Sofiiska (Sophia) Square
Sofiiska (Sophia) Square is a wonderful landmark of Kyiv. It is considered extremely important due to its history and many legends and tales surrounding it throughout its existence. This is one of the oldest squares of the country’s capital. According to legends, a field near the city walls was once located on the site of this Ukrainian landmark. It was where Yaroslav the Wise defeated the Pechenegs in 1036. After that, the well-known St. Sophia Cathedral was built, and the surrounding square was named Sophiiska Square.
Sofiiska Square is a great location for filming. It was used as a ground in the patriotic film Kruty 1918. This is a film about student volunteers who defended Ukraine from the Soviets. It also appears in the German political thriller The Fourth State (2011, Dennis Gansel) where the main female character goes to Sophiiska Square to calm her soul. In Bulgakov’s novel The White Guard vividly screened by the director Sergey Snezhkin in February 2010, in the vicinity of Sofiiska Square, a horde of Red Army soldiers overran the city, fierce battles between the Reds and Whites raged throughout the day.
Sofiiska Square is extremely beautifully presented in the documentaries Kyiv (1977) and Rus. In Search of Origins (Gorky Film Studio, 2014), Ancient Kyiv (documentary from the series Ukraine: Labyrinths of History (2014).
Kyiv-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Complex
Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is the oldest and one of the main Orthodox sanctuaries, a unique monastic complex that has no analogues in the world. This is the first monastery in Kyivan Rus, the temples erected in the 11th century have survived almost in their original form.
This architectural monument of the 11th–18th centuries. always attracts cinematographers. Here is a short list of films from different years in which the National Kyiv-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Complex played an important role: The Death of Stalin (2017) where the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was depicted as Moscow Kremlin. It was here, according to movie-goers, that the all-powerful Beria was arrested; Black Raven (2019) tells one of the most dramatic and most silenced stories of Ukrainian history, the fierce struggle of Ukrainian rebels against the occupying Communist authorities in the 1920s.
Even in the animated series The Simpsons (23rd season), the animators managed to show the Lavra, albeit on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, in the opening episode.
Mariinskyi Palace
Mariinskyi Palace is one of the most amazing palaces in Ukraine. The palace was built in 1755 by the then famous architect Rastrelli. The territory for building was personally chosen by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Royal families regularly stayed in the palace. And among them was Catherine the Great, who visited Kyiv in the last years of the 18th century. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Mariinskyi Palace was considered the residence of the highest rulers of the Kyiv Governorate. Today, the Mariinskyi Palace is the elegant ceremonial residence of the President of Ukraine.
The Mariinskyi Palace can be seen in all its glory in the film The Days of the Turbins (1976) based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The White Guard, where the palace served as the Hetman’s residence.
Khreshchatyk Street
Khreshchatyk is not only the shortest, but also, most likely, the least filmed central street among all European capitals. There are only about 25 full-length feature films in which it appears: Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, Segel’s Farewell, Doves (1960), Yuri Lysenko’s We Are Two Men (1962), Viacheslav Kryshtofovych’s Before the Exam (1977), Kondratov and Yulii Slupskyi’s Responsible for Everything (1978), and others.
Films of recent years where Khreshchatyk gets into the shot are: Farewell (2009) (in this film, Kyiv plays the role of Moscow); the film starred Emir Kusturica and Willem Dafoe; The Fourth State (2011) (Kyiv appears again in the role of Moscow, and the capital’s landscapes sometimes very strangely are interrupted with the showing the Kremlin and the Red Square; Möbius (2013), and others.
Andriivskyi Descent
Andriivskyi Descent, the most popular street in Kyiv, also became a filming location. Chasing Two Hares is an iconic film for the Ukrainian capital, and a monument to its characters was erected on Andriivskyi Descent. It is not surprising, because it was in St. Andrew’s Church where the most iconic event of the film took place: the wedding of Pronia and Svyryd Petrovych Holokhvastov, which never took place. However, not only St. Andrew’s Church and Andriivskyi Descent appear in the film. One can see other places of Podil in the film.
