov in 1037, which also included a moat on another side.  The walled city looking north is depicted in this illustration that we photographed inside the museum (unfortunately the camera flash distorts the picture).  

After a golden-domed church was constructed inside the wall that could be seen as one approached this gate, it became known as the Golden Gate and was the triumph arch of the city which was used through the 18th century for ceremonies.  In 1982, the gate was completely reconstructed for the 1500th anniversary of Kiev, although there is no solid evidence as to what the original gates looked like. This is what it looks like now:

JD and I toured there in November.  "Zoloti Vorota" is also the name of the nearby Metro stop.  I was excited because there is a selection from Mussorgsky's suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" that I have always loved, especially in the Ravel orchestral rendering.  "The Great Gate of Kiev" is the finale and grand to listen to in an acoustic hall with full orchestra, huge brass sounds and all of the percussion section playing, especially the chimes, timpani and cymbals.  So I thought I was looking at the gate that inspired the music.  Actually, the picture was a proposal for a Kiev city gate which never was built.  But I still think of the music every time we go to that place and it is a selection on my recently-acquired Mannheim Steamroller album "To Russia with Love".  


As we walked north from this area we went along a high street where side streets dropped down to the former moat level.  (Pavlina said this street was a favorite sledding place in winter days of her childhood.)

We came to the northern side of this upper hill and along the overlook of a ravine there is a pedestrian walkway with many imaginative artisitic benches and playgrounds.  Here are several photos:

We walked over to St. Andrew's Church.   The location of the church is attributed to the place where the Apostle Saint Andrew arrived and erected a cross in the first century A.D., where he prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city in what was then a sparsely inhabited area. His prediction later became true: the city of Kyiv arose and became a center of the Eastern Orthodox faith.  The church was built in the mid 1700's by a Russian empress who died before it's completion (same one who had the original  Mariyinsky Palace built at the same time).  It has no parish and has changed owners and been restored many times.  It sits at the slopping end of "tithing street" (named for a church built before 1000 by Vladimir with his tithing which was later destroyed).  Behind it an ancient road has been maintained heading down the Andriyivskyy descent.

From there we climbed up steps and a hill to overlook the city and the river.  In between the area where we had previously walked and this hill, in the ravine, some developer is building magnificently, but the buildings are largely unoccupied!

We walked back down and around the hill to the river side of town, then took the "Funicular" back up to the top of the hill.  (Refer to the extreme left of the beginning post card view)

I didn't know that funiclar is the generic term used for an inclined railway with two cars attached to a cable which are counterbalanced as they move up and down.  (That made me think of an old song "Funiculì, Funiculà".  I hadn't realized it was composed to commemorate the opening of the first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius. The 1880 cable car was later destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 1944. The lyrics refer to the ups and downs of life and love!)  Our walk was taking us up and down and up and down....


There we passed the back side of the St. Michael's cathedral with it's golden domes to the front.  We had toured this area previously.

Finally we walked back down to Independence Plaza, where we ate lunch.  We passed an overlook of the People's Friendship arch, constructed in 1982, dedicated to the unification between Russia and Ukraine.  

BBQ with the Poddubnys

We first became acquainted with the Poddubny family when both parents were temple workers.  Igor is the CES director for the Ukraine and he and his wife, Svetlana, have four children--two girls (14 & 4) and two boys (10 & 8).  They are one of the less than 1% of all Ukrainian families who actually have a single family dwelling.  Igor continues to work at the temple but now Svetlana is restricted because they do have young children.  They also belong to the ward housed in the building next to the temple and their daughter is a regular attendee at the temple baptistry.  They had invited us to come to their home for a barbecue on a Monday afternoon.  Igor picked us up on his way home in the VW station wagon that is provided for his work traveling all over Ukraine and south into Romania and Bulgaria to train and supervise seminaries and institutes.  The family also has a small personal car.  They live in a village nearby.

