As we entered, we could hear a service or mass (?) being celebrated upstairs. We followed the sounds of the beautiful voices.
I could only understand the fairly frequent Alleluias being
recited and joined in at the appropriate times even when the word was strung
out to be at least six syllables long!
The caves consisted of two underground labryinths of tunnels. Excavated in these soft sandstone catacombs are small burial niches containing the remains of monks and saints that have been naturally mummified due to the chemical composition of the soil and and the cool, constant temperature.
We entered the first set of caves, called naturally enough the Near Caves, from the Elevation of the Holy Cross Church which dated back to 1700. The caves were 750 ft long and had a large number of frescoes interspersed among the crypts. There were also three, very tiny, underground churches or what I would call chapels. Occasionally, there were candles lit in small alcoves recessed in the walls to help guide the pilgrims and us. All of them carried thin, lit beesewax candles that illiminated their way because of the extremely limited lighting down below. Now why didn't we think of that!
I was only able to take this one photo in the first set of caves. To show respect, I was required to wear one of the wraparound long skirts that were provided to women who were not properly attired.
Then onto the Far Caves that were another ten minute walk further on. This set of caves extends for 920 ft and contained 45 burial niches and three more churches.
The pilgrims or faithful all bent down, kissed the glass or wood encasing the shrouded bodies and then always touch their foreheads to the glass. There were a large number of icons in glass in the very narrow passages; those were always touched, too, after an Orthodox sign of the cross.
The underground passages went deep into the ground and were not for the claustrophobic. The paths were so narrow that we had to walk single file. They were again dimly lit so the faithful or smarter ones (!) bought candles to light their way. Steven used the light from his ipad which helped somewhat.
We had spent close to three very enjoyable hours at the Lavra Monastery complex but were ready to explore other areas of Kyiv by 2:45. Just a five minute walk away was the National Museum Memorial to Holodomor Victims:
Holodomor is a Ukrainian term that means killing by starvation. It did not occur as a result of natural diseases such as drought or crop failure but rather a deliberate policy of the USSR Communist regime aimed at physically eliminating the Ukrainians. It occured because after WW1, Ukraine developed a European-focused modern culture and an educational system based on the idea of Ukraine as an independent economic country.
From the late 1920s, Communist authorities consolidated their power and launched an offensive against the Ukrainian cultural uprising. There was a strong Ukrainain oriented educated elite as well as an economically independent peasantry with a strong national consciousness. The Soviet regime perceived the Ukraine quest as an existential threat to the Soviet Union and opted for a horrifying tactic - death by starvation.
The Soviets started compulsory grain procurements whereby the State took almost all the wheat but at much reduced prices. At the same time, the regime started registration of the wealthy peasants. The policy resulted in the confiscation of property and, for many, forceful evictions of peasants to Siberia. There, they were left to the mercy of fate and most perished because of frostbite, starvation and illness.
For those who remained in Ukraine, forced collectivization of farming was begun. The fields of 1932-1933 were left unsown because there were no farm workers available. Famine ensued and an estimated thirty percent of the population died in just one year. The Soviets, however, officially said there had been no famine and that, therefore, millions of people had simply never existed. Entire villages in Ukraine ceased to exist because all the people died.
Stalin authorized the use of gulags and the shooting of people within 15 days of being arrested. 37,997 people were liquidated in this way.
There were 1,000 documented cases of cannibalism. Children in particular were kidnapped, killed and sold as human meat. It is unknown how many children perished during Holodomor and how many were never born. Children, whose parents had been killed, were sent to orphanages, given new family names and told their parents had been enemies of the state. There was a huge rise in the number of gangs comprised of children and teens who did anything they could to survive.
Stalin's goal had been the organized destruction of Ukrainian people, i.e. against one part of the Soviet nation. What a horrific staistic - the Bolsheviks killed in one year more people than the Nazis did in five years. Between 4-10 million people died from starvation. Some say only 3 million died but, regardless of the number, millions died.
How shocking to learn that more Ukrainians died in just one year, in 1933, than in the previous 50 years. Women were so physically unfit that they became infertile and were unable to give birth. In 1941, one school reported having only three first graders as a result of the 1933 famine.
When Ukraine became independent, the government sought redress from the UN for the Holodolmor or forced famine. Their own Parliament in 2006 recognized the Holodomor had been an act of genocide against its citizens. Raphael Lemkin, a Ukrainian, had coined the term genocide in 1944 from two Latin words: genos meaning race and cider meaning to kill. In 2010, the UN court declared that a genocide had taken place. The European Parliament said it was a crime against humanity and a political famine but not genocide.
The museum was opened in 2008 on the 75th anniversary of the beginning of Holodomor.
At the entrance to the memorial were two Angels of Sorrow which represented the guardians of the souls of those who starved.
Near the angels were 24 millstones set in a circle: They represented the source of food and life as well as a 24 hour clock which signified the 24,000 human lives ground to death daily during the Holodomor.
In the center of the millstones was a haunting statue of a young girl clutching a handful of wheat. The statue is known as the Bitter Memory of Childhood and is dedicated to the most vulnerable victims of starvation - children. Picking up the wheat leftover on the collective farm fields was considered a crime and often punishable by up to ten years in prison or even death.
As a result of the Holodomor, Ukrainian society became and has largely remained traumatized like other post-genocidal groups of people. Tens of millions of Ukrainians survived Holodomor but went through unbearable suffering and could not recover from their experiences. Their resistance was broken and they feared that famine could return any day. This remained for decades, resulting in a loss of iniative and, at a sub-conscious level, the trauma of the famine was passed on from generation to generation of Ukrainians.
I felt so ignorant as I had known nothing about this horrific period of Ukrainian history and what had been perpetrated against them by the Soviets before visiting the memorial to the famine's victims. Coming on the heels of our visit to Chornobyl just yesterday, it was unfathomable to calculate the actions yet again of the Soviet government against another segment of its own citizens.
We certainly needed something lighter after this so we returned to the beautiful St. Sophia's Cathedral which was located near our hotel. We were too late to enter it a few days ago so we wanted to make sure we saw it now.
The cathedral and monastery were built over a period of nine centuries. During its long history, it was repeatedly gutted by fire and rebuilt so that the bulk of what we saw came from restorations and additions over the centuries.
In 1990, the entire complex was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Except on rare occasions, the cathedral is not used for church services but functions as a museum.
I trust you can take my word for how lovely the interior of the cathedral was because no photos were allowed inside and I was only surreptitiously able to take the above photo showing you some of the dome.
We walked around the grounds after that and admired the Bell Tower; again, we didn't climb up.
It had been another long day but, amongst the tragedies of both Babyn Yar and Holodomor, we had the peace and serenity of both the Lavra Cave complex and St. Sophia Cathedral.