Andriivsky Descent excursions

Detinka hill – is a wedge shaped hill of Starokyivska Mountain, located near the natural boundary of Honchari-Kozhumyaky (from the Podil side). Presumably takes its name from the central fortification of Kyiv – Detynets, located at the foot of the mountain in the times of Kyivan Rus.

Archaeological monuments of the Zarubintsi-Korchevat culture (III century BC – I-II centuries AD) were found at the Detinka hill. Remains of the Christian cemetery (XII-XIII centuries) were also found. The Detinka hill is mentioned in various historical documents. Thus, in the “Revision of the Castle of Kyiv” (XVI century), the hill is described as an important link in the fortified part of the city – Detynets. Today it is a protected area and Kyivans’ favourite place for leisure.

Uzdykhalnytsia Hill – the most romantic hill of the capital. It was first mentioned in the middle of the 16th century. In the times of Kyivan Rus’ opposite the mountain was the military camp of the prince’s youngest retinue. According to the legend, the young ladies were not allowed to go there, but if one of them began to miss her beloved, she climbed the opposite hill, waved her lovely handkerchief, sighing and sending air kisses. So the hill became Uzdykhalnytsia.

According to another version the name of the hill due to the fact that climbing this hill, people sighed with relief. Today the hill is a favourite place for tourists. On the hill there is a house – the Castle of Richard the Lionheart, the theaters “Academy” and “Wheel”, the Museum of one street and the M. Bulhakov Museum, an openind day in the open air, numerous exhibitions. Tourists are also attracted to the hill by the rumour that once it could be climbed through the secret passages and galleries Castle of Richard.

Old-timers remember how, through the tunnels, staircases and galleries of Richard’s Castle, you could get to the top of the hill and enjoy an amazing view of Podil. Unfortunately, access to the famous house is closed today. But this is not an excuse to deny yourself the pleasure of discovering amazing places of power in Kyiv. The observation deck is led by a ladder from Richard’s Castle.

From the Uzdykhalnytsia you can see the Castle Hill, the Dnipro, Podil, and the left bank of the capital. Now on the top of the hill has been held the festival of Ukrainian youth cinema “Open Night” for several years already.

The Zamkova Hill is a high hill with a history of several thousand years, was one of the central parts of Kiev during the Kievan Rus, fortified by defensive structures. It was a handicraft district of the capital city. In the times of Ancient Rus, the mountain was called Horyvytsia (also known as Kyselivka and Florivska), since the 15th century it becomes a Castle (Zamkova) Hill.

The origin of this name is associated with the construction of a wooden castle built after the entry of Kiev into the Lithuanian principality in 1363. But there is also a version that the fortifications were erected by Kievans, as Khan Batu devastated Kiev in 1240, destroyed the fortress on the Ancient Kiev Mountain, located not far from it. In 1840, the Castle Hill passed to the Florovsky Convent to the cemetery.

In 1921, the cemetery was closed, and with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in 1941, a military unit was located on the Castle Hill, which served as a radio station built here. It was used to mute the signals of foreign broadcasting stations. At the same time, the military conducted the necessary communications on the mountain, finally destroying the surviving sections of the old cemetery.

In the 1990s, the radio station was dismantled for uselessly, and the building of the military unit was dismantled for building materials. Today the mountain is an ambiguous place, with which many legends and mystics are associated. Rising 80m. above the Dnieper, the Zamkova Hill offers an excellent view of Podol, Andriivsky Descent, St. Andrew’s Church and Vozdvyzhenka District.

Bulgakov House is the famous literary and memorial museum of the capital today. The house itself was built in 1888 due to the project of N. Gordenin, a Kiev architect, and the customers were the merchant family of Litoshenko (the mansion was intended for the owner’s wife). One and a half floors of the building were built of stone, the top wooden floor, was bricked, the roof was covered with iron.

Within some time, several buildings were added to the main building, the new owner of the estate of four houses became Z.Mirovych, a merchant and a personal honorary citizen of the city. All the buildings were leased, and the apartment on the first floor was the most expensive. In 1906, the tenants of this apartment became the family of Afanasy Bulgakov the Professor of the Kiev Theological Academy, renting an apartment on the first floor.

So, from 1906 to 1919 years the world-famous writer Mikhail Bulgakov lived and worked in the Building No. 13 located on the Andriivskyi Descent. The house wasn’t different from neighboring ones for many years. But in 1967 in the popular magazine “New World” of that time was published an essay by Viktor Nekrasov, a Kiev writer of “The House of Turbins”. That’s right, Kievans began to call the Building No. 13 by the name of the fictional Bulgakov literary heroes, the Turbin family.

