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Photos author is Alexander Lytvyn

Podil, the Church of Holy Mother of God at Pyrohoshch

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Podil, the Church of Holy Mother of God at Pyrohoshch

Podil is one of the oldest districts of Kyiv, which was already opposed to the Upper City during the times of Kyiv Rus. Craftsmen and merchants lived in Podil, there was a port on the Dnipro River, many foreigners, a large market and customs, and in the Upper City lived the Prince with his family and military aristocracy. Therefore, the image of a democratic space was linked to Podil in culture, and the historical events only contributed to this notion.

In the middle of the 13th century, the Upper City was destroyed, and Podil became the main district of Kyiv. Not only trade and economic, but also administrative life was concentrated here. At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, Kyiv was granted self-government under the Magdeburg rights. This also contributed to the formation of European-style craft guilds. Nowadays, the names of streets and other locations are reminiscent of Podil artisans and craftsmen: Honchari i Kozhumiaki (Potters and Leatherworkers), Honcharna Street (Potter Street), etc. The Magistrate was located on Kontraktova Square (the building did not survive); its rights and freedoms were finally abolished by the government of the Russian Empire in 1834, after the suppression of the Polish uprising.

In the 17th century, Podil was associated with the intensive development of culture and science. In 1615, the Kyiv Brotherhood was formed, which in 1620 received stauropegy, i.e. direct subordination to the Patriarch of Constantinople. In the same year, Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi joined the fraternity with the entire Zaporozhian Army. In 1632, the Kyiv Brotherhood merged with the Kyiv-Pechersk Brotherhood, and the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium was formed, which later became an academy.

The primary church in Podil was the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin at Pyrohoshch. According to the Kyiv Chronicle, the stone church was built between 1132 and 1136, and the name, according to one version, comes from merchants who traded in bread (pyrih means pie). In The Tale of the Armament of Igor, the Prince goes to this church on his way back from Poloviets captivity.

From the 12th century, the Church of the Mother of God at Pyrohoshch underwent countless destructions and reconstructions: from the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1240 to its destruction by the Bolsheviks in 1935. Only thanks to excavations by Ukrainian archaeologists in 1976, when the foundation of the 12th century was found in Podil, the church returned from oblivion, and in the late 1990s it was rebuilt in its current form, which imitates an ancient Rus building style.

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