Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post feature “Then & Now” takes a look at how places in the city have changed over time.
It’s simple to guess that one of Kyiv’s biggest squares, Peremohy Square or Victory Square, was named so after the Allies won World War II in 1945: Dozens of streets and squares all over the countries of the former Soviet Union bear the same name.
However, before turning into a symbol of the victory over Nazi Germany, Peremohy Square was one of the capital’s most important markets.
Today’s Peremohy Square is located on the crossroads of several major streets near the Kyiv’s center: Saksaganskoho Street, Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, Zhylianska Street, Bulvarno-Kudryavska Street and Peremohy Avenue – one of the longest and broadest avenues in the city.
Back in the 19th century, however, the square was located in the outskirts of Kyiv, closer to its western edge. The square hosted a popular street market with the unofficial name Evbazar, a short form of Evreysky Bazar, which in Ukrainian means “Jewish Market.”
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Imperial Russian general Illarion Vasilchikov allowed Jewish people to sell their goods on the square three days per week because it was located within the Pale of Settlement – a region in the western part of the Russian Empire where Jewish people were allowed to live. The Pale of Settlement was introduced by Russian Queen Catherine the Great in 1791 and officially existed until the 1917 October Revolution, which brought Bolsheviks to power.
In 1869, the place was named Halytska Square, as it stood on the road to the western region of Galicia, or Halychyna, the area of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil oblasts along with eastern parts of Poland.
Since the square is close to the Kyiv’s central railway station, which started operating in 1870, the market soon became one of the biggest and most significant ones in the city.
People started to build new houses and shops near the market. Kyiv historian Oleksandr Anisimov writes in his book “Kyiv and Kyivans” that criminal gangs fought to control the market, and there were stolen goods on sale.
By the end of the 19th century, Kyiv’s authorities launched tram services, with lines running near the market so that vendors could easily transfer their goods.
According to Interesting Kyiv, a website about the city’s life and history, people used to sell clothes, food and drinks at the market. Kyiv historian Dmitry Malakhov writes that people “could find everything at Evbaz: from a needle to another person,” referring to the fact that the area hosted several brothels.
In the 1860s, the authorities decided to build the orthodox church of Archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom on Halytska Square. It was the first church built from iron plates, so people called it the Iron Church. The design of the church was experimental: It was built from iron to withstand fire, but the building was very hot in summer and cold in winter.
The church actually did survive a fire in 1884, and remained on the square for another 50 years: it was demolished by the Communists in 1934, when Kyiv regained its status of Ukraine’s capital from Kharkiv.
Market’s end
The market continued working even during the German Nazi occupation in 1941-1943: People went there to exchange their possessions for food. The Interesting Kyiv website also notes that Nazis used to raid the market and arrest young people to send them to labor camps in Germany. After the war, however, the Soviet authorities ordered the demolition of the market.
In 1946 they developed a plan to reconstruct this area of Kyiv without the market, but it took them three more years to start work — and the market kept working until then. Finally, authorities moved the market to the end of Zhylyanska Street and built a large flower bed in its place.
Three years later, in 1952, the square was renamed Peremohy Square.
Reconstruction
A couple of years later the authorities started constructing the three most noticeable buildings on the square – the State Circus of Ukraine, the biggest mall in Soviet Ukraine – Univermag Ukraina – and hotel Lybid, one of the highest buildings in Kyiv at the time at over 60 meters tall.
The construction work went slowly, because the square was close to an underground section of the Lybid River, and the workers had to pump water from the building foundations.
Today only these three buildings – the mall, circus and hotel – have Peremohy Square as their address.
In the 1980s, the square was reconstructed again, and the authorities built a huge, 30-meter-tall obelisk with a gold star on top. The monument commemorates Kyiv’s status e as a hero city, which the Soviet authorities gave to cities in which there were major battles during World War II. In Ukraine, Odesa, Sevastopol and Kerch also received the same title.
People sell food, clothes and other items at a market on the Halytska Square in Kyiv in 1942, which is now called Peremohy Square. (Courtesy)
Moreover, the authorities also renamed the former Brest-Lytovske Avenue, one of the longest avenues in Kyiv at 11.8 kilometers long, as Peremohy Avenue. Historians say that Soviet soldiers walked along this street during the Battle for Kyiv in 1943, when the city was freed from German occupation.
Less than a year before Ukraine gained its independence, in November 1990, Peremohy Square hosted the last Soviet military parade in Soviet Ukraine. Such parades, which marked the anniversary of the October Revolution, were usually held on Kyiv’s central Khreshchatyk Street. However, the Soviets were forced to move the parade to Peremohy Square because of massive public protests against the regime.
Peremohy Square today
Today’s Peremohy Square looks almost the same as it does in old black-and-white photos from the 1980s.
The most notable difference is the modernized Ukraina shopping mall, which has a new glass facade. The mall was reconstructed by U.S. company NCH Advisors Inc., which invested around $17 million in rebuilding the center in 2003.
While the square itself is spacious, some of the streets leading to it are much more narrow. On one of those streets, Bulvarno-Kudryavska, there is a stunning new mural showing a dark, stormy Black Sea, painted by South African artist Jake Aikman as part of the Art United Us project.
While Peremohy Square is located not far from the University and Vokzalna metro stations, Kyiv’s authorities also plan to build a metro station under the square in future. The metro station Peremohy Square is already listed as one of the stations of the future Podilsko-Vyhuriska metro line (which is to run from the village of Hatne, 5 kilometers to the southwest of Kyiv Zhulianiy International Airport, to Kyiv’s Troyeshchyna district on the left bank). Construction of the line is to begin after 2020.
