Walking route
From Yaroslaviv Val to Bessarabka: theatres, cathedrals and gardens
A walk through the 19th-century neighbourhoods between the Golden Gate and Bessarabka: a neo-Gothic "castle", Schröter's opera house, a cathedral painted by Vasnetsov and Vrubel, the university botanical garden and the park opposite the Red Building. It ends near Bessarabskyi Market, at a contemporary art centre and the Brodsky Synagogue.
- Distance
- ≈ 3.1 km
- Time
- ≈ 3 h
- Walking
- 40 min
- Stops
- 7
The line on the map joins the stops as the crow flies, not along the streets. The distance is estimated as the straight lines between stops × 1.25, and the time as walking at 4.5 km/h plus 2 h 20 min at the stops. Google Maps will show the exact walking path.
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Baron's Castle
Mykhailo Pidhorskyi's red neo-Gothic apartment house with a spired tower and winged figures over the gateway, built in 1896–1898 by the engineer Mykola Dobachevskyi. Historians see it as a pastiche of an early Renaissance French château.
To the next stop: ≈ 350 m · 5 min on foot
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National Opera of Ukraine
Viktor Schröter's building of 1901, on the site of the City Theatre that burned down in 1896. It was here, in the old theatre, that the first Ukrainian opera, Mykola Lysenko's "Christmas Night", was performed in 1874.
To the next stop: ≈ 420 m · 6 min on foot
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St Volodymyr's Cathedral
A yellow seven-domed cathedral built in 1862–1882 for the 900th anniversary of the Christianisation of Rus; it is 49 metres to the cross of the central dome. Inside are paintings by Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Nesterov, Pavel Svedomsky and Mikhail Vrubel.
To the next stop: ≈ 430 m · 6 min on foot
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Fomin Botanical Garden
Kyiv's oldest botanical garden, founded in 1839 for the university: mid-19th-century terraces and glasshouses, the Magnolia Garden in spring and palms more than a hundred years old.
To the next stop: ≈ 770 m · 10 min on foot
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Taras Shevchenko Park in Kyiv: History of a Beloved Park
The park opposite the university's Red Building. The monument to Taras Shevchenko was put up in 1939; earlier, from 1896, a monument to Nicholas I stood in the centre of the park.
To the next stop: ≈ 650 m · 9 min on foot
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PinchukArtCentre
A private contemporary art centre opened in 2006 in a historic building opposite Bessarabskyi Market. Admission is free, and the sixth-floor café looks out over Bessarabka.
To the next stop: ≈ 450 m · 6 min on foot
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Brodsky Choral Synagogue in Kyiv: History and Architecture
The Choral Synagogue of 1897–1898 on the corner of Shota Rustaveli and Rohnidynska streets, named after the philanthropist Lazar Brodsky, who also paid for Bessarabskyi Market.
On foot
More routes
- Old Kyiv: from the Golden Gate to Andriivskyi Descent≈ 2.1 km · 2 h 30 min · 5 stops
- Podil: from the funicular to Castle Hill≈ 3.3 km · 2 h 45 min · 7 stops
- Pechersk and the Lavra: along the Dnipro hills to Vydubychi≈ 4.5 km · 5 h 15 min · 7 stops
- From Maidan to Mariinskyi Park≈ 3.5 km · 3 h 15 min · 8 stops