Andriivskyi Descent was also shown in Yevgeny Tashkov’s film The Adjutant of His Excellency. There, you will definitely recognise Mykhailivska, Ivana Franka, Velika Zhytomyrska Streets and Tarasa Shevchenka Bystreet, as well as the Chocolate House and the Castle of Richard the Lionheart on Andriivskyi Descent.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square)
Maidan Nezalezhnosti is Kyiv’s central Square, its heart. In August 1991, the square received its modern name in honour of Ukraine’s declaration of its independence. It is one of the most attractive locations for cinematographers.
In Brad Bird’s sci-fi film Tomorrowland (2015), there is footage of military actions that took place in the Independence Square. Another feature film Once Upon a Time in Ukraine (2014) shot by director Ihor Parfionov at the Stupeni Film Studio also tells its story about the Square. Maidan even made it to the first episode of the 23rd season of the popular animated sitcom The Simpsons, where you can see its painted panorama.
Just a short time ago, it was the site of the bloody events of the Revolution of Dignity told in a number of the documentaries recently made, and particularly, in a series of documentaries The Winter That Changed Us. The premiere took place in April 2014 and was dedicated to the fortieth death-day of those killed in the confrontation in Instytutska Street. The series includes seven films: The Heavenly Hundred, The First Death, Hrushevskyi Cocktails, Mezhyhiria: Pop’s Hut, Self-Defence, Fire in the Trade Unions Building, Automaidan; All Things Ablaze is one of the most dynamic films dedicated to the events in Kyiv in the winter of 2013–2014; Winter on Fire/Prayer for Ukraine is the largest and most titled film dedicated to the Euromaidan. It collected a number of awards, was shown as part of the official programme of the Venice Film Festival, and was also nominated for an Oscar. Director Yevhen Afiniivskyi, together with 28 cameramen, filmed the events in the centre of the capital with the support of the streaming platform Netflix; Female Faces of the Revolution, a documentary by Natalya Piatyhina telling the story about Ukrainian women during the Revolution of Dignity; Maidan Massacre is one of the few foreign films about the Maidan made by the American John Beck Hoffman who directed films for NASA and National Geographic.
Kyiv Metro
Our capital can captivate not only with its wonderful architectural and historical monuments or the mighty Dnieper or picturesque Maidan. There is a place in Kyiv that everyone perceives differently. Some consider it a gloomy dungeon, others a completely useful and exciting way of travelling around the city. It’s Kyiv Metro. It is Kyiv where the deepest metro station on the planet is located, and that station is Arsenalna.
Filmmakers love to shoot their films in the metro. Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gate) station is especially popular with cinematographers. The detective film Farewell by the French director Christian Carion begins in the Kyiv metro at Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gate) station.
The film The Fourth State: here, the Kyiv metro, again, played an important role in spy games, and again, Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gate) station got in the frame. Here, a German journalist follows the terrorist who organised the subway bombings. You can see the metro stations Dnipro and Poshtova Ploshcha (Postal Square) in the first Nigerian-Ukrainian film directed by Oleksandr Rozhen Light as a Feather (2012).
Central Railway Station
One of the episodes of Kira Muratova’s film Melody for the Barrel Organ (2008) was filmed at the Central Railway Station. It was not by chance that Kyiv got into the frame. The film was shot in the loudest places of the city, including the railway station, to convey the feeling of loneliness in a big city where there are many people, but everyone is left to their own devices.
Kyiv Central Station also welcomes the main characters of the TV series Svaty (In-Laws) when they come to Kyiv for the EURO 2012 final match.
The Olympic National Sports Complex (Olimpiyskiy NSC)
The National Olympic Sports Complex, formerly known as Stadium named after Nikita Khrushchev, Kyiv Central Stadium (until 1980), and the Republican Stadium (until 1996) is a multifunctional sports arena for entertainment and any other mass events. The stadium with the same name as the complex is the main sports arena of Ukraine and one of the largest stadiums in Europe. The reconstructed arena has the status of an ‘elite’ category stadium and has a capacity of 70,050 seats.
Kyiv’s main stadium also became a filming location. In the 6th season of the series Svaty (In-Laws) (2013), the heroes who came to the world cup meet at the stadium.
Film Detective Pikachu (2019), an adaptation of an extremely popular anime about magical creatures, each of whom is endowed with unique abilities. In the film Mascot, Pikachu ‘puts on the hat’ of Sherlock Holmes and takes on the investigation of mysterious events related to the Pokemons.
