Kiev Travel guide

Independence Square lies at the northern end of the Khreshatik in the heart of Kiev. The square is as good a place as any to get a feel for the city. You can visit the tables of the many vendors lining the square, watch the spontaneous and often heated political debates that arise from time to time, sample a number of foods (try the ice cream and pirozhki!), have your picture taken, or just sit idly in front of the fountains. And when you're done, we'd suggest a stop at the bakery across the Khreshatik for a piece of the tort royal.

The Kiev War Museum

The grounds of the museum are essentially a monument to the Second World War (there is a nearby monument specifically dedicated to World War Two). The approach to the museum is a long path with sculptures and reliefs of soldiers with bayonets, tanks and machine gun batteries - you get the sense that you are part of a campaign whose mission is to assault and capture the statue.

Archaeological excavations show evidence of the first settlements on the territory of Kiev 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Legend has it that at the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th centuries, three brothers, Kiy, Shchek, and Khoriv, and their sister, Lybid, founded a town and named it after their elder brother Kiy, as "Kyiv". The evolution of Kiev into a city is indivisible from the development of the old Kievan- Rus feudal state. Legends and historical documents describe courageous Kievites defending their city over the ages against the Khazars and Pechenegs, Polovtsi, Tartars, and Mongols, Lithuanian and Polish feudal lords, the Duchy of Muscovy, and the Russian Empire.

The early settlers of Kiev built their first citadel on the steep right bank of the Dnipro River to protect themselves from marauding nomadic tribes. Later, Kiev's Grand Princes built their palaces and churches on Starokievska Hill, while artisans and merchants built their houses next to the wharf on the Dnieper. By the end of the 9th century, when the Kievan-Rus princes united scattered Slavic tribes, Kiev was the political centre of the Eastern Slavs. Kiev maintained wide for links due to its position in the middle of trade routes between the Vikings and the Greeks. Kiev's development accelerated during the reign of Prince Volodymir the Great (980 - 1015). In 988, intent on strengthening his power on the broader international arena, Volodymir introduced Christianity as the establishment of political and cultural relations with the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians, and other countries of Western Europe and the Near East. By the 11th century, Kiev was one of the largest centres of civilization in the Christian World. It boasted over 400 churches, eight markets and nearly 50,000 inhabitants. In comparison, Novgorod, Rus' second largest city, had a population of 30,000. London, Hamburg and Gdansk each had around 20,000.

After the death of the great Kievan Prince Vladimir Monomakh (1125), Kievan Rus became involved in a long period of feudal wars. Foreign powers were quick to take advantage of this situation. In the autumn of 1240, the Tartar-Mongols headed by Batu-Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, captured Kiev after a series of long and bloody battles. Thousands of people were killed and much of the city was razed. Kiev fell into a prolonged period of decline. The Tartar- Mongols ruled for almost a century. Despite foreign rule, Kiev retained its artisan, trade, and cultural traditions of ancient Kievan-Rus and remained an important political, trade and cultural centre.

In the 14th century, the Kiev region became the cradle for the birth of the modern Ukrainian nation.

In the 15th century, Kiev was granted the "Magdenburg Rights", which permitted greater independence of the city in matters of international commerce. In 1569, Poland and Lithuania united into what was known as the Rzecz Pospolita Commonwealth. This led to the establishment of the rule of the Polish and Lithuanian nobility in Ukraine. Repression by the foreign nobility eventually inspired resistance from the Ukrainian people.

