Kiev travel guide

Kiev is the golden-domed capital straddling the Dnieper River and with it the gulf between modern Ukraine and Ancient Rus. At once modern, Soviet and medieval, Kiev has many faces and cheerfully defies any attempt at easy labelling.

A walk down Khreschatyk, the city's main shopping street, to Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), the city’s main plaza and home to the now almost forgotten ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004, is also a must, as is gentle wandering down the city’s most famous and picturesque street, Andriyevsk Uzviz, where you can browse the markets, see some interesting museums and take in vistas of this great and largely undiscovered city.

Kiev’s best sights though are its ancient churches, many of which are some of the most important in Orthodox Christianity. No visitor should miss the extraordinary Caves Monastery Complex, the city’s most famous sight, a collection of beautiful churches overlooking the Dnieper River, and, more bizarrely, two large catacombs containing the embalmed bodies of monks around which huddled worshippers pray. At the city’s heart is the divine St Sophia’s Cathedral, a gold and green extravaganza, and Nezaleshnasti St Michael’s Monastery, a blaze of periwinkle walls topped with dazzling golden domes.