National Opera of Ukraine
The history of the National Opera of Ukraine began in 1867, when in Kyiv, one of the important administrative centres of the Russian Empire at the time, after numerous petitions to the government, a permanent opera troupe was organised. It was the first musical theatre outside the capitals — St. Petersburg and Moscow. The grand opening of the new opera house took place on September 29 (September 16 according to the old style), 1901 with the opera A Life for the Tsar by Mikhail Glinka.
The hall of the opera house includes the orchestra stalls, amphitheatre, grand tier, and another four tiers that can accommodate about 1,650 spectators (384 seats in the orchestra stalls). After the restoration, the area of the theatre premises increased by 20,000 square metres, the total area of the stage is currently 824 square metres. The official coat of arms of Kyiv with the image of Archangel Michael, the heavenly patron of the city, was installed above the main entrance of the theatre but, at the insistence of Metropolitan Feognost of Kyiv, who considered the theatre a sinful institution, the coat of arms was replaced with an allegorical composition: heraldic griffins holding a lyre in their paws as a symbol of musical art. The façade of the building is decorated with busts of composers Mikhail Glinka and Aleksandr Serov, presented to Kyiv by the artists of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre.
Taras Shevchenko National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of Ukraine became a location for filming of Aurora, the film by the Ukrainian film director Oksana Bairak. The film was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. The final scene of the film was filmed at the National Opera House, which became an American theatre for a while, a performance of Aurora’s favourite ballet Sleeping Beauty.
National Museum of History of Ukraine in the World War II.
National Museum of History of Ukraine in the World War II. Memorial Complex is a museum located on the slopes of the Dnieper’s right bank. Before July 16, 2015, it bore the name of the Memorial Complex “Ukrainian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945” The museum was founded on October 17, 1974 in honour of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s liberation from the Nazi invaders and was housed in the former Klov Palace in Pechersk. Soon, the construction of the Memorial Complex Ukrainian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 at 44 Sichnevoho Povstannia St. (which opened on May 9, 1981) began.
We can see the museum in the films Farewell (2009) and In Love With Kyiv (original title In Love) (2011), a Ukrainian-Russian collection of 8 short films related to Kyiv and shot by seven different film directors from Ukraine and Russia: Ilia Vlasov, Valerii Bebko, Denys Gamzinov, Artyom Semyakin, Olha Hibelinda, Taras Tkachenko, and Oleg Borshchevskiy.
Ukraina National Palace of Arts
On April 17, 1970, one of the largest palaces of culture in Ukraine, Ukraina, was opened in Kyiv. It was designed primarily as a venue for congresses of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and secondarily as a concert hall. Now, the main hall of the palace is the largest concert and theatre hall in the country. It can accommodate up to 4,000 spectators; there are also seats on the balcony and in the stalls. The hall is made in the form of a trapezoid, which provides good visibility of the stage from any place. Since the opening of the palace, many outstanding Ukrainian and world-famous performers have been on its stage: Dmytro Hnatiuk, Anatolii Solovianenko, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, Montserrat Caballé, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, Sofia Rotaru, Lana Del Rey, Gary Moore, Vanessa Mae, Joe Cocker, and others.
The palace was used for the filming of the Ukrainian film The Adventures of Tarapunka and Shtepsel (1970) telling the story of the fun adventures of popular stand-op comedians, interspersed with their appearances on the stage and interludes. Ukraina Palace was also filmed in the modern Oscar nominee of 2008, the film Duska, an allegorical tragicomedy by the Dutch film director Jos Stelling investigating a mysterious Russian soul. In Duska, it played the role of a Soviet hotel. Ukraina Palace became the central filming site incidentally. Kyiv hotels did not fit the idea: according to the film director, they looked more like souvenir shops or taverns. Then he came across the Ukraina Palace whose hall was exactly what he imagined to be a hall of a Soviet hotel.
October Palace (Zhovtnevyi Palace)
The October Palace, or officially the International Centre of Culture and Arts of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, was created in 1842 by architect Vikenty Beretti. It’s one of the largest theatre halls in Kyiv: it can accommodate over two thousand spectators. The building was erected as the building of the Kyiv Institute for Noble Maidens, which it was until 1917.
