Kyiv: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Kyiv is not a normal city break and this guide will not pretend otherwise. The airport has been closed since February 2022 and every arrival is by train or road. There is a night curfew. Air-raid sirens sound several times a week and sometimes several times a night, and the correct response is to go to a shelter — the metro stations are the shelters, and the app that warns you is called Повітряна тривога. Some of what follows is closed, sandbagged or has had its contents moved. The walk below is the oldest part of the city, and most of it is standing. Two hours, and check the alerts before you set out.

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A short history of Kyiv

According to tradition, Kyiv was founded by three brothers and a sister, and by the 10th century it was already the capital of Kyivan Rus, the state from which Ukraine, Russia and Belarus grew. In 988 Prince Volodymyr had the city's inhabitants baptised in the Dnieper, and so Rus became Christian. In 1240 the Mongols destroyed the city almost entirely. In the 19th and 20th centuries a large Jewish community developed here. On 29 and 30 September 1941, 33,771 Jews were murdered in the Babyn Yar ravine in the space of two days. In 1991 Kyiv became the capital of independent Ukraine, and since 2022 it has withstood attacks by the Russian army.

The ten best sights in Kyiv

1
St Sophia Cathedral
From 100 hryvnia, begun in 1011, and the eleventh-century mosaics are original
2
Pechersk Lavra
From 100 hryvnia, founded in 1051, and the caves hold mummified monks
3
St Michael’s Golden-Domed
Free, demolished in 1936 and rebuilt in 1998, and it was a field hospital in 2014
4
Golden Gate
80 hryvnia, the 1037 city gate, and what stands is a 1982 reconstruction
5
St Andrew’s Church
From 80 hryvnia, Rastrelli, 1754, and it has no bells by design
6
St Volodymyr’s Cathedral
Free, from 1882, and Vasnetsov painted the interior
7
Vydubychi Monastery
Free, from 1070, on the slope above the river, and almost nobody goes
8
Brodsky Synagogue
From 1898, a sugar magnate paid for it, and it was a puppet theatre until 1997
9
Podil Synagogue
From 1895, and it survived because it was turned into a workshop
10
National Museum of History
100 hryvnia, and much of the collection has been in storage since 2022

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What is an audio walk?

Tours in Kyiv →

A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Kyiv:

Free walking tours in Kyiv

Before you go: this is a city at war

St Sophia Cathedral · Begun in 1011 and still holding its original eleventh-century mosaics, which is almost unheard of. In the apse is a six-metre mosaic of the Virgin with raised arms that has been called the Unbreakable Wall since the Middle Ages — the city was sacked by the Mongols in 1240 and the cathedral around her was ruined, and she did not come down.
St Michael’s Golden-Domed · Built in 1108, dynamited by the Soviets in 1936 to clear a square for a government complex that was never finished, and rebuilt from drawings in 1998. In February 2014 the monastery opened its doors as a field hospital for the wounded from the Maidan and rang the alarm bells — the first time they had been rung that way since the Mongols came in 1240.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti · The square has had seven names and this is the eighth. Two revolutions happened on it — the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Euromaidan of 2013 and 2014 — and the hundred and seven people killed in the second are called the Heavenly Hundred. Since 2022 the lawn in front has been filled with small flags, each one placed for a named soldier.
Instytutska Street · The hill running up from the Maidan, and on the twentieth of February 2014 most of the Heavenly Hundred were shot on this slope by snipers in a few hours. The street has been renamed after them. The paving stones that protesters pulled up to build barricades were never fully replaced and you can still see where.
Golden Gate · Yaroslav the Wise built the main gate of the city in 1037 and named it after the Golden Gate of Constantinople, because the whole of Kyiv was being built as an answer to Constantinople. What you see is a 1982 reconstruction built over the surviving stones, and archaeologists have objected to it ever since.
Andriyivskyy Descent · The cobbled street that drops from the upper town down to Podil, and the writer Mikhail Bulgakov grew up at number thirteen — he put the house into his novel The White Guard, set during the winter of 1918 when Kyiv changed hands five times in a year. The house is a museum, and everything white in it is a prop.

The caves and the hill above the river

Kyiv sits on a line of steep hills on the right bank of the Dnipro, and the monastery that made it a holy city was dug into one of them in 1051 by a monk who wanted a hole in the ground to pray in. The caves are still there and so are the monks in them, mummified by the dry air and lying in open coffins. The same ridge carries a hundred-metre steel woman, an eighteenth-century arsenal and the best view in the city. Three hours, and the climb is real.

