Why go
Read the city through its layers rather than a single founding date. The medieval Rus state, trade along the Dnipro and railways, wartime destruction and Ukrainian independence each explain a different part of Kyiv’s identity. They also help distinguish older fabric from later rebuilding.
The full story
Kyiv’s beginnings combine settlement history with legend. The story of Kyi, his brothers Shchek and Khoryv, and their sister Lybid belongs to the city’s founding tradition; it does not establish a precise founding date. By the late ninth or early tenth century, Kyiv had become a centre of the Rus polity on the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople. Its medieval prominence was followed by repeated attacks, culminating in the Mongol destruction of 1240. Later centuries brought rule by Lithuania, Poland and Russia. In the late nineteenth century, grain and sugar exports, railways and river transport drove renewed growth. Educational institutions and merchant architecture formed another layer of the city. Kyiv became the capital of Soviet Ukraine in 1934, suffered extensive damage during the Second World War and was rebuilt afterwards. The massacre of Jews at Babyn Yar in September 1941 is a separate, essential part of that wartime history. Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, Kyiv has remained its capital.