Quick Tour of Underground Kyiv
Even our ancestors long before us had a clear idea of the three components of the world: the terrestrial, celestial, and subterranean. While there were no special problems at all with knowing the earthly life (like most other mammals, people have learned it daily with their five organs of perception), our ancestors were offered a broad spectrum of religious literature to make an extensive excursus into the life of heaven. As to the underground world, it remained terra incognita for them, terra being used in the literal meaning, which still did not prevent the then metropolitan residents from actively utilizing the lower depths of our city.
The past generations of Kyivans left us catacombs leading from St. Cyril’s monastery in the north to the village of Tserkovshchyna in the south. Late medieval times gave rise to poetic legends that if you enter the catacombs in Kyiv you can go out in Chernihiv, Smolensk, Liubech, Pechora, and Moscow, truly a life without borders. According to some legends, ancient builders ran rings around those who built the St. Petersburg subway, for they managed to lay galleries under the Dnipro mouth.
The majority, uninitiated in the technicalities of the matter, have a common perception of catacombs as monastic cells dug out following the manner of Feodosy Pechersky. However, it is difficult to understand the logic of monks digging a passage under the Dnipro only to hide from worldly vanity. Apparently, the Kyiv catacombs were multifunctional: after praying to God, one could hide there not only from the earthly temptations but also from pagan and later Tartar incursions. They served as a shelter for both earthly and eternal lives (a kind of catacomb cemeteries). In special cases, the bellicose monks used the catacombs as secret ways out of fortresses and castles.
Most of old catacombs were discovered accidentally. For example, local residents nurtured legends about the unfathomable treasures of Hetman Mazepa, hidden somewhere near St. Cyril’s church. Spotting holes in the black soil of steep slopes, reckless treasure-hunters would clear the neglected pits. Of course, no treasures were found, but this made it easier for professional archeologists to do their job. This is how one of the most ancient Kyiv catacombs dug out by the late Neolithic human four thousand years ago was discovered. It also means current attempts to construe the building of underground townships in the centers of European capitals as a purely twentieth century architectural trend are unconvincing. For we see that modern builders have failed to come up with anything qualitatively new from what our ancestors did.
A still more comical story lies behind the discovery of a catacomb near the Chain Bridge (alias St. John’s, St. Nicholas’ and Askold’s Grave Cave). Nineteenth century Kyiv police repeatedly came across its entrance, when combing the Dnipro hills in nighttime roundups of tramps, and, of course, attached no great importance to it. The catacomb was officially discovered on May 25 (June 7 according to the Gregorian calendar), 1853, at 2 p.m., when a steep slope was being leveled down near the Berestova River to clear the way to build the Nicholas Chain Bridge. The then city fathers treated this historical monument of world significance the way it “deserved:” the fact was recorded and the hole was filled with earth. And although there is no direct evidence that the catacomb was destroyed, we can hardly discuss it in the archeological sense of those times. Later on, other Kyiv catacombs discovered in the Soviet and, most distressingly, post-Soviet period also had a similar fate.
The ways of discovering ancient catacombs by chance can be arbitrarily divided into two groups: discoveries resulting from the removal of the upper earth layer during construction work or by natural reasons (for example, a landslide), and discoveries resulting from “successful” cave-ins on city streets or the sagging of city buildings. It is in this way that the St. Cyril’s church underground was discovered in the 1950s, when Kyiv’s not-so-indifferent public was alarmed by the news of formidable cracks in the walls of this 800-year-old structure. Of the likely causes of the cracks, such things were at once excluded as any miscalculation by the medieval architects (modern restorers would do well to learn their forethought) and natural wear-and-tear of construction materials (today’s buildings can only envy the strength of St. Cyril’s church walls). It became clear later that the church cracks had been caused by catacomb tunnels beneath its foundation. Apparently, the twelfth century builders of St. Cyril’s church were unaware of there being ninth and tenth century subterranean galleries in that area. For it only architecture college graduates who can be wise enough to build monumental structures over cavities or, vice versa, large buildings. And only time will tell which of the two will live a longer life: catacombs dug with makeshift tools or modern underground townships built with the state of the art equipment.
The whole miraculously-survived underground complex includes the catacombs of St. Cyril’s hills, the Upper Town, Askold’s Grave, the Lavra, Menagerie, and Chinese Catacombs, as well as catacombs at the village of Tserkovshchyna. Unfortunately, most of these caves have been neglected and unexplored.
A tour of underground Kyiv allows us to note an interesting historical succession: catacombs construction on the capital’s territory has gone an interesting path from late Neolithic caves to monastic cells of the 9th-12th centuries, from medieval times to the modern tunnels of Kyiv’s subway. After all, there is nothing strange in the desire of the modern vain bearers of an ancient architectural tradition to transfer a great part of leisure onto the underground level, digging out skating-rinks, parking lots, and hotel-office complexes (by the word complexes I certainly mean architectural integrity, not a morbid psychological condition). Are we any worse than our late Neolithic ancestors?
It is annoyingly ironic that the catacombs, in which our forefathers found refuge for centuries on end, should suddenly become unnecessary, giving way to modern subterranean entertainment complexes. And now they need our protection.