In 1648, led by the Ukrainian Cossack Hetman (military leader) Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the people began an uprising that liberated Kiev and larger areas of Ukraine. Later, faced with ravaging attacks by the armies of Polish and Lithuanian feudal lords from the West, the Turkish Sultan and the Crimean Khan from the South, Hetman Khmelnitsky was forced to seek military assistance by the Russian Czar. The union of Ukraine and Russia was formalized by the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654). Afterwards, Ukraine plunged into a long period of domination by the Russian Empire. Despite repression and severe Czarist autocratic rule, 17th and 18th century Kiev still managed to preserve some niches of political, economic, cultural, and religious development. Ukrainian culture continued to flourish around institutions like the Kiev Mohila Academia. Ukrainian scholars based in Kiev earned a strong reputation in Moscow and elsewhere in the Russian Empire. By the 18th century, Kiev, with its hundreds of churches, the world-known Pechersk Lavra Monastery, Saint Sophia's Cathedral a number of other monasteries and convents, became the Russian Empire's centre of worship and symbol of Orthodox Christianity. After the social reforms of 1861, which did away with some of the worst aspects of serfdom in Russia and Ukraine, some improvements occurred in Kiev's cultural and economic communities. The number of hospitals and educational establishments increased. After the construction of the Odessa-Kursk railroad in the 1860's and the development of shipping on the Dnipro River, Kiev became a major transportation and trade centre. Transactions at Kiev's grain and sugar exchanges influenced world prices for food products. The first electric streetcar line in the Russian Empire was built in Kiev in 1892. Home and foreign business communities readily invested Kiev's industries. Military and political power in Kiev changed numerous times in the years following the Bolshevik's overthrow of Russia's Czars during the October Revolution in 1917. Between 1917 and 1921, three successive governments of an independent but constantly besieged Ukrainian State were based in Kiev. On January 22,1918, the Ukrainian Central Rada (Council), led by historian Mikhaylo Hrushevsky, formally proclaimed Ukraine's independence. One of the first countries to officially recognize Ukraine's independence was Russia, who was trying to solidify its grasp over what was soon to become the U.S.S.R. Shortly thereafter, Russia's Red Army, led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, attacked Ukraine.

In 1919, amid great fanfare, the Ukrainian People's Republic, led by journalist Simon Petliura, formally united with the West Ukrainian People's Republic (which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) based in Lviv. This union of Ukraine's lands proved to be short lived as the Red Army forced the West Ukrainian National Government’s Army lost the war against Polish expansionists, while the Kiev- based Ukrainian Army out of Ukraine. Soon after, Ukraine was officially incorporated into the Soviet Union. Under Stalin, tile Ukrainian political, social, economic and cultural fabric was atomised through totalitarian terror, involving massive purges, executions, and the exile of millions to the infamous labour camps of Siberia's "Gulag". During World War II, Kiev again was heavily damaged. For 72 days its citizens defended the city and Soviet troops against the invading Nazis. On September 19, 1941, Nazi troops entered Kiev. The Nazis also built two concentration camps for civilians and Paw's near Kiev. During this period, over 200,000 people were killed and over 100,000 were deported to Germany for forced labour. Kiev was liberated on November 6,1943, by Soviet troops. Soon after celebrating the defeat of Hitler's Germany, Ukraine learned that "liberation" by the Soviet Army meant a different kind of dictatorship. The post war years in Kiev were marked by intensive restoration of the damage caused during the war. The city began to dress its wounds. Politically, however, new waves of Stalinist terror again tore at the Ukrainian social fabric, with more purges, executions, and mass exiles to the Gulag. As the worst features of the Stalinist police state began to dissipate during Khrushchev's and Brezhnev's leadership, the Kremlin intensified its policy of "Russification", barring the Ukrainian language from government, education, courts and so on, pursuant to the theory that the "Soviet peoples" would become better unified if they adopted the Russian language and culture. With so many economic and social disincentives at work, the policy itself worked amazingly well, and new habit, especially in Kiev and other large cities of central and eastern Ukraine. Increasing political impotence of Soviet leadership marked the 1980’s. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident of April 26,1986, brings back painful memories for all Ukrainians. This disaster caused tens of thousands of deaths and health related problems, and inflicted enormous ecological and economic damage. Chernobyl served to rock the Communist Party establishment with political fallout as the facts behind bureaucratic ineptitude, negligence, disregard for the ordinary citizens, and cover-up emerged and began to stir the minds of the people.

On July 6, 1990, the legislature proclaimed Ukraine's sovereignty. In August 1991, a failed three-day military coup of the Kremlin's would-be dictators led to the Declaration of Independence by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) on August 24. On December 1, in a nationwide referendum, 93% of Ukraine's citizens voted for an independent Ukraine and chose Leonid Makatovich Kravchuk, former communist ideologist, as their first democratically elected President. On July 10, 1994, Leonid Kuchma, former director of the world's biggest rocket plant, defeated Leonid Kravchuk to become the second President of independent Ukraine