On a misty night in Kiev

It was a misty night in Kiev. One of those nights when the mist isn’t just weather, it’s a moody cloak draped over the city. I left the vast openness of Sophia Square, where the golden domes of Saint Sophia Cathedral and Saint Michael’s Cathedral should have glowed like beacons. But tonight, they faded into the nothingness, so I chose another path and descended the Andriyivskyy Descent into darkness.

Walking down Andriyivskyy Descent.

Early on the descent I pass Saint Andrew’s Church, those green cupolas tipped in gold normally soaring above. Instead I could hardly see my shoes. Built at the behest of Russian Tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna in the 1750s, the church still stands as an echo of opulence swallowed by fog.

Further down I say hi to the statue of poet Taras Shevchenko. Then the oddly named Castle of Richard Lionheart. No Richard and no lionheart, just a neo-Gothic whimsy christened by writer Viktor Nekrasov for its castle-like look. If I close my eyes I can hear the sad sighs from disappointed visitors though the centuries.

House of Mikhail Bulgakov on Andriyivskyy Descent.

And then there’s the house at no 13. Bulgakov House. Mikhail Bulgakov lived here, capturing this winding street in his novel The White Guard from 1925. A bench outside holds his statue. Quiet, watchful and surrounded by snow.

Statue of Mikhail Bulgakov on Andriyivskyy Descent.

Finally the descent flattens into the Podil district. Cold night air and damp stone underfoot. Time to duck into some dim-lit bar and raise a glass of Obolon, the pale brew from northern Kiev. Because if you’re going to walk the mist-veiled depths of a city, you might as well sip something local, let it settle on your tongue while the fog settles on the windows.