Askold’s Grave is one of the most mysterious places in Kyiv, where legend and real history are intertwined. According to legend, it was here in 882 that Prince Oleg of Novgorod killed Prince Askold of Kyiv, capturing the city. In the 10th century, Princess Olga built a wooden church of St. Nicholas over the grave – the name that Askold took at baptism back in 867. For centuries, a monastery operated here, and then a city necropolis, until the Soviet authorities in the 1930s turned the cemetery into a park, destroying most of the crypts and tombstones, and the church itself into a restaurant.
After independence, the church was returned to the community of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and restored in 1998. And in 2017, a bell tower with 51 bells made in the Netherlands appeared on the territory. Today, Askold’s Tomb is a quiet park on the slopes of the Dnieper River with a magnificent observation deck offering a panoramic view of the Left Bank. A place where you can feel the depth of Kyiv’s history literally beneath your feet.