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April 3, 2005
Is Newly Liberated Kiev the Next Prague?
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
T was only a few months ago that the extraordinary political upheaval in Ukraine unfolded on television screens around the world against the backdrop of a capital, Kiev, that many viewers had never seen before. The images were compelling: glittering church domes, forested riverbanks, the grandiose post-World War II architecture of Kreshchatik Street and Independence Square, where thousands of Ukrainians massed in protest, and then, finally, in ebullient celebration as a new Western-minded president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, was ushered in.
The upheaval has ended, but the backdrop is still there, as is a sense of optimism that Ukraine may yet shake off the post-Soviet funk that left the country mired in economic chaos and political intrigue even as other former Soviet republics and satellites - the Baltics, Poland, the Czech Republic - opened up to the West. In Kiev, especially, the ramifications of political change are enticing, not just for residents but for foreign visitors intent on exploring a city that has all the makings of a new Prague.
Mr. Yushchenko's government is promising to lure investors and tourists - one of its first steps was to ease visa restrictions for those attending the annual pop music competition, Eurovision, in May. This year's event, the 50th, will include performers from 40 countries and be televised to millions across the Continent.
But perhaps what will most encourage tourists to explore this graceful city on the banks of the Dnieper River are the images that were televised in December. Those who come will find a rich historical and cultural heritage and a vibrant urban spirit.
Kiev, as guidebooks will tell you, is ancient, its "modern" founding dating from the 10th century. It was from Kiev that the Orthodox Church spread its influence through Russia.
Nowhere is the city's spiritual and historical significance more apparent than at the Holy Assumption Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, on a hill overlooking the river south of the city center. Founded in the 11th century, it is the oldest Orthodox monastery of Old Rus and Ukraine. Its domes and Great Bell Tower, just under 317 feet high, compete with the slightly taller Rodina Mat, or Motherland, the steel-covered monument to the Soviet Union's victory over the Nazis, as the most distinctive feature of the city's landscape.
The monastery is one of the most venerated sites in Russian Orthodoxy, drawing millions of pilgrims from across Europe. Inside the monastery, divided into upper and lower sections, are two dozen churches, towers and museums (most from the 17th and 18th centuries). The Ukrainian Museum of Historical Treasures has a spectacular collection of Scythian gold, including an intricate fourth-century necklace that depicts, among other things, two men fighting over a golden fleece. Even more fascinating is what gave the monastery its name: peshchery, or caves. Beneath the grounds are hundreds of yards of narrow, winding passages, where monks lived, worshiped and died. Their mummified relics remain there, placed in narrow notches carved out of the stone. One enters the Near Caves from the Krestovozdvizhenskaya Church (Church of the Elevation of the Cross), where visitors can buy candles, the only source of light inside. From 15 to 65 feet underground are three churches, as well as the tomb of St. Anthony, the ascetic who moved into a cave nearby in the 11th century. A darkened, otherworldly silence is interrupted only occasionally by prayerful chants of worshipers.
Centuries of war and occupation - most recently by Nazi Germany, followed by what the most ardent nationalists here consider renewed occupation by the Soviet Union - destroyed much of the city's most venerable architecture, including the monastery's principal church, the Uspensky (Assumption) Cathedral. An explosion demolished it in 1941 in circumstances that are still disputed; it has since been rebuilt.
Other landmarks remain largely untouched. The most impressive is St. Sofia's Cathedral, an architectural masterpiece, with its 13 blue and gold domes. It was erected in the first half of the 11th century in what is now called the Upper City. Although its Baroque exterior is the result of a 17th-century reconstruction, its interior still has partly preserved Byzantine frescoes a thousand years old. The cathedral also houses the centuries-old tombs of the Kievan princes, including Yaroslav the Wise, who commissioned the church after his victory in the 11th century over the nomadic Pecheneg tribe.
The National Reserve of St. Sofia's Cathedral, as it is now called, is open to the public, though the day I visited it was closed in the morning because Mr. Yushchenko, newly inaugurated, was praying there. It was gloriously sunny, with the light glinting off the cathedral's domes, and when I finally entered the grounds, a man with a bandura, a lutelike instrument, sang melodic folksongs on a bench.
Not far from here, a funicular descends to the banks of the Dnieper and a gentrifying, middle-class neighborhood called Podil, where I stayed in a simple, but comfortable hotel, the Domus. A longer, but far more pleasant route is Andriyivsky Uzviz, or St. Andrew's Descent. Cobblestoned and mostly pedestrian, the winding, sloping street is Kiev's Montmartre, lined with galleries, antiques stores and artist studios in late 19th-century brick buildings.