Their home is traditional brick, two story with a half basement.   They live a simple life in a home that is only partially finished.  But as we found after the flood in Rexburg when we lived in our home as we were reconstructing, the condition of the space you live in isn’t as important as the people you live with.  Here in Ukraine people usually take years working on either the updating of their apartment or the construction of their home because they do them as they can pay for them instead of borrowing money.   Poddubnys feel very blessed to be out of the apartment building complex where they were, to have lots of living space, and a yard of their own.  It was a delight to walk through their home and garden. 
 

There is more of the garden to the right--the vegetable crops.  They were sprinkling the garden because the thundershowers had passed them by, until  a couple of hours later when we were inside for FHE!

Svetlana prepared and marinated chicken and onions ( in mayonnaise, soy sauce, tomato juice, salt and pepper).  They put the chicken and onions on flat skewers and Igor cooked them over wood coals.  

We had a lovely dinner seated underneath the grape lattice framework in their yard.  We presented a short family home evening lesson (at their request) on learning to love the scriptures and then they served ice cream for the FHE "treat".

 

Lilac Lanes

We had been told that the Kyiv National Botanical Garden had an impressive display of lilacs and so we went to see them on our preparation day, May 16.  [We returned the next year on May 7 and took more photos to add to this blog!]  The Loftus's went with us.  We paid our entrance fee and proceeded down the main walkway, already enjoying the lilacs and their smell that lined the way.  The main building is the headquarters of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences and its greenhouses.  




We could not see that there were any tours inside the greenhouses, so we decided to go left towards the domes of an orthodox church.   It was small, the Trinity Monastery of St Jonas, and not the cathedrals I had seen in pictures before coming.  But from the rise and over-looking the garden of the monastery, we could see the lilacs.

We walked towards the wonderful smells. Soon we were in the middle of lanes of beautiful lilacs.  It was incredible!

"The collection of lilacs in the Kiev Botanical Garden is one of the most impressive in the world: 21 species (out of 28 existing), 78 varieties and dozens of hybrids – totaling around 180 kinds. Occupying an area of about 2.5 hectares, fifteen hundred luxurious bushes are located on terraces on the steep hills overlooking the great Dnieper river, and the golden domes of the Vydubitsky Monastery."

On our return trip we walked down to the monastery to see the buildings.  

The Vydubetsky Monastery and its central church, the Mykhaylivsky (St Michael’s) Cathedral dates from 1070.  The domes' colors represent the gold of the sun, the stars of the night, and the green of nature.  In the foreground is a lacy variety of lilac and behind it the ubiquitous horse chestnut tree seen everywhere in Kyiv, especially when they are flowering. 

Unfortunately, the star-topped building has been turned into a restaurant--perhaps a good one!  

This is the small old chapel.

The main cathedral has a beautiful interior.

Painters were also seen among the lilacs trying to capture their beauty.  To the right is a tree peony.  When we first saw them we could recognize the leaves, and the people called them peonies.  When I could look them up online I found:

"Tree peonies are actually shrubs, not trees. They produce woody stems and do not die back to the ground like herbaceous peonies. They are slow growing but long lived. Some specimens in China are thought to be more than 200 years old. Plants eventually grow to 3 to 5 feet tall, but they may take decades to do so. 

  Tree peonies have larger flowers than herbaceous peonies and are available in a wider range of colors. Yellow, purple, maroon, and green are a few colors commonly available in tree peonies but rarely seen in herbaceous peonies. Both single and double flower forms are common in both types of peonies."

Beds of these peonies were among the lilacs.  Here is a specimen in front of a red variety of 

horse chestnut tree.  The blooms are very large!

We saw and enjoyed so many kinds of lilacs with hues of purple, lilac, pink, and white.  We found the "normal" lilacs to be most fragrant.  We saw "double" blossoms.  I was impressed with this "triple" or "quadruple" variety!  We did go back the next year for this thrill of the senses!

