Ukraine’s largest century-old museum complex and an active monastery with a 975-year history, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
National Reserve "Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" —
140 cultural heritage sites from the 11th–20th centuries:
140 cultural heritage sites from the 11th–20th centuries: magnificent churches and the unique underground complexes of the Near and Far Caves, which have no equivalents anywhere in the world.
The Caves — the heart of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
The Caves — the heart of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. A thousand years ago, the monastery’s history began here. Today they are the resting place of the founders of Ukrainian culture: Ilya Muromets, Nestor the Chronicler, the physician Agapit, and other saints of the Caves.
The Reserve’s Collection
The Reserve’s collection comprises around 73,000 items: icon paintings, early printed books, metalwork, precious textiles, archaeological artifacts, and graphic art. It is one of the richest museum collections in the country.
The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is the birthplace of Ukrainian identity. It was here that “The Tale of Bygone Years” appeared — the first systematic history of our people. Here Alypius began his work — the first known Ukrainian icon painter, who, drawing inspiration from Byzantine models, created an art of his own. From here grew the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, which shaped the Ukrainian intellectual elite over the centuries. The Lavra was at once a center of spirituality, learning, art, and statehood.
The National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” is a secular institution dedicated to preserving this space and opening it to everyone: Ukrainians and visitors from around the world, those seeking their roots and those seeking meaning. Today, as Ukraine defends its right to its own meanings and its own history, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra remains one of the key places where this struggle takes on a cultural dimension. Twenty-five years remain until its millennial anniversary. We are preparing for it already now.
The grounds are also home to leading Ukrainian museum institutions: the Museum of Books and Printing of Ukraine, the Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art, the Museum of Theater, Music, and Cinema Arts, and the Treasury of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine. In all, the National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” occupies 27 hectares in the heart of Kyiv, where the secular and the spiritual exist in synergy.