St. Vladimir's Church, just around the corner from the library.


Kiev University--according to many, the "bad" university still dominated by the Russian-speaking Soviet nomenklatura. I doubt this is all true, but so it's said. There are two stories about why it's red, and I'm not sure which is true. One is that Nicholas I ordered it painted the color of blood after one of the frequent student revolts. Another, probably more reliable, version is that red is the color of the order of Vladimir, and the institution was named St. Vladimir's before the revolution.

Statue of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's national bard and now, cultural hero, across the street from the University. I spent all yesterday reading about the statue's history (built in 1914), then went to check it out again. It replaced a statue of Nicholas I, destroyed in the revolutionary violence of 1905--which was one of the explanations used to justify the pogrom that followed (people blamed Jews for destroying the statue).