St. Sophia Cathdral, Kiev
Kiev is a city of 2.4 million, originally founded in the 5th century. On one side of the Dnieper, the city is hilly, this is the old city built here because it could be easily defended. Legend has it that the city was founded by 3 brothers: Kyi, Shchek, and Khoryv and their sister Lybid. By the 7th century, Kiev was the capital of Kiev Rus, a predecessor of today's Russia. In 988, the Christian religion, Byzantine style was chosen as the state religion. Many of the buildings here are named after buildings in Byzantium (Constantinople, Istanbul). For example our first stop was the Golden Gate, a 1980 replica of the gate into the old city. The original was damaged by the tartars in 1240. Here we were introduced to Yuraslav the Wise holding a miniature of St. Sophia cathedral. He was considered to be the one who built the cathedral, but recent study of some of the graffiti in the church indicates that it was started by his father, Vladimir in 1011. We entered the Cathedral through it 1701 bell tower. On the grounds is a stone telling of Yaraslav's library of over a thousand books. Only one survives today, a bible used for the marriage between a Ukrainian princess and the French King, Henry I.
St. Sophia was originally built with 13 domes in a style similar to St. Sophia's in Byzantium. In the 17th century, it was restored and changed to a Baroque style and six more pear shaped domes were added. Inside are some of the original 11th century frescoes and mosaics. Dominating the church is 22 foot tall mosaic of the Virgin Mary in blue and yellow (flag colors of Ukraine). On some of the pillars graffiti is carved from the early centuries and tell us when the church was built and the day of Yuroslav's death.
Two other churches of note were St. Andrews built by Elizabeth I as a royal chapel and St. Michael monastery. We also saw all the usual government buildings and square typical of a European capital.
St. Sophia was originally built with 13 domes in a style similar to St. Sophia's in Byzantium. In the 17th century, it was restored and changed to a Baroque style and six more pear shaped domes were added. Inside are some of the original 11th century frescoes and mosaics. Dominating the church is 22 foot tall mosaic of the Virgin Mary in blue and yellow (flag colors of Ukraine). On some of the pillars graffiti is carved from the early centuries and tell us when the church was built and the day of Yuroslav's death.
Two other churches of note were St. Andrews built by Elizabeth I as a royal chapel and St. Michael monastery. We also saw all the usual government buildings and square typical of a European capital.
Chernobyl after the accidentIn the afternoon, we visited the Chernobyl museum. The radioactive discharge of reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant occured in the early morning hours of April 26, 1986. The radiation equivalent of 1500 Hiroshima bombs was released into the atmosphere. The nearby town of 50,000 was told it was a small accident that morning and life continued as normal. After 36 hours, they were told to pack their belongings and buses arrived for a 'temporary' evacuation. On April 29th, the Swedes reported nuclear fallout and began investigating its source. The USSR admitted to an accident, which became 1 paragraph on page 3 of the Kiev newspaper. Kiev, only 75 miles away celebrated May Day with the usual parades. Finally, 74 villages and 2 towns, 90,000 people were evacuated. Today there still exists an exclusion zone 14 miles in radius surrounded by fencing where no one lives. But 600,000 people, mostly soldiers were involved in the cleanup, shoveling radioactive material by hand with little protection other than jumpsuits and respirators. Half of them are dead today - 25 years later.
The most interesting part of our visit was asking questions to one of the plant engineers. He had worked at the plant since its construction 12 years before. On the morning of the accident he was called at 5 AM and worked for the next 5 days to shut down the entire plant. Afterwards, the engineers joked about how long they had left to live - best guess, 1 year. He and his family (wife and 2 children 10 and 4) have had numerous treatments and surgeries. His daughter is not a doctor treating victims of the disaster. He is head of the victims support group.
Why did it happen? "The nuclear industry tries to hide the truth. There had been previous minor incidents with reactors of this type, but while there were investigations, the design flaws discovered were clouded in secrecy even to the people managing the other plants. In 1986, an international conference held in Vienna laid the blame on the operating personnel. Subsequently there have been 7 reports issued. It is clear that the operating personnel were following a manager's directions to conduct an experiment. A combination of this experiment, the design flaws, and the secrecy around these flaws probably led to the accident. It is interesting that within a month, the design flaws were recognized and all reactors of this type were modified. The design of the graphite rods used to control the reaction were modified to react faster.
Chernobyl reopened after a cap was put on the destroyed reactor. I continued to work there on the other 3 reactors. We go through two decontamination checkpoints in the exclusion area to work there. It was shutdown in 2000, primarily for political reasons."
Our next visit was to Babi Yar. In the time of Catherine the Great, many Jews immigrated to Russia because they needed more farmers and were granted land. In the 1890's 40% of Kiev and 80% of Odessa were Jewish. Then the pogroms began, causing many Russian Jews to emigrate to the U.S., Canada, and Palestine. On September 19th, 1941 the Germans took Kiev. On September 28th, they called for all Jews to report to the Jewish cemetery with all the goods they could carry, to be transported. That night, they shot 31,771 and dumped them in the "Women's Ravine", Babi Yar. The location of this ravine was only recently discovered because through the 2 years that Kiev was occupied, 200,000 were shot and buried in a site nearby. That is where a large monument was erected in 1971 to memorialize the citizens of the Soviet Union who were murdered here.
The most interesting part of our visit was asking questions to one of the plant engineers. He had worked at the plant since its construction 12 years before. On the morning of the accident he was called at 5 AM and worked for the next 5 days to shut down the entire plant. Afterwards, the engineers joked about how long they had left to live - best guess, 1 year. He and his family (wife and 2 children 10 and 4) have had numerous treatments and surgeries. His daughter is not a doctor treating victims of the disaster. He is head of the victims support group.
Why did it happen? "The nuclear industry tries to hide the truth. There had been previous minor incidents with reactors of this type, but while there were investigations, the design flaws discovered were clouded in secrecy even to the people managing the other plants. In 1986, an international conference held in Vienna laid the blame on the operating personnel. Subsequently there have been 7 reports issued. It is clear that the operating personnel were following a manager's directions to conduct an experiment. A combination of this experiment, the design flaws, and the secrecy around these flaws probably led to the accident. It is interesting that within a month, the design flaws were recognized and all reactors of this type were modified. The design of the graphite rods used to control the reaction were modified to react faster.
Chernobyl reopened after a cap was put on the destroyed reactor. I continued to work there on the other 3 reactors. We go through two decontamination checkpoints in the exclusion area to work there. It was shutdown in 2000, primarily for political reasons."
Our next visit was to Babi Yar. In the time of Catherine the Great, many Jews immigrated to Russia because they needed more farmers and were granted land. In the 1890's 40% of Kiev and 80% of Odessa were Jewish. Then the pogroms began, causing many Russian Jews to emigrate to the U.S., Canada, and Palestine. On September 19th, 1941 the Germans took Kiev. On September 28th, they called for all Jews to report to the Jewish cemetery with all the goods they could carry, to be transported. That night, they shot 31,771 and dumped them in the "Women's Ravine", Babi Yar. The location of this ravine was only recently discovered because through the 2 years that Kiev was occupied, 200,000 were shot and buried in a site nearby. That is where a large monument was erected in 1971 to memorialize the citizens of the Soviet Union who were murdered here.
Babi Yar Memorial
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