Route #1
start of the route
Stop #1 Kontraktova square
Kontraktova square is one of the oldest in Kyiv. It is located near the Dnipro river, and in old times it was a trade point, so this is how it got its name: people used to buy, sell and sign contracts here
Stop #2 Skovoroda monument
Gregory Skovoroda (1722-1794) was a travelling Ukrainian philosopher. He was not loyal to secular hierarchy, rejected any coercion, did not like church rituals, preferring personal spiritual freedom. Led the life of a recluse and itinerant philosopher. Wrote philosophical dialogues and treatises in which biblical issues are intertwined with the ideas of Platonism and Stoicism. He considered self-exploration to be the meaning of human existence
His portrait is printed on 500 Hryvnia banknote. On the right side you can see his drowning, where a fountain is filling cups of different shapes and sizes. He called this drawing “Unequal Equality". Despite of being different with size and shape, those cups are equal with their filling: they all receive their water from the same fountain. Similarly people can differ with experience, status, bodies… but they all are equal in their feeling, that they receive from a singe source — the god.
The monument is located right across the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the place where Skovoroda got his education
Stop #3 Pyrohoshcha Church
What you see today is a modern reconstruction of the church that was built here in 1132
Stop #4 Sahaidachny monument
Petro Sahaidachny was a head of Ukrainian cossack state and a brilliant military leader
Ukrainian cossacks were self-organised free worriers, who organised themselves into democratic, self-governing, semi-military state in order to preserve their freedom
Stop #5 Andriivsky Descent
Stop #6 St Andrews Church
Stop #7 Picturesque Alley
end of the route