Today it is the only museum in the world where Bulgakov’s relics are collected. The decision to create a literary-memorial museum of Mikhail Bulgakov was made in 1989. Only in 1993, the museum began to be visited. Today it’s not just a building, it’s a Legend-House.

The St. Andrew’s Church built by the order of Elizabeth the Empress as part of the Kiev royal residence, consisting of the Mariinskyi Palace and the palace church in 1749–1754 in the Baroque style designed by F.-B. Rastrelli. The temple is built on a steep spur of the Ancient Kiev Plateau, which served as a pedestal for the construction of the church.

At this point, according to the chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years”, in ancient times the mountain on which now the church stands was surrounded by the sea. Predicting the foundation of a large city, in the 1st century AD Andrew the First-Called the Apostle set a cross, and the water mysteriously retreated. According to a legend, now the church closes the underground sea, which can only be awakened by a bell ringing, triggering the second world flood.

That is why, the bell tower was not built in the St. Andrew’s Church. Since the XI century wooden and stone churches were built and destroyed in honor of Andrew the First-Called. Because of the location on the top of the hill, the groundwater erodes the base and causes landslides.

The Museum of one street is the first private museum in Kyiv, whose collection is dedicated to the history of Andriivsky Descent and its inhabitants. The museum items from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century were used for the exposition. Getting here, plunging into a nostalgic atmosphere, as if traveling on a time machine. Here you can imagine how the boudoir looked like with a full set of ladies’ toiletries, a dining room with a table, interiors of workshops and shops. Retro music is played in the museum, which gives a search to the realities of the past.In addition to objects of urban life, the museum has a lot of rare autographs and books – original manuscripts and photographs of Alexander Vertinsky, Bulgakov’s novel “The Days of the Turbins” (1927) and his “Therapeutic Directory” by Dr. M. Schnierr. There are exhibitions and interesting projects in the museum. Well, a real excitement of the public was caused by an exhibition dedicated to the public houses of the Andriivsky Descent.

Kyiv Detynets is usually called “the City of Volodymyr” by historians named after Volodymyr the Great the Prince, who built it during his reign (970–988). Despite the archaeological excavations demonstrating the first settlements on the territory of Kyiv that were founded in the 6th century, Kyiv became the capital of the ancient state from the 8th-9th centuries.

During Volodymyr the Great reign, the settlement acquired the appearance of a fortified city surrounded by an earthen rampart and a moat with wooden fastenings, with entrance stone gates and occupied an area of 10–12 hectares. The Tithe Church, built in the period of Volodymyr Sviatoslavych reign in 989-996, was the compositional center of the city. In the following centuries the fortifications of the Detynets were renewed in the period of Yaroslav the Wise reign (the protected area of the city was expanded to 70 hectares, the Golden Gate was built).

Then in the 17th century in the period of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi reign and in the 18th century in the period of H.Minich, the Russian General-Field Marshal. The subsequent rapid development of the construction of Kiev erased from the face of the earth the remains of ancient trees and the very Detynets. The Tithe Church, the main stone structure, was destroyed as early as 1240 by the hordes of Khan Batu.

Its investigations have been conducted since the time of Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi by Petro Mohyla, the Metropolitan, and they have been conducted to the present day. The Tithe Church was restored in 1842 and it looked pompously. It was destroyed in 1930 by the Soviet power. The ruins of the Tithe Church are included in the complex of ancient buildings of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine.

Starokyivska Mountain is one of the central Kiev hills, located in the Upper City area. According to legend, Kiev’s life bagan in these places. Kyi the Prince founded his city, a memorable sign, a stone with the inscribed words “From here there is a Rus land”, reminds about it. Presumably, there was a “castle of Kyi” in 5th-9thc. In the north-western part of the modern Starokyivska Mountain.

The parts of the walls of the prince’s Detynets and the foundation of the first stone church in Russia, laid down by Volodymyr the Prince – the Tithe Church (989–996), were partially preserved on the Starokyivska Mountain. There is a landscape alley, which served as an observation platform built in the 1980s on the Starokyivska Mountain today. A four-hundred-year-old linden tree was also planted by Petro Mohyla, the Metropolitan. In addition, the base of the Palace of Olga the Princess (10th century) was found here. In 1937–1939 the National Museum of the History of Ukraine was built on the mountain.