National Headquarters in Kyiv

On our walk on Monday, May 9, we went to the Presidential Administration of the Ukraine.  This building is like the US White House, though the president doesn't live there.  Information in italics is from Wikipedia:

The Presidential Administration of Ukraine is an administrative body set up to provide analytical, advisory and legal assistance to the President. It is colloquially known as "Bankova", because it is located on Bankova Street in a massive building across from the House with Chimaeras. Fourteen state residences are allocated for official Presidential use.

This is the building from the lower level street shot up through the lovely gardens of the House with the Chimeras.

  The main purpose of the Administration is to provide administrative, advisory, analytical, and legal assistance to the President. The Administration arranges communication and official statements between the President and the Ukrainian parliament the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Constitutional Court, local government bodies, and other institutions.

Across the street is the House with Chimaeras as you can see just in the right of this photo.

It is built into the hill so at this level it is 3 stories, but at the base of the hill it is 6 stories.  The gardens seen in above pictures are built on the hill by the side of the house.

House with Chimaeras or Gorodetsky House is an Art Nouveau building in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Originally an upmarket apartment building, it was built in the period of 1901–1902 by noted architect Vladislav Gorodetsky, who was regarded as the Gaudí of Kiev.  Situated on No. 10, Bankova Street, across from the President of Ukraine's office in the historic Lypky neighborhood, the building has been used since 2005 as a presidential residence for official and diplomatic ceremonies.^[3][4]

The "House with Chimaeras" derives its popular name from its ornate decorations depicting various scenes of exotic animals and hunting scenes, which were added because Gorodetsky was an avid hunter. The name does not refer to the chimaera of mythology, but to an architectural style known as Chimaera decoration in which animal figures are applied as decorative elements to a building.

The Italian sculptor Emilio Sala was responsible for both the internal and external sculptural decorations, such as mermaids, dolphins, and frogs on the roof of the building, sinking ships and hunting trophies on the exterior walls, and exuberant interior decorations, such as grand stairways and chandeliers depicting huge catfish strangled in the stems of lotus flowers. The exterior sculptures created by Sala were made out of cement. 

This is a statue of Gorodtsky with Flat Stanley checking out his cup of hot chocolate!

This historic district of Lypky has areas which were not damaged in WWII.  Here are some lovely buildings

Another lovely builidng down the Bankova street is this one where the first meetings of the church in Kyiv were.  Pres. Neuenschwander along with the first two missionaries, Elders Stratov and Bradbury, held a fireside on Oct 9, 1990, just two days after their arrival in Kyiv.  At that time it was the Writer's Union Hall.  Subsequently, they arranged to rent the hall every Sunday.  Pictured are Sister Simanovskaya (who remembers attending church here) and Sister Ubyiko.

We walked over to the Pechersky hills overlooking the Dnieper river where there are mulitple parks.  The war memorial is located in one; the Lavre, the Motherland statue, the Vladimir statue, and a botanical garden we will visit soon, are also along the ridge.  Here we visited the site of the Mariyinsky palace and the Ukraine parliament building.  We also wandered through the Mariyinsky park.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( Supreme Council of Ukraine) is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman (speaker). It meets in the Verkhovna Rada building in Ukraine's capital Kiev. Next to is is the Mariyinsky Palace.

It is obvious that the Mariyinsky Palace is in repairs.  The Russian Empress Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great) ordered it built in Kyiv in 1744 following the pattern of a palace she liked.  She did not live to see it completed.  Catherine II the Great lived there in 1787 for 3 months.  The building was then mostly wood and was severly damaged by fires in the early 1800's.  Czar Alexander II ordered is restored in 1868 and his wife, Mariya Alexandrovna donated much of her own money and had a park constructed to the south where there was previously a parade ground.  So the park and the palace were named after her.  Since then thru wars, revolutions, etc. it has been damaged and renovated several times, more recently in the 1980's.  Today the whole building is surrounded by construction fence and this is the best looking part.