I was going to do a Kiev walking tour, but after having a pretty terrible nights sleep. It was a struggle to get out of bed. I decided to just take it easy and have a wander around the city instead. After filling myself up with a late breakfast, I headed out to have a look around Kiev. I knew roughly the direction that I needed to go in. First, I headed up to the pedestrainised area that I had took a walk through the previous evening. It was a lot quieter as most of the stalls were closed and there were few people about. I walked along to the end of the street as there were some things to see there. The first was the Princess Olga Monument. In the tenth century, she took over the throne of Kiev after her husbands death. She avenged her husbands death not once, but twice. First, when the Drevlians (the tribe that controlled the area around Kiev) tried to make her marry their prince Mal, on the surface she appeared to agree, but when Drevlian boats arrived she had her men carry them from the Dnipro River to a huge pit and bury
the boats and their people alive. Then she got the tribe to send their best men to the city, under the ruse that they had to convince the people of Kiev that she should be allowed to marry. When the men arrived, she sen them to bathe in a bathhouse, which was then locked up and set on fire, so the men perished. She also prepared an army to attack Iskoroten and burnt the city down. Not a woman to mess with. Beyond the monument is St. Michaels Golden Domed Monastery. It is a gorgeous pale blue and gold building built in the Ukrainian Baroque style. I had thought about entering the monastery, but there were a few women hanging around outside trying to flog stuff, so that put me off and I headed off to look at the artwork on the wall next to the church. The artwork was, of course, religious and showed what I presume to be scenes from the bibles. The artwork was beautiful and I loved the bright colours. Next to the artwork was the Monument to the Victims of Famine in 1933. I knew a little about the Holodomor, the man made famine that
was created by Stalins regime which caused millions of Ukrainians to lose their lives, from an exhibition I had seen in a museum in Tallinn back in February. I had hoped to visit the Holodomor Genocide Museum whilst in Kiev, but ran out of time.
From here, I walked past some government buildings and then shops and restaurants. I passed by some beautiful buildings. I ended up taking a wrong turn and walking down a side street that seemed to lead to nowhere special. However, I across a building that had one side covered with a giant mural, so it wasnt a wasted trip. I got back on to the main street and at the end of it, it seemed to really change in style as it opened up onto a small square and seemed to be a lot quieter and also looked more touristic with small stalls selling tourist tat. It was a quite day and I really felt for the vendors having to stand out there in the cold and the damp as there probably wouldnt be a lot of passing trade. I came to a statue of two people dressed in some rather old
fashioned clothes. This is Pamyatnyk Za Dvoma Zaytsyamy: Pronya Prokopivna Ta Holokhvastov according to google maps and the people are characters in the film, which was a I thought that the location may have been random, but the movies finale was shot nearby. Just behind the statue, I could see St. Andrews Church. It was really beautiful even on a bleak day like this. I loved the place bluey green colour flanked with white and trimmed with gold. Since you had to pay a fee to enter not only the church, but its grounds, I decided to skip it. I continued on down the steep street and came to the Taras Shevchenko Monument. Taras Shevchenko was a famous Ukrainian writer and poet. While I was walking, I took a wrong turn and ended up getting rather lost. I ended up walking around the Vozdvyzhenka Barrio for a while.
