You're reading: Forgotten Soviet Plans For Kyiv

Today’s Kyiv is a hodgepodge of architecture from different eras – czarist, Soviet and modern.

Today’s Kyiv is a hodgepodge of architecture from different eras – czarist, Soviet and modern.

Somehow, it all comes together to form one of Europe’s most beautiful yet bedraggled capitals. However, the Soviet legacy still lingers in aesthetically unpleasing ways. But, as city historians note, the landscape could have been much worse if some Stalin-era plans had been enacted.

Imagine an enormous statue of Vladimir Lenin with his right arm raised triumphantly instead of St. Michael’s Cathedral in central Kyiv. Visualize a monumental staircase leading from the hills of downtown Kyiv to the River Station on the Dnipro River wharf.

Gaze at the 200-meter high twin monuments to Lenin and Josef Stalin erected on a bluff across from the Paton Bridge.

These were not just fantasies, but actually how Soviet architects envisioned the center of the Ukrainian capital in the 1930s-1950s.

Instead of the Lenin statue at left, the Funicular shuttles passengers on the spot where a tram line once ended in the Podil neighborhood. (Courtesy)

“Life in Kyiv changed drastically in 1934 when the capital was moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv. The city needed the gloss and polish of a capital,” said Borys Yerofalov-Pylypchak, an architect and author of a book entitled “Architecture of Soviet Kyiv.”

The city would undergo a big change in the early-to-mid 20th century with new construction projects that would bring a central stadium, a central department store, the first trolleybus lines, a subway and a new residential district – Darnytsya on the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Naturally, a discussion centered on how to create a showcase city center. Curiously, Khreshchatyk Street and Maidan Nezalezhnosti were not the obvious choices. Some of the early ideas included a part of Pechersk (now near the Park of Glory), Lypky (now near the Parliament), European Square on Khreshchatyk and Mykhailivska Square.

Some of these options were discarded due to remoteness, proximity to the landmark armory Arsenal and other reasons. Soon, planners embarked on the idea of joining Sofiyska and Mykhailivska squares.

In the 1930s, this part of the city looked very different from today. Where building number 19 on Sophiyivska Square stands now was a six-story baroque building, designed by noted architect Pavlo Alyoshyn.

Of course, the Hyatt Regency hotel was not there. St. Michael’s Cathedral, then a monastery, was surrounded by a tall wall. The place now occupied by the towering Ministry of Foreign Affairs had only a couple of small buildings. And a tram line ended where the funicular is now located, said Kyiv historian Mykhailo Kalnytsky.

The face of the future square changed in 1935, when the monastery was blown up on the orders of Josef Stalin’s government. The resulting empty plot was joined with Sophiyivska Square, renamed Uryadova Square (Governmental Square) and was designated as the new capital’s center and parade grounds.

Another of the discarded proposals for a government square by Dmytro Chechulin in 1935. The view is from Dnipro River.

A competition for the best future project took place, joined by dozens of architects. Most of them, including Yakiv Shteinberg, suggested a huge Lenin statue on the plot where St. Michael’s Monastery once stood. Near the base of the statue planners wanted to construct a huge staircase descending towards the banks of the Dnipro River.

The square itself was planned as a rectangle with huge governmental buildings on the perimeter. Four pillars were planned with statues of workers, peasants and revolutionaries with flags standing on them.

No wonder the monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the 17th century hetman who led an uprising for independence, and St. Sophia Cathedral posed a problem to such grand Communist Party plans. Some architects even suggested removing the monument and 11th century cathedral.

Kyiv has this almost magical ability to absorb tasteless buildings with really beautiful ones.

– Borys Yerofalov-Pylypchak

These bizarre ideas haunted Soviet architects and bureaucrats even in the 1950s. Some of the weirdest plans included erecting twin monuments of Lenin and Stalin, nearly 200-meters tall each, just opposite the Paton Bridge on the Dnipro River hills.

Later these plans were changed and the steely monument of Motherland was built on the spot.

Experts say Kyiv was very fortunate that most of grandiose Soviet plans never became reality.

“Architects slowly came to realize that the hilly landscape of right-bank Kyiv does not allow massive imperial style constructions,” said architect Georgiy Dukhovychny. Secondly, the country lacked money needed for ambitious construction in the 1930s- 1950s.

But some projects succeeded.

“Among those implemented Soviet plans are Khreshchatyk Street and Maidan (Independence Square), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Parliament, the Motherland monument, the National History museum and some residential buildings,” Dukhovychny said.

“Neither of them fit the landscape properly and could easily win the title of the ugliest Soviet buildings in Kyiv.”

Despite that, architects say Kyiv preserved about 70 percent of more than 1,000 buildings built during 1907-1914, the pre-Bolshevik revolutionary era in the waning days of the czarist Russian empire.

“Kyiv has this almost magical ability to absorb even the most tasteless buildings among the really beautiful ones, in baroque and classical style. Somehow it all works out in the end. So, despite many controversial and even illegal construction projects in the city now, Kyiv will survive and preserve its unique atmosphere,” architect Yerofalov-Pylypchak said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected]