KYIV – Given the Ukrainian capital’s prolifically storied history, there is no shortage of buildings that have a story to tell or areas with historic significance.
The best part is, access to them is free.
All that is needed is pocket change for public transportation rides that cost less than 50 cents and good footwear for walking.
LYSA HORA (BALD HILL)
Most openings in the woods of Lysa Hora (Bald Hill) draw people who practice pagan or occult rituals, or those who believe in magic.
For example, an entire day can be spent exploring the legendary spooky woods of Lysa Hora, or Bald Hill. Practitioners of the occult and pagan rituals favor this urban forested area of 137 hectares situated about 500 meters from the Vydubychi subway station.
Its meandering trails, lush forestry and small ravines lead to tunnels and pagan ritual sites throughout the park that reaches a height of 157 meters above sea level, according to the Modern Ukrainian Encyclopedia.
It is customarily divided into the Mermaid’s Ravine, Witch’s Ravine and Mortuary Grove.
Legend has it that pagans worshipped here before Prince Volodymyr the Great converted these parts to Christianity in 988. When the Mongols took over in 1240, according to the travel website Destinations Ukraine, about 1,000 people were buried alive when they were immured in the caves upon the conquering khan’s orders.
Tsarist authorities used the area as a military storehouse and for the executions of political prisoners. The Red Army also used Lysa Hora for military purposes.
Getting there:
Exit towards the Dniprovske Shose (road) side of the Vydubychi subway station and follow the sidewalk underneath the causeway that runs parallel to the railroad tracks. Once you cross a small creek along the bridge – about 450 meters from the station – be on the lookout for paths emerging from the woods to your right. This writer took the first one and started walking along a slight incline to the ominous sound of a woodpecker hammering its beak at a tree with a ravine situated to the left. This path will take you to two bricked tunnels, one of which is sealed, while the other is accessible and leads to the top of the hill. An eerie feeling might beset you if you are alone and there in the early morning hours when nobody is around.
STATUE OF YAROSLAV THE WISE
Mark Raczkiewycz
A western view of Kyiv’s historic Golden Gate that was the main entrance to the city. A sculpture of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, who ruled Kyivan Rus’ in the beginning of the 11th century, stands here.
Located across from the Golden Gate (Zoloti Vorota) subway station, where there’s a restored version of the main entrance to Kyiv as it looked during the Kyivan Rus’ period, the bronze statue of Yaroslav the Wise gazes towards St. Sophia Square. The prince was best known for compiling Rus’ka Pravda, the legal code that was used to govern the mostly feudal lands of these parts. He also commissioned an abundance of monasteries and churches to be built during his reign in the first half of the 12th century.
However, not many – not even native Kyiv residents – know that behind the sculpture, are imprints of the hands of the three artists who worked on the piece before it was unveiled in 1997: Mykola Bilyk, Oleksiy Redko and Vitaliy Sivko. Their work was based on the original form for the statue that was conceived in 1940 by sculptor Ivan Kavaleridze before his death.
SIKORSKY COURTYARD
The building in which the young flight pioneer Ihor Sikorsky lived and the courtyard at 15A Yaroslaviv Val where he experimented with aircraft and helicopter models before emigrating to the U.S. in 1919.
About 50 meters from the statue along Yaroslaviv Val is the building in which aviation Sikorsky lived and the courtyard where he experimented with model airplanes and helicopters. The address is 15A Yaroslaviv Val, which is accessible through an alleyway where a yellow three-story building stands vacant. Rotting away, it was built by Sikorsky’s father, a doctor who eventually received his patients there, in 1903. Black-and-white sheets of paper with Sikorsky facts are pasted on both sides of the walls of the short alley. He immigrated to France in 1917, just as the Bolshevik Revolution got under way, and two years later came to America. Residing mostly in Washington, D.C., the Ukrainian émigré eventually invented four planes and numerous serial helicopters that were used mostly for military purposes.
Interesting fact: the U.S. Embassy is located on Sikorsky Street (formerly known as Tankova Street) on the east side of Kyiv.
STEPPE RAVENS
A mural of ravens and other birds adorns a wall opposite from the cage that holds two steppe ravens in the courtyard of 9 Reitarska St. near the Golden Gate.
Prominent in Slavic mythology, ravens have been known to live for up to 300 years in the wild – according to lore. Most recently the black-and-purple-plumed bird figured in the award-winning historical novel “Black Raven” by Vasyl Shklyar. The plot centers on the anti-Bolshevik Ukrainian resistance of the 1920s near Kholodnyi Yar in Cherkasy Oblast. In it, a raven speaks to the novel’s protagonist and has other mystical qualities.
Here at 9 Reitarska St., which runs parallel to Yaroslaviv Val, are Kyril and Korvyn – two so-called steppe ravens that normally live in the wild as predators. They look noble and dignified even inside their cage. Their owner told The Ukrainian Weekly they were first taken captive in the early 1990s. And, according to the National Geographic Society, ravens live for only about 15 to 30 years.
STREET ART
Downtown Kyiv is flush with street art, like this wooden sculpture of a ballerina dressed in chicken wire about 50 meters from the Golden Gate.
Near the Golden Gate area extending to St. Sophia Square and St. Michael’s Cathedral are many pieces of street artwork. Murals abound, like one of Serhiy Nihoyan, the Armenian Ukrainian who was the first fatality of the Euro-Maidan Revolution.
Unique sculptures made of construction tools and household utensils can be found in the same area. Two such artworks can be found on the corner of Striletska and Siritenska streets, 50 meters from the Golden Gate. One is of a slender ballerina carved out of wood and dressed in chicken wire. The other, is a horse made entirely of kitchen tools like spatulas.
STALIN’S TUNNELS
Located in Kyiv’s northern Obolon district is one of two tunnels that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin started building to link both banks of the Dnipro River underwater in order to transport military personnel and supplies.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin started building two underwater tunnels in the 1930s on the north and south ends of Kyiv that were supposed to link the banks of the Dnipro River. They were to be used mostly for military purposes and have a rail link, and were designed to transport personnel and supplies across the river’s wide expanse. However, Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR in 1941 halted his plans and Stalin never resumed the plan after the war.
The Weekly visited what’s left of the started project on the northern end of Kyiv in the Obolon district.
Getting there:
Take the blue line of the subway and exit at Obolon station. Walk east for about 15 minutes until you reach the river embankment. Head down from the boardwalk towards a playground veering east-southeast. Sitting on the sand, you’ll soon see a round, concrete tunnel; it’s covered with graffiti and stands amid shards of glass from various bottles. Teenagers now like to spend time here playing Ukrainian and Russian rap music; in the 1990s this was a popular rave party locale.
Mark Raczkiewycz
One of many tunnels, this one made of brick, that can be found on Lysa Hora, or Bald Hill in Kyiv.