The fresh white walls, green, gold tipped domes of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev make it one of the city’s most striking and familiar monuments. There seems to be some local pride in it.

Byzantine in style the cathedral was painstakingly erected over two 11th Century decades. Its symmetrical appearance has five naves, 12 rounded green cupolas and one central golden one. The outside, all white looks clean and ageless, but inside its delicate frescos and mosaics, which were installed during construction, give away its age.

In the 30’s Saint Sophia narrowly escaped demolition and was instead turned, by the Soviet authorities into a historical and architectural museum. The Soviets pledged to return it to church use, but due to its history of usage by many different schools of faith there is contention about who gets it, which is a shame. It’s a beautiful religious building and it would be nice to see its naves and chapels reopened for business, though when I visited several years ago I found the museum fascinating, despite its slightly basic and moth eaten atmosphere.

Written by  Kynan Wieltz.

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