In 1999, the French-Russian historical melodrama East/West directed by Régis Wargnier was released. The script for the film was written by Sergei Bodrov Sr. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Filming took place also in Kyiv. In particular, the October Palace was also filmed.
Pyrohiv Museum of Folk Architecture and Life
It’s the largest museum in Ukraine. It’s the main ethnographic ‘treasury’ of our country. Here, the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, an open-air architectural and landscape complex telling the stories of all historical and ethnographic regions of Ukraine, is spread over an area of 150 hectares. Pyrohiv is a huge living fairy tale where Ukrainian houses, wide fields, shady paths, mills, pagan stone idols and blackened Orthodox churches have mingled into a unity.
This wonderful place for relaxation on Kyiv’s picturesque outskirts was used as a site for filming of the Ukrainian-Russian film comedy Rzhevsky vs. Napoleon (also known as Cherche la Femme and Napoleon Kaput!), which was released on January 25, 2012 in 3D format.
St. Cyril’s Church
St. Cyril’s Church has one more name — The Church of St. Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria. It is the oldest structure that survived from the times of Old Rus. It was erected in 1139. Now, the walls of the temple are decorated with images painted by Mikhail Vrubel himself. The masterpieces created by the great artist in oil on zinc plates depict St. Athanasius, Jesus Christ, St. Cyril, as well as the Mother of God with the baby Jesus. Holy Mother of God by Vrubel is often compared with the Sistine Madonna itself.
‘Kyiv nature’ is perfectly reflected in Andrei Malyukov’s film The Match (2012). This is a historical drama about the ‘Death Match’ between Kyiv football players and the Luftwaffe anti-aircraft team in occupied Kyiv in 1942. One of the scenes was filmed near the St. Cyril’s Church. Near its walls, the decorators arranged... a ‘flea market’, a market where the heroine (Yekaterina Guseva) sold her earrings. St. Cyril’s Church was also featured in the crime Russian-Ukrainian television series The Dragon Syndrome (2012) directed by Nikolay Khomeriki. The film is based on real events related to Ilyin Collection discovered in 1993 in Kirovohrad. In the interior of the temple, several scenes were filmed with the participation of actress Khristina Asmus.
Kyiv Mikhail Bulgakov’s Memorial House-Museum
It’s the most famous Literature-Memorial Museum in the capital of Ukraine. It is dedicated to the ‘Kyiv’s Bulgakov’. At the same time, this museum on the second floor of the mansion on Andriivskyi Descent is dedicated to the writer’s family who lived here from 1906 to 1919, and to the literary ‘representation’ of his characters in his play The Days of the Turbins. The solution for the exposition itself is interesting: it is made in two colours. It is as if two worlds collide, the real world and the book world. Real belongings of the Bulgakov family alternate with white models, mock-ups of lost household items, mythical, ‘literary’ features of the interior. The stories of two families, the Bulgakovs and the Turbins, the stories of the author and his protagonist intertwine within the space of several rooms.
The house became a real ‘character’ in the Soviet three-part feature television film The Days of the Turbins by Vladimir Basov based on the play of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov (author’s translation for the scene of the novel The White Guard) and in the later screen adaptation of the novel, TV series The White Guard by Sergei Snezhkin (2012).
Art Centre “Chocolate House”, a Branch of the National Museum “Kyiv Art Gallery”
The Chocolate House is the unofficial name of S.S. Mogilevtsev’s mansion in Kyiv, where later resided famous scientists, public figures, politicians, and statesmen. It was built in 1899–1901 stylised as Renaissance palace architecture. It got its popular name because of its brown colour and its large rustication, which resembles a chocolate bar.
The Chocolate House, as well as other old Kyiv sites (Castle of Richard the Lionheart, Mykhailivska, Velyka Zhytomyrska, Ivana Franka Streets and Taras Shevchenko Bystreet) can be seen in Yevgeny Tashkov’s film The Adjutant of His Excellency (1969).
Park Bridge
Pedestrian bridge in Kyiv over Petrivska alley that connects the City Garden and Khreshchatyi Park was designed by Yevhen Paton. It opened on November 22, 1910. It’s one of the first collapsible metal bridges in the country. Several other names of this bridge are common among Kyivites: Bridge of Lovers, Bridge of Love, Devil’s Bridge or Paton’s Little Bridge.