Here, artists sell their paintings and sculptures. Other vendors, among them impoverished pensioners, sell jewelry, linens, T-shirts and souvenirs. Farther along is a museum in the home where Mikhail Bulgakov, the Russian writer, lived from 1906 to the early years of the Soviet Union before moving to Moscow and inviting persecution for his scathingly satirical novels and plays, including "The Master and Margarita."
It is on Andriyivsky Uzviz that visitors will also encounter the vibrancy of postelection Kiev. On a recent evening the L-Art gallery, at No. 2-B, which usually specializes in Socialist Realism paintings of the 50's, 60's and 70's, was displaying raw, graffitilike paintings by Volodymyr Kuznetsov, a young artist whose inspiration lay in the political upheaval that came to be called the Orange Revolution. Mr. Kuznetsov's works reflect what Lyudmyla Berenznitska, the owner of the gallery, calls "the birth of a new Ukraine."
"We are a young nation," she explained on the night of the opening when the gallery was packed with journalists, graying intellectuals, young people and two television crews, one from a station that only weeks before would not have dared show anti-government sentiments. "We are in the process of self-recognition."
That might seem an odd thing to say about a country with a deep, rich history. But here on Andriyivsky Uzviz, which binds the past and the future, the process of self-recognition is very much in evidence, as illustrated not just by the avant-garde art Ms. Berenznitska is showing in her gallery, but in the new bar and restaurant, Prêt-à-Café, that she has recently opened in a gallery annex at 10 Andriyivsky Uzviz. The cafe is sleekly modern, with a sound system pulsing with European pop.
A profusion of new cafes, bars and restaurants are opening elsewhere in the city. Some, like Decadence House, at 16 Shota Rustaveli Street, became late-night hangouts during the election, when the aides for the bitterly divided presidential campaigns gathered and, by all accounts, set aside their disputes. On my last evening in Kiev I found my way to Art Club 44, a crowded and smoky underground bar and club in a difficult-to-find courtyard off the city's main street, Kreshchatik.
That night a band called Yaka Isnue from the western city of Lviv appeared onstage and played grinding, grungelike rock. The band's name means, roughly, "the one who exists," and its singer playfully dedicated a song to the "crocodile tears" of Mr. Yushchenko's defeated opponent, Viktor F. Yanukovich. The crowd laughed and hooted through the din; many swayed or danced in what seemed like elation.
It seemed that, for Kiev, there was no turning back.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
U.S. citizens traveling to Ukraine must have a visa, which can be obtained from the Consular Office of the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, or the consulates general in Chicago, San Francisco or in New York at 240 East 49th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017; (212) 371-5690. Online visit www.ukraineinfo.us. A single-entry visa is $100, by money order.
AeroSvit Airlines offers nonstop service from New York to Kiev (Kennedy Airport) three times a week (five times weekly beginning in mid-May); (212) 661-1620; www.aerosvit.us; from about $520 round trip.
LODGING AND DINING
Hotel Domus, 19 Yaroslavskaya Street, (38-044) 490-9009, fax (38-044) 462-5145, www.domus-hotel.kiev.ua, is a small business-class hotel with 29 rooms. A double room costs $190, breakfast not included.
In keeping with the fad for sushi that has spread across many restaurants in the former Soviet Union, Decadence House, 16 Shota Rustaveli, (38-044) 206-4920, serves sushi in addition to European dishes in lush décor meant to evoke France; $40 to $60 with a glass of wine, at 5.4 hryvnia to $1. Lunch only.
A better place for sushi is Nobu, 12 Shota Rustaveli, (38-044) 246-7734, a minimalist Japanese restaurant less than a block away that is often so crowded it turns people away. Open daily noon to midnight. Dinner costs $20 to $50.
My favorite place, both for atmosphere and convenience, is Shato, a brewpub and restaurant at 24 Kreshchatik, (38-44) 229-3704, with broad second-floor windows overlooking Independence Square. The restaurant served as the headquarters for Pora, the youth group that provided the uprising with much of its organization and zeal. The beer, brewed on site, is great; the food, not bad. Open daily around the clock. Dinner costs less than $20 with dessert. A half-liter glass of beer brewed here costs $3.25.
