St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral is a majestic Orthodox church on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, a monument of 19th-century architecture in the Neo-Byzantine style. Construction lasted twenty years — from 1862 to 1882 — and was full of difficulties: the walls cracked due to errors in calculations, work was stopped and resumed. The solemn consecration of the cathedral took place in 1896 in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II. The cathedral is crowned with seven domes and in plan is a traditional Old Russian triapse church.
The interior of the cathedral is a real gallery of outstanding religious painting of the 19th century. The paintings were executed under the guidance of Professor Adrian Prakhov: Viktor Vasnetsov created the paintings of the main nave with the grandiose compositions “The Baptism of Rus” and “The Baptism of Vladimir”, Mikhail Nesterov – the iconostases of the side naves, Pavlo Svedomsky and Wilhelm Kotarbinsky – numerous gospel scenes. The ornaments of the right nave were executed by Mikhail Vrubel. Today the cathedral is one of the main shrines of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and in March 2026, Patriarch Filaret – the founder and first primate of the UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate – was buried there.