A pedestrian bridge illuminated by the sun emphasised the romanticism of the scene in the film The Years of Youth (1958).
The park bridge became one of the main filming sites in the music videos I’m Coming by Yurko Yurchenko (1998) and The Violin is Playing by Dmytro Gordon and Tamara Gverdtsiteli (2002).
Main building of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute
In terms of architectural and artistic qualities, the main building of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) is one of the best educational buildings in Kyiv of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Student classes in separate rooms of the unfinished building began as early as in 1899, and in 1900–1901, three departments of the institute, an office and a library moved here.
The main building of KPI got into the frame of the Ukrainian Soviet dramatic feature film The Tracker (1987) directed by Roman Balayan, with Oleg Yankovsky starring as teacher Vorobyov.
Kyiv in retro films
In Soviet cinema, Kyiv was rarely filmed (Moscow and Leningrad were held in high esteem by the cinematographers of that time) and if filmed, as a rule, the sites were limited to the city centre. You can see it in the following films:
- The Years of Youth, She, the Kyivite (Volodymyrska Street, the square near Ivan Franko Theatre, October Revolution Square (currently, Maidan Nezalezhnosti), the building of the National Bank);
- Queen of the Gas Station (Khreshchatyk, Central Department Store);
- Farewell, Doves! (Khreshchatyk, Maidan Nezalezhnosti);
- The Years of Youth (Central Railway Station, October Palace);
- the touching film She Loves You with Georgy Vitsyn in the lead role (Chervonoarmiiska Street, Lva Tolstoho Square and the cinema on St. Volodymyr Hill, which, unfortunately, no longer exists).
Later, when a new residential neighbourhood, Rusanivka called the Venice of Kyiv due to the large number of channels, was built in Kyiv, it also began to be used as a filming site. The Left Bank of Kyiv can be seen in such films as Know Yourself, The Unknown Whom Everyone Knew, Wild Love, Two Days of Miracles. Unfortunately, none of those films became a breakthrough in the cinema, so few people remember them today. But if you get a chance to see them, do it — you won’t regret it, because that Kyiv is gone.
Kyiv in modern films
If you walk along and across at least three streets, for example, in Podil, and look into the courtyards, you can find Austria, Shanghai, Odesa, Socialist Realism, count’s estate, and nuclear winter.
Today’s Kyiv can be seen in Oksana Bairak’s films The Idles, Snow Love, or a Dream on a Winter Night, Women’s Intuition. By the way, Bairak is the only film director in whose early films you can see beautiful panoramas of Kyiv. Fortunately, the following films and TV series were also filmed in Kyiv (or, in the case of long-running projects, are still being filmed):
- Come Here, Mukhtar! (as a rule, these are the streets of Shuliavka, the district close to the Dovzhenko Film Studios);
- Bourgeois’s Birthday (Obolon, Prospekt Peremohy Avenue, Lypky);
- A Second before... (Podil)
- The Milkmaid From Khatsapetivka (Obolon);
- What Men Talk About (Podil, Tereshchenkivska Street);
- Indi (Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska Street, intersection of Obolonska and Voloska Streets);
- The Illusion of Fear (Lesi Ukrainky Boulevard, International Exhibition Centre);
- Indi (Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska Street, intersection of Obolonska and Voloska Streets);
- Duska (Kyiv Conservatory, Expocentre of Ukraine);
- The Armistice (Italy, 1997);
- Evilenko (Italy, 2004);
- Möbius (France, Luxemburg, Belgium, 2013).
And here goes a whole bunch of musical clips:
- German musician Paul Kalkbrenner shot in Kyiv a clip to his new track Parachute
- British rapper Stormzy created in Kyiv a music video for the song Audacity. The video was shot at night on the Darnytskyi Bridge and in Vydubychi. The video was produced by the Ukrainian company 23/32 Films. “The clip was completely created by the Kyiv team, except for the performers and the director’s team. We had four days to prepare,” producer Daryna Deriahina said.
- London singer FKA Twigs presented a music video for her song Cellophane. The clip was shot by the Ukrainian production company Radioaktive Film.
- The British rock band Bring Me The Horizon showed the clip to their track Mantra, which will be part of their next album Amo.
This list is not exhaustive and is regularly updated, because Kyiv is a great solid location for filming.
