Archive · then and now

Photo memories

Kyiv in photographs — from the Chain Bridge and horse trams to Euromaidan and the city that held out in 2022. For many of them we found a modern photo taken from the same spot: drag the slider to compare.

Then and now

Drag the divider to compare the old and new photo.

  • Bessarabka before the market — 1860s1860s Bessarabka before the market — TodayToday
    Bessarabska SquareBessarabka before the marketBessarabska Square in the 1860s: a vacant lot at the end of Khreshchatyk, with Krutyi Uzviz and the turn onto Kruhlouniversytetska Street lined with single-storey houses. Half a century later the Bessarabskyi covered market (1912) was built here, and the square became one of the busiest junctions in the city. On the right, the square in 2025 with the Bessarabskyi Market (1910–1912, architect Henryk Gay).Archival photo: невідомий автор, 1860–1870, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Modern photo: Віктор Полянко, 2025, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
  • Ruins of the Golden Gate — Today Ruins of the Golden Gate — 1860s 1860sToday
    40-A Volodymyrska StreetRuins of the Golden GateThe ruins of the 11th-century Golden Gate: two masonry walls of the old passage on an earthen rampart behind a wooden fence, with a line of convicts drawn up nearby. The remains were cleared and buttressed in the 1830s, and in 1982 a museum pavilion was built over them, recreating the probable look of the gate tower with the Church of the Annunciation.Archival photo: невідомий автор, 1860-ті, CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
    Modern photo: Liliia2022, 2024, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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