One of the greatest relics of the Orthodox world — the Kyivan Cave Monastery — was founded by the monks Antonii and Feodosii in 1051. Together with their brothers in faith, they prayed in narrow caves and, having renounced secular joys, they devoted themselves to spiritual things. Thanks to their passionate prayers, this place on the Dnipro hills is considered a sacred land. The Cave Monastery has always been the destination of pilgrims, a kind of “small Jerusalem” for believers. Since the days of Kyivan Rus’ it has been an important spiritual center and example of asceticism and piety. This is the founding base of Eastern Slavic art and literature, historiography and medicine, architecture and church singing.
These days it is becoming increasingly difficult to recognize the monastery: many commercial kiosks have sprung up here, and there is constant construction. The mass media frequently publish reports about this, but they have not had any impact on the construction work. Many people visit the caves simply to look around. The director-general of the Kyivan Cave Historical Cultural Preserve Serhii KROLEVETS is very disturbed by this state of affairs.
I recently heard that the destruction of historical monuments at the Kyivan Cave Monastery may result in its exclusion from UNESCO’s list of cultural heritage sites. How likely is this?
“UNESCO’s cultural heritage list includes over 800 various monuments from every country of the world, and any of them can be excluded from the list. As for the Kyivan Cave Monastery, I hope that it will stay on the list, but the current state of the monument is such that there is a real risk that it will turn into a number of phony structures. The monastery will probably look ‘better’ than before, but at the same time it will utterly lose its veracity and authenticity. In the last 20 years the preserve’s 36 buildings have undergone such great changes that you can hardly recognize them. Ten new buildings have appeared, and additional premises cover a total of nearly 15,000 square meters. It is common knowledge that the best restoration is conservation of the monuments in the same state that they have come to us from the past. Each country has a strict rule: to reduce to a minimum negative human interference in a cultural heritage site, since it has been proven that the anthropogenic factor is the most destructive one. In Ukraine people are trying very hard to modernize a 1,000-year-old monument.”
Who is interested in this sort of modernization?
“Each case has its own story, and they are all united into a single system. I have appealed many times to Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and the State Service on Questions of the National Cultural Heritage, i.e., to those bodies whose duty is to resolve these kinds of problems. But each time I have become convinced that these state structures are occupied only with issuing permits and licenses for the destruction of historical monuments, not protecting the cultural heritage. A change of legislation will not be very helpful here. First, you have to change the entire system of executive power that is supposed to take care of society’s interests. For example, culture ministers in Holland, Belgium, and Poland do not approve resolutions like bodies of executive power; they only fulfill them. Nor do they allot budget money or appoint heads. Resolutions are adopted either by legislative bodies or by the participants of the process themselves, including cultural institutions that are responsible for various kinds of activity. Our preserve’s property belongs to the city’s territorial community, and it is managed by the Ministry of Culture. It is financed via the State Service on Questions of the National Cultural Heritage, yet museums are not even informed of all the decisions adopted by these bodies.”
In the last two years the Cabinet of Ministers allotted 25 million hryvnias for the restoration of the monuments at the Kyivan Cave Monastery. Where did this money go?
“Nobody allotted this money to the preserve, and it is very likely that it went to some reconstruction and new construction. Unfortunately, nobody coordinates with us about the drafting-technical documentation for sites that are undergoing repairs or are being restored or built.
All decisions bypass the preserve, despite the fact that these buildings are in our budget, and I am responsible for them as the director. I will mention only the entrance gates that were recently demolished: neither the Kyiv City Council nor the Ministry of Culture ever leased them to anyone. But despite this, they have fallen prey to someone’s economic activity.”
Have you managed to ascertain how the gates were demolished?
“The entrance gates were in excellent shape, and they could have stood for centuries. But on the evening of Oct. 8 excavators and workers appeared and the gates were completely demolished. By the next morning there was an empty space there. The preserve appealed to the Prosecutor’s Office and a criminal action was launched, but that was the end of it. The new gates are built of hollow bricks, and they are somewhat larger than the old ones and even look better, but as time goes on, these bricks will start to fall apart. It is a mystery to me who destroyed the gates and why the Cave Monastery has been targeted for destruction. I would like to hear the answer to this question not from the church, which has 66 buildings at its disposal, most of which have been reconstructed, but from the state officials who allotted 15 million hryvnias for the monastery’s disposal from this year’s state budget. For what purpose was this huge sum of money allotted? Every day I observe the construction work taking place here. I will mention the following statistics: the total area of excavation pits dug during the previous millennium totals nearly 14,000 square meters of ground, and in the last seven years — 13,000 square meters. What is the need for drilling above the caves, building new facilities, and driving in piles? In European countries, before anything needs to be built on the site of a cultural monument, the public is informed and experts are involved. They study possible risks and contact scientists. In our country, everything is done outside of any rule; all that is needed is permission from state officials.”
They say that even the sacred relics cannot endure the builders’ depredations.
“The temperature and humidity in the caves have been disturbed, and this is having an impact on the state of the sacred relics. A hundred years ago the caves were not visited by so many visitors: pilgrims had to receive a blessing from the archimandrite of the Kyivan Cave Monastery to pray there after they spent several days praying in other churches of the monastery. Today many of the caves are in dangerous condition, but they are 100 percent in use. Laboratory research has shown that the humidity level exceeds every possible norm, so they may collapse at any moment. Instead of eliminating the cause of water penetration, they started to ‘heal’ the caves with concrete. When problems with the Leaning Tower of Pisa emerged, why were the Italians not ashamed to appeal to the world’s community for advice, while in our country serious issues are resolved at the local level? In addition, we do not have any state program, general plan, or conception of the preserve’s development, so nobody knows what will be destroyed tomorrow or restored ‘in a modern style.’”
What will the Kyivan Cave Monastery look like to our descendants in 2051, when it will celebrate its 1,000th anniversary?
“I am not sure that the Kyivan Cave Monastery, in its present appearance, will even survive until its 1,000th anniversary. Today it is being actively and aggressively changed through interference in its architecture. At this rate, one or two buildings may last until 2051, and guides will recount that the Kyivan Cave Monastery, one of Ukraine’s seven wonders, once stood here.”
