This basilica in Kiev has this wonderful black base that really lets the gold and trimmings pop and shine. There is also that little tiny chandalier there, which you may not have noticed!

This is the ornate entrance to a huge religious complex in Kiev. The sky was overcast and the same color as the white of the buildings. I happened to catch a little bird up there as you can see.

I was asked in the Flickr comments of this picture if I get scared while carrying around an expensive camera and tripod around with me. I replied no, not really. I keep the tripod cocked on my shoulder. It’s big and metal and I think anyone knows that an assault will be repelled by the business end of that tripod. It leaves a mark.

This is Cathedral of the Dormition at the Pechersk Lavra in Kiev. It was cold and my tripod was like holding on to liquid nitrogen.

The cathedral was built by a group of Antonite monks from Constantinople on top of a complex network of caves under the Berestov Mount overlooking the Dneiper river.

The second photograph is of the backside in different light much later in the day.

In the last few moments of twilight in the middle of winter, we left the Lavra (distant right) to go into this little restaurant to have some hot chocolate. We sat up in that little round area at the top and they brought us a tiny mug full of super-thick chocolate. It was barely even a liquid, but it was burning hot. You could tell that if you let it fully cool, it would actually turn back into a solid.

This very unusual and moody old fortress, the Golden Gate, sits obscurely in the middle of old Kiev. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, and I still don’t know what to think of it. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t well-formed… it was just… kinda… there. But picture-worthy? Sure!

Cinderella is not Russian is she? I know she really likes shoes, and so do Russian women, but she is more into glass than fur.

Speaking of which, Ukrainian women have some of the most outrageous boots you have ever seen. I really need to grab some shots of these things. They are more crazy than anything Chevy and Dan would wear in Spies Like Us, and twice as wild as anything Harry and Lloyd would wear as part of their apres-ski ensemble.

I walked around the city on a bitter-cold morning after a long night of deep snow and found this gold-and-green domed orthodox church sitting silent in these woods. I did not see anyone else around, so I snapped a few pictures through the woods from across the way.

This is the same church that was almost destroyed by the Germans in The Great Patriotic War, which we call sweet sweet WW2. I told my Ukrainian/Russian friends that those Germans weren’t so tough after all, and they did not find any Great Patriotic War humor funny at all.

They found it even less funny when I did my John Cleese Hitler-walk around the forest claiming the land as my own.

I cannot understate how cold it was in Kiev when I took this picture or how much it hurt to swing my icepick through my exhale to make forward progress.

Below the picture of the exterior is a picture of the inside, where I captured a ghostly heiromonk in his daily devotions.

Kiev is a cold place in the winter. I can’t for the life of me figure out why the Germans chose to invade these old Russian cities in the winter months. They say the Russians had some significant success because they initially did not depend on tanks, which are not great in the snow, but instead relied on horse-cavalry.

All of this ultimately made me think that the only thing worse than being a German soldier during a Kiev winter would be being a Russian horse.

Over on the right there, you can see the huge statue celebrating the Great Patriotic War, which we know as WWII.

This Large version looks nice.

This is the Kievo-Pecherskaya Larva in Kiev, Ukraine. It started out as a series of caves and now has grown to a massive complex of monasteries. Unfortunately, it was so cold and windy outside, that I didn’t really have the ability to get a lot of shots all around this cave area. Actually, I did have the patience…. but Will was standing around looking quite bitter and cold, so we just moved on to the military war museum from WWII. I’ll have pictures from that in coming days/weeks.

The Ukraine has some unique architecture. Below is a section of some interesting homes that I think look like they came right out of Smurfville or Disneyworld. In other parts of Ukraine, the buildings are all concrete, blocky, and throwbacks to Soviet government-mandated design, so it is nice to see a reminiscent style of architecture that seems to blend the olde world and the modern.

I’m leaving the Ukraine today to head to Amsterdam, where we have the Casual Games convention lined up. I’ll be pretty busy there, but I’ve always got the camera in the bag if an opportunity arises.

Back in 1051, the Venerable Anthony, with a name that is quite venerable, settled in a cave on the Dneiper River. Other followers joined and eventually they built this entire Orthodox Christianity complex. The Monastery was built over the centuries thanks to donations from Prince Izyaslev and other Kievan aristocracy.

On my last day in Kiev (Kyiv is the Russian/Ukrainian name of the city) I climbed a extremely sketchy series of icy metal stairs up this hillside to the get this picture. Below is a famous street that I can’t remember the name of, and even if I did, you have to be a dolphin to pronounce it.

On that dolphinesque street, there are all kinds of local goods being sold from little carts and booths. Various nest Russian dolls, old Soviet war medals, pictures of the wars, wooden maces, particolored scarves, and cold-weather gear of every size and shape.

In the distance, you can see Saint Michael’s cathedral on the horizon.

This is Saint Sophia, buried deep in the snow after several nights of blizzard-like conditions. We walked here from Independence Square up and down slippery cobblestoned streets. I have possibly the worst shoes possible for walking around icy Kiev – Nike 5.0 running shoes. These things were built to “breathe”, and not to protect against ankle-deep slush puddles.

St. Sophia’s cost about $1 USD to enter and walk around the grounds. I spent a while goofing around with the settings on my camera to get these strange conditions in the right light.

Saint Sophia was almost destroyed by the Russian government after the revolution of 1917. They wanted to destroy the cathedral and convert the grounds into a park called “Heroes of Perekop”, which was named after a Red Army victory in Crimea.

(Reminder – You have until MIDNIGHT tonight to vote for me for the Bloggies in the Photography section, if you would be so kind – thank you. Also, I will upload pictures from Chernobyl soon.)

This evening while walking to dinner at an Uzbekistan restaurant, the sun started to go down behind the icy overcast skies, casting more of that eerie blue light across the city of Kiev. There were a few flecks of snow beginning to fall, but not enough to obscure Saint Andrews Church here as we passed.

This classically baroque church was originally in the mid 18th century and is still occasionally used by the creatively anachronistic Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church for services. It’s built on a very steep hill, near a steeper and scenic curved road, which was too icy for me to get down with the tripod. It’s one of the few times I decided discretion was the better part of photographic valor.