The Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument (Ukrainian: Пам'ятник Богданові Хмельницькому) is a monument in Kyiv, built in 1888, dedicated to the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Bohdan Khmelnytsky built in 1888. It is located almost at the centre of Sophia Square, which was originally the city’s main square, and remains and important fulcrum of Kyiv City Centre. It sits on the axis that unites the belltowers of St Sophia’s Cathedral and St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery at the other end of Volodymyrs’kyi Passage.

This is where residents of Kiev met Khmelnytsky leading his Cossacks regiments through the Golden Gate into city on 23 December 1648 after his victory over Polish Army at the battle of Pyliavtsi. It was designed by Mikhail Mikeshin although it is both less elaborate than Mikeshin’s original plans, and is shorn of their overtly anti-Polish and anti-Semitic aspects. The statue was cast in 1879 in St Petersburg but not displayed in Kyiv until 1888.

St Sophia Cathedral is one of Kyiv’s most significant landmarks, dating back to the days of Kievan Rus’. Originally built in the first half of the 11th Century, it has had downs as well as ups since being sacked in 1169 and 1240, but still retains mosaics and frescos from the 11th Century. It was significantly expanded in the late 17th and 18th Centuries. The 76 metre high bell tower was built in this period.

After the October Revolution, Soviet authorities proposed demolishing the cathedral complex and turning it into a memorial park for combatants who died in the Civil War, and was only saved through the efforts of scientists and historians. It was nonetheless secularised and turned into a museum in 1934. By the 1980s, however Soviet authorities had promised to return the cathedral to the Orthodox Church, and this promise was maintained by governments of independent Ukraine, but internal divisions within Orthodoxy in the country have prevented this as of 2020. The cathedral remains a secular museum of Christianity.

This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.

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Model:	NIKON D750
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