ONCE UPON A TIME there was a royal family of three brothers. One was named Kiy, the second was Shchek, the third was Khoriv and they had a beautiful sister called Lybid. Their parents had been killed by invaders from the East and they were searching for a place to make a new home. When they arrived at the beautiful place where Kiev is located now and saw seven majestic green hills rising above the river , Kiy chose the place as their new home. Kiy and his brothers built a boat and then sailed across the broad and mighty Dnieper River towards the high green bank on the western side. But what should be the name of the new Metropolis? Kiy's brothers and sister decided to name the new city KIEV in honor of their strong and brave elder brother, Prince Kiy. Thus it was the City of Kyiv that was founded on the last weekend in May, in the Spring of the year 482 A.D.

 

Kiy ruled on the hill which is now called Borichev, Shchek settled on the hill which is now called Shchekovitsa, and Khoriv settled on the third one which after him was called Khorevitsa. And it was thus that they founded the great city over 1,500 years ago. In ancient days this was the land of the Trypilians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Antae, Roxolanians and the legendary Amazon women. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, "the Father of History" wrote that Hercules himself had founded this land. According to the legend here was the very place, the Starokievska Hill, where the Apostle Saint Andrew, centuries earlier came as a missionary to Scythia. He had raised a cross on the hills of Kiev and predicted that here a great city would rise one day with many churches to the glory of God. And so the prophecy was fulfilled. Merchants and craftsmen from far and wide soon gathered by the Dnieper River and settled in the Podol, the lower town, which became the center of commerce. Kiev slowly grew through the centuries.

It was in 988, five centuries after the founding, that Prince Vladimer baptisized his Slavic nation. It was here, where the broad street Khreshchatik still marks the place, that the people descended from the hills into the Dnieper River to be baptisized into the Orthodox religion by Greek priests from Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

 

Prince Vladimer built the Desyatina Church, and in 1036 his son, PrinceYaroslav, built Saint Sophia (Holy Wisdom) Cathedral as a sister of the famous Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Saint Sophia in Kiev became the Mother Church of Ukraine, and for a thousand years the immortal gold mosaic wall of the Virgin Oranta has been watching over Kiev. The Mongol invasion of 1240 and many others since then did not destroy this "invinsible wall" of Kiev. St. Michael the Archangel, protected this saving remnant of Kiev golden age. It was in the year 1187 that for the first time in history the historic chronicles mention the new name “Ukraine” for the ancient name of this land, which was Rus.

 

Centuries later, in 1492, the Cossacks of Ukraine, the famous Zaporozhians, came into history as defenders of the Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian nation from Tatar, Turkish, Polish and other invaders. And as Taras Shevchenko, the great poet, said in The Dream: "The First (Tsar Peter, The Great) racked my country dear, The Second (Catherine , The Second) gave the final blow, That brought my land to utter woe...

 

Shevchenko's "sad Ukraine" has now been reborn in the world "family of free nations". And this city of Kiev, the capital of the ancient Rus, which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world today, has become the great gold-topped capital of democratic, free and independent Ukraine.

 

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