Saint Sophia Cathedral

Saint Sophia Cathedral is in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

A cathedral is a large, important church. This one is about 1,000 years old. Today it is a museum.

Saint Sophia Cathedral stands in the historic center of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. UNESCO says it was designed to rival the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

It was built in the 11th century as the main church of Kyiv, then the capital of a state called Kyivan Rus'. Around it stand monastery buildings from the 1600s and 1700s, and the whole group is now used as a museum.

UNESCO's statement places the cathedral in the historic center of Kyiv and calls it one of the major monuments of the architecture and monumental art of the early 11th century. It was built by local builders and Byzantine masters in the reign of the Great Prince of Kyiv, Yaroslav the Wise, as the main church of the capital of Kyivan Rus'.

The World Heritage property, inscribed in 1990, joins two components: the cathedral with its monastic buildings, and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery. UNESCO notes that Saint Sophia and its buildings are used as a museum for education and for state events.

Inside, the walls are covered with very old pictures.

Some are mosaics, made of many tiny pieces. Others are painted on the walls.

The cathedral has kept its old interiors. UNESCO says its collection of 11th-century mosaics, pictures made of many small pieces, and frescoes, paintings on plaster, is unique for how complete it is.

In the towers that hold its staircases, there are also rare frescoes of non-religious scenes. In 1987 the reconstruction work at Saint Sophia won the European Gold Medal for the Protection of Historic Monuments.

UNESCO calls the cathedral's mosaics and frescoes of the 11th century the biggest preserved collection of that period and an outstanding example of Byzantine art, unique for its integrity. Among them is a complex of secular frescoes in the stair towers, also in the Byzantine tradition.

Its architecture and decoration, UNESCO says, founded a school that influenced building and monumental art in Kyivan Rus' and then in Eastern Europe. Reconstruction work at Saint Sophia received the European Gold Medal for the Protection of Historic Monuments in 1987.

In the photo, the cathedral has white walls and green roofs.

Many domes rise on top. The biggest one is shiny gold!

The photo was taken on 7 October 2017. It shows the cathedral from above: white walls, green roofs, green onion-shaped domes and a large gold dome in the middle, each topped by a cross. In a few places, patches of bare brick and stone show through the white walls.

Trees with autumn leaves, lawns and brick paths surround it. In 2023 UNESCO added the property to its List of World Heritage in Danger.

The photograph (7 October 2017) looks down on the cathedral: white walls under green roofs, onion domes on drums with arched windows, the large central gilded dome and smaller gilded ones, and, on the apses, exposed patches of brick-and-stone masonry. A brick-paved square, lawns, benches and autumn trees surround it, with city buildings beyond.

UNESCO has listed the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2023. Its statement also notes that the setting of the cathedral, first designed to be seen from all around, changed in the 19th century as the city around it changed.