Andriyivskyy Descent - St Andrew´s Church
Andriyivskyy Descent is one of the historic streets in Kyiv and one of the city's main tourist attractions. It is often called the Montmartre of Kyiv.
The baroque St Andrew's Church was built in Kyiv in 1747–1754, to a design by the imperial architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Overlooking the historical Podil district from a steep hill to which the church gave its current name Andriyivska Mount, former Uzdyhalnytsya, this exuberant and colourful structure is one of the city's best known landmarks.
The church was constructed by a team of Russian and Ukrainian masters under Ivan Michurin, the principal architect of Moscow, to replace the older Church of the Resurrection, on the Women's Market Square (Babiy Torzhok). The legend has it that it was the spot where St. Andrew erected a cross and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city in what was then a sparsely inhabited area.
Since 1968, the church has been open to visitors as a museum. Occasionally the edifice is used for services of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, a minority Ukrainian church that walled itself off from the Eastern Orthodox Communion.
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