Kyiv Pechersk Lavra

Interesting facts

The Great Lavra Bell Tower, built in 1731–1745 to a design by Johann Gottfried Schädel, rose to 96.5 metres and was the tallest free-standing bell tower of its day.

Nestor the Chronicler, traditionally credited with writing the Primary Chronicle of early Rus, lies buried in the Near Caves.

The Primary Chronicle itself contradicts itself on the founding, giving both 1051 and 1074 as the year the monastery began.

In 1615 the archimandrite Yelisei Pletenetsky set up the first printing press in Kyiv here, and the monastery became a major centre of book printing.

Peter Mohyla opened a monastery school in 1631; a year later it merged into the Kyiv Collegium, the forerunner of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

The monastery gained stauropegic status in 1159, answering directly to the patriarch, and from then on was known as a lavra, a senior monastery.

A fire in 1718 destroyed the library, the archive and most of the buildings, so much of what stands today dates from the rebuilding that followed.

Soviet authorities dissolved the monastery twice, from 1929 to 1942 and again from 1961 to 1988.

UNESCO inscribed the Lavra in 1990 together with Saint Sophia Cathedral, as one of the first World Heritage Sites in Ukraine.

Why it is worth it

The monk Anthony founded this in 1051 by settling into a small hand-dug cave, seeking nothing more than solitude and prayer. Others followed him into the hillside, and under his successor Theodosius — the community's third abbot — what had started as a handful of individual hermit cells grew into an organized monastery, with new caves excavated as more monks arrived. It's generally regarded as the oldest monastic complex to survive from the lands of Kyivan Rus.

Unlike cave shelters built purely for retreat, the tunnels here — the Near Caves and the Far Caves — evolved into a genuine underground settlement: chapels, living cells, and burial vaults side by side. The dry, low-oxygen conditions underground preserved many of the monks interred there, and their remains are still venerated within the caves, making the complex as much a living reliquary as a historic site.

Above ground, the monastery's architecture kept evolving for centuries, and its most recognizable landmark, the Dormition Cathedral, took on its gilded domes and exuberant ornament during Ukrainian Baroque rebuilding in the 17th and 18th centuries. The cathedral was destroyed in 1941 and stood as a ruin for decades before being carefully rebuilt to its historic appearance and reconsecrated at the end of the 20th century.

Getting there

Located in Klov. Gomel Airport (GME) is about 235 km away.

Kyiv Pechersk Lavra

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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