Just down the hill from the hotel I was staying in was this interesting piece of Soviet Art. It shows the triumphant workers emerging out of the stone - a common theme. I thought it was an interesting sculpture and very indicative of the period in which it was made.
I was staying right next to the Polytechnic Institute. It was a great location, not too far from downtown, but also quiet. They certainly must not get many foreigners there as noone spoke english. I'm guessing the hotel is mainly used for guest faculty housing for the university right next door. The university was explained as having architecture similar to that found in Oxford. Having just been there, I had to check it out for myself. Though it may not begin to rival Oxford, it did have some charms of its own and had some whimsical spires and turrets.
I met Yakov and Oksana at the sculpture above and we took off on our first day of siteseeing. We walked through the classically European downtown and visited the National Theatre.
Directly accross from the theater however and occupying what must be an incredibly expensive piece of property, and looking amazingly out of place is an old depressing soviet era building. I can only imagine that the National Theater Managers cringe every time they look out of the front of their theater and see it. The HORROR!
We wandered on to the Golden Gate. This monument goes back to the time 1000 years ago when Kiev was a walled city and this was the main entrance. They've reconstructed the gate from the ruins to show what the main gate of the fortified city would have looked like.
Yaroslav the wise has a great statue next to the gate. It shows him in his classic pose holding the city of Kiev in his hands.
We journeyed on to see two churches that date back to this ancient time of Kiev. The most important church was St. Sophia. This church also dates back around 1000 years old. It is interesting to see the impact of turkish architecture on the architechture in Kiev.
No comments:
Post a Comment