Pecherska Lavra Miniature Museum Through the Lavra main gate, to the right behind Catherine’s bell tower. Museum entrance Hr 2.50; Hr 1 for students and children. Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Since the museum is on the Lavra grounds, there is a Hr 16 to get into the Lavra or Hr 8 for students and minors. We did not have to search long and hard, but we did have to look close to find what can only be described as the most unusual museum in Kyiv. On the grounds of the Pecherska Lavra, KyivХs monastery where Orthodox Christianity was born a millennium ago, sits one of the strangest little museums youХll ever see. There, just behind Catherine the GreatХs Rococo bell tower, the Miniature Museum is still open for business. The Miniature MuseumХs creator is Mykola Syardisty. Born in 1937 and a graduate of the Kharkhiv Art Institute, Syardisty was the Soviet UnionХs premier designer of micro-miniature sculpture. Though the Soviet Union is no more, SyardistyХs work remains. But you need magnifying glasses to view it. ТMy entire lifeХs creativity is in there,У he said. ТEvery important piece I have ever done.У Take for instance the portrait of Vladimir LeninХs head. At a distance, it is just a line drawing, and at 1 meter square, itХs not even a miniature one. But up close, olХ VladХs trademark pate and goatee turn out to be tiny lines of type: Mr. UlyanovХs complete works have been shrunken down, with each letter about the size of a pinhead. For a trip down Socialist memory lane, the museum is a fine tour, and since everything is tiny, it goes quickly. Want to see Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, but really small? There he is, thinking about sputnik, cut in bone, 3 mm. X 4 mm. How about a working balalaika, housed inside a hollowed-out poppy seed? Check it out, and the painting of famous composer V. Andreev (Ever hear of him?) on the inside lid. Or the ship model that fits into a 4 mm. bottle. Or the dragon fly, made of 130 gold and glass parts, roughly the size of a human pupil. But unlike humans, the dragonflyХs eyes are (both) working clocks. DonХt even ask about the WorldХs Smallest Book. And so on. The museum has some two dozen exhibits of Great Soviet Microscopic Creative Achievement, and big magnifying glasses make viewing proof of the socialist systemХs inherent technical superiority over the decadent West. All in all, taking in the museum lasts 30 minutes, and thatХs if youХre into Soviet schlock. Or you can spend your time outside on the Lavra grounds, inspecting one of the three world centers of Christianity in real life size.
