I haven’t written anything in a long time. In fact, not since I came back home. In just three weeks away from home, an unexpectedly large number of tasks piled up. So during this time, I barely had any rest and went out even less. But I had long promised my friend a walk. She’s passionate about the history of Kyiv and knows an incredible amount. We picked a location for our walk that I hadn’t visited before (which wasn’t hard to find), and she became my guide. As often happens, fascinating places turn out to be right next to our usual routes. This time, it was the ancient historical area of Kyiv — Kytaiv.
The Kytaiv area is located on the southern outskirts of Kyiv. It is an archaeological site of national significance. Here you can find an ancient Rus' fortified settlement, a burial mound necropolis, a men's monastery, and a system of caves.
Opposite the entrance to the monastery is a building where pilgrims used to stay.
Here, we also found a unique tree that is rarely seen in our area – the Japanese Pagoda Tree. It blooms in July once every few years. Perhaps this year I’ll be lucky enough to see it bloom.
It was Palm Sunday, but there weren’t many visitors. Usually, this place is almost deserted.
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This area is home to many small lakes formed along a little stream. The weather was sunny and warm, so the walk felt like a real blessing. Just a few days ago, everything was covered in an unexpected layer of snow, and now signs of spring are everywhere.
At the top of one of the hills, there's an entrance to the caves where monks and hermits once lived. In fact, there are several entrances, but only one is currently open. The soil in this area is quite soft and easy to work with, so digging caves wasn’t difficult. But because of that, there’s also a risk of collapse, which is why the caves are specially reinforced. There's even a story about a monk who lived a very pious life, and after his death, it was discovered that the monk was actually a woman.
Unfortunately, the caves are closed during the cold season, and they’re still not open. So we couldn’t go inside this time — yet another reason to come back. For now, we simply enjoyed the view.
Due to the caves being closed, we had some extra time, so we took a walk along the path by the lakes, admiring the fresh green grass, the first spring flowers, and the young buds on the trees.
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