Pechersk Lavra · Founded in 1051 when a monk called Antony dug himself a cave in this hillside; others came and dug their own, and the tunnels joined up. A hundred and twenty-two mummified monks lie in those tunnels in open coffins, preserved by the stable temperature and dry air, and you walk through holding a candle because there is no electric light.
Mystetskyi Arsenal · Catherine the Great ordered this arsenal built in 1784 and it is one of the largest classical buildings in Ukraine — the walls are a metre and a half thick, which is why it was chosen in 2022 as a store for art evacuated from museums closer to the fighting. It is also the country’s main art venue and the home of the book fair.
Mariyinsky Palace · Rastrelli designed it in 1744 for the Empress Elizabeth, who came to see it once and never came back. It burned in 1819, stood as a ruin for forty years, was rebuilt, and is now where the president receives heads of state — which since 2022 has meant a great many of them arriving by night train.
House with Chimaeras · Władysław Horodecki built it in 1902 as his own house and as an advertisement: cement was a new material nobody trusted, so he covered the building in elephants, rhinoceroses, mermaids and frogs to prove what it could do. It stands on a cliff, and the side facing the street is three storeys while the back is six.
Arch of Freedom · Put up in 1982 as the Arch of Friendship of Peoples, with a bronze pair of a Russian and a Ukrainian worker holding up a Soviet order underneath it. In April 2022 a crane took the bronze pair away while a crowd watched, the arch was renamed, and the crack that had always been in the titanium was left exactly as it was.
Motherland Monument · A hundred and two metres of stainless steel raised in 1981, high enough that aircraft approaching Kyiv used it as a marker. In August 2023, over three days, workers on ropes cut the Soviet coat of arms off her shield and welded on the Ukrainian trident in its place, and the cutting was broadcast live.

Podil, the river and what was done here

Podil is the flat half of Kyiv, down at the water, and it was the merchants’ town — it burned to the ground in 1811 and was rebuilt on a grid, which is why it looks nothing like the hills above it. It has the markets, the bars and the galleries. It also sits near the ravine where, over two days in September 1941, thirty-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-one Jews were shot, in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust. Both of those are Kyiv. Three hours, flat.

Kontraktova Square · The name means Contract Square, and it is literal: from 1797 the annual contract fair of the whole region was held here, and merchants came from Poland, Russia and the Ottoman lands to sign deals in a building put up for that purpose. The square is the centre of Podil and the oldest continuously used public space in the city.
Zhytniy Market · A market has stood on this spot since the tenth century — it is named for grain, zhyto — and the building over it now is a 1980 concrete hall that the city has repeatedly tried and failed to demolish. The honey row at the back is the thing: Ukraine is one of the largest honey producers in the world and the sellers let you taste before buying.
Podil Synagogue · Built in 1895 by a merchant called Gabriel Rozenberg, and it survived the twentieth century because the Soviets turned it into a workshop rather than knocking it down. Before 1941 Kyiv had around a hundred and forty thousand Jews, about a fifth of the city; it is the only synagogue in Podil still standing.
Babyn Yar · On the twenty-ninth and thirtieth of September 1941 thirty-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-one Jews were shot into this ravine over two days. The Soviet authorities filled it in, built a road, a park and a television tower over it, and for decades put up no marker saying who had died. The first monument naming Jews went up in 1991.
Chornobyl Museum · The road signs hanging from the ceiling of the first room are the real ones, taken from the villages that were evacuated and never reoccupied — about seventy-six of them, each sign crossed through. The museum was set up in 1992 by firefighters, in a former fire station, and the first room is a list of their own dead.
Trukhaniv Island · A wooded island in the Dnipro with a beach facing the old town, reached on foot over a 1957 footbridge. There was a village on it until 1943, when the retreating German army burned every house; nothing was rebuilt, and the whole island has been parkland ever since.

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Getting to Kyiv and getting around

Central Railway Station · There are no flights — every arrival is by train, and the Warsaw sleeper takes 16 hours
Central Bus Station · Buses to Warsaw, Chișinău and Kraków, and the border crossing is slow
Maidan Nezalezhnosti · The centre of the city and of the metro, and everything is walkable from it
Arsenalna metro · 105 metres down, the deepest metro station in the world, and a shelter since 2022

Cheap eats in Kyiv

Eight counters where Kyiv eats standing. Borscht is the argument — Ukraine took it to UNESCO in 2022 and got it listed as Ukrainian intangible heritage, which was a wartime act as much as a culinary one. The street food is the perepichka, a sausage deep-fried inside dough and handed over in paper, and varenyky, dumplings boiled and served with sour cream. Kyiv is cheap by European standards: a full meal in a good kitchen is under twenty euros.

Kyivska Perepichka · About 35 hryvnia, cash, and the queue moves fast
Bessarabsky Market · Open 8 to 8, and the prices are tourist prices at the front
Zhytniy Market · In Podil, far cheaper than Bessarabsky, and the honey row is at the back
Kanapa · About 700 hryvnia a main, and book ahead
Ostannya Barykada · About 500 hryvnia, and the password is on their page
Puzata Hata · The self-service canteen chain, and a full tray is about 200 hryvnia
Musafir · About 300 hryvnia, and the chebureki are the order
Kyiv Food Market · Twenty kitchens under the Arsenal roof, and open till curfew

Museums in Kyiv

Most of the national collections were packed and moved in the first weeks of 2022, and a good deal of what is on the walls now is a reduced display or a temporary show about the war. The buildings are open; what is in them changes month to month, so check before travelling across the city for one object.

