Kyiv’s Sublime Urban Spaces Are in Danger

Kyiv is often described as the cradle of Slavic civilization. According to legend, the city was founded in 482, when a group of siblings from a royal Slavic tribe staked out a settlement along the banks of the Dnipro River. By the end of the millenium, under the leadership of Volodymyr the Great, it had become the capital of a major European civilization—Kyivan Rus. At this point, Moscow was barely a village.

Apart from Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Kyiv’s main square and protest grounds, most of what Westerners know of Kyiv are landmarks stemming from this storied past. Saint Sophia Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, both onion-domed churches that date back to the 11th century, are the city’s most famous monuments. Though beautiful and singular, they represent just one dimension of Kyiv’s landscape.

I learned this firsthand in 2005, when I arrived in Kyiv on a fellowship. I rented an apartment in a Soviet-era high-rise near the Lybidska metro station,