You're reading: Curious monuments in Kyiv

Learn about some peculiar statues to be found in the city

Kyiv is scattered with monuments, from the tightest alleyways, to house yards and squares.

They can be grand, tiny, ridiculous, majestic, witty, hidden somewhere behind the corner or towering above the city’s skyline.

We pass them several times each day. Tour guides show them to guests of the city. We take pictures of them, but frankly speaking, we barely know anything about most of them.

Most of us Ukrainians know the basic history behind the personalities represented by some of most popular statues in Kyiv, including that to Cossack hero Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the poet Taras Shevchenko and Communist leader Vladimir Lenin.

But there are a great many less popular figures that we come across while wandering around the streets of Kyiv. Many locals, and even some historians, wouldn’t recognize them.

Take for example the statue of a guy in a hat sitting with a cup of coffee on Passage walkway right off Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street. The statue is always surrounded by tourists, who try to perch by the figure and take pictures. The monument is dedicated to the well-known modernist architect Vladislav Horodetsky, who lived in Kyiv at the beginning of the 20th century. Among his creations is the impressive House of Chimeras on Bankova Street, which is now the reception hall for the president when meeting foreign dignitaries. Among many buildings in Kyiv, he also designed Budynok Aktora (Actor’s House) on Yaroslaviv Val. The architect once lived in the above-mentioned House of Chimeras, which is covered with statues of animals he saw on his safari trips to Africa.

You might ask, why is his statue on Passage alley? Well, from his residence, he used to walk down to this street regularly for a cup of coffee, much like many city residents do today.

The street still gathers a handful of the city’s most posh cafes and coffee houses. So why not follow Horodetsky’s footsteps making your way to this alley for a sweet with a cup of tea or coffee.

After you get your dose of caffeine, walk a less than a block up from Passage to Horodetskoho Street, and further up to Ploshcha Ivana Franka, where you can see another hidden monument dedicated to actor Mykola Yakovchenko.

The bronze figure sitting on a bench with a dachshund Fan-Fan at his feet and pigeons flying about somehow fits in naturally with the city landscape and citizens walking by. The actor performed on the stage of the adjacent Ivan Franko Theater from 1928 and in 2000 the monument was opened to commemorate his 100th birth date.

Relax. Lounge on a bench, feed the birds, and, of course, wait for the first bell to ring, calling you to the theater’s next performance.

An intriguing character can be seen on Prorizna, the street that bisects Khreshchatyk and rises up to Ukraine’s Golden Gate monument.

It’s the statue to Panikovsky, a major character in the novel ‘Zolotoy Telenok’ (‘The Golden Calf) by Odesa-born authors Ilya Ilf and Evgeniy Petrov, both famous Soviet-day writers.

A swindler and a goose-robber, Panikovsky helped the main hero of the novel, Ostap Bender, blackmail a closet millionaire.

According to the story, before the revolution Panikovsky lived in Kyiv and earned money pretending to be blind. He begged a respectable looking gentleman to walk him across Khreshchatyk. On the other side of the road, the gentleman would discover his wallet or watch was missing. The location for the monument on Prorizna wasn’t chosen solely for standing close to his “working place.” At the beginning of the 20th century, the street was known as a regular gathering point for swindlers.

If you walk up Prorizna to Kyiv’s Golden Gate, a small bronze cat statue in the vicinity might catch your eye. For those who don’t know the story behind this cat, well here it is, and it’s a tragic tale at that.

The owner of the nearby restaurant, Pantagruel, decided to let a cat named Pantusha live inside the eatery. Soon the cat became a favorite with visitors. However once the restaurant caught fire, killing the poor pet. The restaurant’s patron renovated the restaurant, of course, and insisted a small monument be erected in memory of the cat.

Just meters from the cat, the attention of statue gazers will certainly be drawn to a much larger monument of Yaroslav the Wise, leader the Kyivan Rus Empire from 1,000 years ago. He sits holding a model of the Golden Gates in his hands.

If you haven’t had enough of statues yet for the day, walk a block further down Zolotovoritska Street to the intersection with Reytarska Street.

At this junction, you will see a sunlit square surrounded by old trees in the center of stands a column with a Cossack on top. The composition commemorates the defenders of Ukraine from all generations.

The authors of the monument are blamed for its tastelessness, but certainly worth seeing for its awkwardness.

If you manage to make your way from here to the end of Khreshchatyk, where the landscape drops down towards the Dnipro River, you will see the all imposing Druzhby Narodiv Arch (Arch of Peoples’ Friendship). Erected in Soviet days, the huge metal ‘rainbow’ is meant to symbolize the unity of Ukrainians and Russians – at least a bond that occurred way back in history, 1654 at the Pereyaslavska Rada.

That, and a related a monument beneath the arch, makes a weird combination and appear strangely mixed up and spit out simultaneously by a time machine.