Pechersk Lavra caves · From 100 hryvnia, candles sold at the entrance, and no photography
St Sophia Cathedral · From 100 hryvnia, and the bell tower is a separate ticket
Khanenko Museum · 100 hryvnia, closed Mondays, and check what is on
National Art Museum · 80 hryvnia, Ukrainian painting, and the icons upstairs
Chornobyl Museum · 60 hryvnia, run by firefighters, and an hour is enough
Mystetskyi Arsenal · From 150 hryvnia, one big show at a time, and the book fair in autumn
PinchukArtCentre · Free, contemporary, and the roof terrace looks down Khreshchatyk
Pyrohiv Open-Air Museum · From 100 hryvnia, bus 172 from Lybidska, and take water

Parks and gardens in Kyiv

Kyiv is one of the greenest capitals in Europe — more than half the city is parkland, forest or river, and the chestnut is the city’s emblem. Everything here is free except the two botanical gardens, and all of it is where people actually go.

Hryshko Botanical Garden · 80 hryvnia, and the Vydubychi monastery is at the bottom of it
Volodymyr Hill · Free, the oldest park in the city, and the view is the whole left bank
Trukhaniv Island · Free, on foot over the 1957 bridge, and beaches on the far side
Hydropark · Free, metro Hidropark, and busy from June
Mariinsky Park · Free, chestnut trees, and the parliament is at the far end
Holosiivskyi Park · Free, oak forest and five ponds, and squirrels that expect food
Feofaniya Park · Free, on the southern edge, and the quietest park in the city
Fomin Botanical Garden · 50 hryvnia, from 1839, and the palm house is the winter answer

Things to do in Kyiv with kids

Water Museum · 100 hryvnia, inside a water tower, and children go inside a bubble
Pyrohiv · From 100 hryvnia, 300 houses to run between, and horses
Hydropark · Free, a beach you reach by metro, and shallow water
Klitschko Bridge · Free, a glass floor over a ravine, and lit at night
Arsenalna metro · A ride is 8 hryvnia, and the descent alone is worth it
Trukhaniv Island · Free, bicycles for hire and a sand beach, and no cars on it
Holosiivskyi Park · Free, pedal boats on the ponds, and playgrounds by the gate
Golden Gate · 80 hryvnia, a gate you can climb inside, and small

Holy places in Kyiv

Kyiv calls itself the mother of Rus cities, and the claim is religious before it is political — Volodymyr baptised the population in the Dnipro in 988, and every church here argues about what followed. Since 2019 Ukraine has had an Orthodox church independent of Moscow, and which congregation holds which building has been contested ever since.

St Sophia Cathedral · From 100 hryvnia, and the frescoes on the stair towers are secular
Pechersk Lavra · From 100 hryvnia, and the upper and lower monasteries are separate
St Michael’s Golden-Domed · Free, rebuilt in 1998, and the bells ring the alarm at alerts
St Andrew’s Church · From 80 hryvnia, and the gallery round it is the view
St Volodymyr’s Cathedral · Free, 1882, and Vasnetsov spent ten years on the interior
Vydubychi Monastery · Free, from 1070, below the botanical garden, and almost empty
Brodsky Synagogue · Ask at the door, and there is a kosher canteen inside
Babyn Yar · Free, an open park, and the menorah memorial is from 1991

Live music in Kyiv

Kyiv had one of the best club scenes in Europe before 2022 and it has not stopped, but it now runs on a clock: the curfew ends the night, so parties start early and finish before it, and some venues let people stay inside until it lifts at five rather than send them out into an empty city. Everything closes at an alert.

National Opera · From 200 hryvnia, and the evening starts at six not eight
Art Zavod Platforma · A silk factory with gigs and markets, and weekends only
Kyiv Food Market · Open till the curfew, and there is usually a DJ at the end
Druzi Cafe · In Podil, open from breakfast to curfew, and it never empties
Podil · The bar quarter, everything within four streets, and it starts at eight
Ostannya Barykada · A hidden door under the Maidan, a password, and live music most nights
PinchukArtCentre · Free, open till nine, and the roof bar is the late option
Khreshchatyk · Closed to cars at weekends, and the street fills up in the afternoon

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Frequently asked questions about Kyiv

What is there to see in Kyiv?

The top sights in Kyiv are St Sophia Cathedral, Pechersk Lavra and St Michael’s Golden-Domed. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Kyiv?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Kyiv without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Kyiv?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Kyiv, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Before you go: this is a city at war.

How do you get to Kyiv and get around?

The main ways are Central Railway Station, Central Bus Station and Maidan Nezalezhnosti. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Kyiv, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Kyiv that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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