There are two categories of people: those that are captivated by the underground world and are prepared to climb down into any cave and those that pay no attention to them. But even those that get a thrill from crawling down into communications tunnels, culverts, underground riverbeds, cable collectors, bomb shelters, subway tunnels, basements and sewage systems pay little attention to so-called “historic caves”.

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Petro Tolochko
Director of the Archaeology Institute at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

In truth, caves in Kyiv have never been the subject of thorough scientific research. Today, the caves in which at one point in time there were early Christian monasteries serve the needs of churches and historians. For the common folk, the caves of Kyiv are true artefact that for a thousand years has been the stronghold of Orthodox Christianity.

These caves are muddy, shallow and need to be cleaned up, they are not interesting for fanatics of underground explorations. However, it is in these caves that government secrets, deaths and precisely spelunking. However, it is these caves that hide the secrets of power, deaths and titanic efforts

Zvirynetski Caves
“Surprisingly, not very many people come to take tours of these caves,” says historian Valentyna Dyshkovets, “Tourists come from all over the world and stand in line to see the Caves of St. Paul in Malta, in which the apostle once lived for two weeks. And despite the 1,000 year old miracles and the remains of the first Kyiv Metropolitan Mikhail, who inspired Prince Volodymyr the Great to baptize Rus, only five tourists turned up to take a free tour of the Zvirynetski last week .”
We embarked on our first descent into the Zvirynetski Caves modestly hidden among modern luxury mansions on the hills of the Dnipro River at 22 Michurina St. It is not easy to get in as the entrance to the caves is closed during off-hours. The believers attend services on Saturdays and Sundays from 8 am to 12 pm, as visitors are picked at St. John’s Monastery of the Holy Trinity every day at 12:30 pm and 3 pm.
A monk named Ioahn leads visitors on along southern part of the Kyiv Botanical Gardens, where he tells us about hundreds of meters of unexplored caves that once laid the foundation of the monastery. Trees and buildings would simply collapse into the underground during the WWII bombings.
In 1096 the Polovtsians conquered Kyiv found the monatery, killed all their inhabitants and buried the caves. For 8 centuries, the caves remained inaccessible. 
In 1882, the earth collapsed after torrential rains and Kyivans discovered a cave filled with bones, monastic cult relics and household items. After the discovery, the ancient monastery of the Archistratigus Michael experienced a renaissance. The Cathedral of the Virgin Mary Nativity was erected in its place.
But the 800 years of neglect are nothing compared to the cruelty in the decades that followed. When the Communists came to power they sent the Zvirynetski monks to a concentration camp in Solovki. It was only in the 1980s that Kyiv historians and the monks cleaned up and fortified the caves.
The 150-meter cave is divided into “streets”. Along the main one, Altarna, there are niches filled with bones and cells with the remains of hermits. The monk that led the tour showed us ancient inscriptions above the altar and the chapel. Each of them contains the life story of a monk and his self-sacrificing deeds.
Zvirynetski Caves: explored length – 150 m, depth – 6-8 m.

Near and Far Caves
of the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery
These caves became a symbol of the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra and the most visited tourist attraction of the monastery. Native residents of Kyiv visit them on many occasions, the first time in search of miracles and then when showing their guests around town.
The admission for a tour of the Lavra is UAH 18. Before 9 am, parishioners allowed for free. The place  is considered the holy land, Kyiv Vatican, that Prince Svyatoslav presented as a gift to the monks centuries ago. Lavra was the first Christian community in these parts, a sample of brotherly love for all of the state.
The caves in the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra are a very complex system of narrow underground catacombs, living quarters and underground chapels. In 1051, Antoniy, a monk from Esphigmenon monastery on Mount Athos, originally from Liubech, settled in a cave that he dug in one of the hills overlooking Dnipro.
A 70-year old resident of Kyiv named Liliya Shakh spent her childhood and youth in a residential house  on the territory of the monastery. “I remember in 1943 we kids climbed down into the caves, played there and looked at the remains of monks. Strange, nobody watched them but nobody touched any of the relics inside. I remember the scientists that came to the caves after the war to research into the local miracles. But the information was classified at the time.”
The entrance to the Near Caves is free. All you have to do to enter is buy a candle. If you go down and left you will end up the underground of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, where the remains of the Agapetus of Pechersk are preserved. The epic hero Ilya Muromets have found rest the Far Caves next to the icon artist Alipy of the Caves and Nestor the Chronicler. During the Soviet era, the bodies of the mummified saints that lay in the caves were left uncovered due to the regime´s neglect of religion. However, after the downfall of the Soviet Union, the bodies were covered with a cloth and to this day remain in the same condition.
Caves of the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra: total length – over 500 m, depth – 5-20 m.

Kytayivska Pustyn
One can easily get to the Kytayevska Pustyn (hermitage) by hopping on bus No. 470. When you get there simply cross the gully and climb to the top of the hill over the caves on which a wooden church stands. This place of interest attracts hundreds of tourists every day.
The history of these caves is similar to the history of the caves in the Dnipro hills. They have known glorious days and been neglected for centuries. During the 1960-1970s, archaeologists explored the caves. In the 1990s, the monks reopened the monastery on these hills.
While the Lavra and Zvirynetski caves undergo a serious uplift, the Kytayevski caves have retained their original condition, which proves the strength of ergeron – the earthen material in which the caves were made.
Kytayevski caves: explored length – approximately 100 m, depth – 1.4 m.

Hnyletski caves
To get there, go out the dacha communities of Pidhirtsi and Koncha Zaspa to Khutir Volniy. Then ask for directions as the caves stretch beneath the territory of the hospital behind the St. Nicholas Church.
In the new times, monks have been taking care of the caves for more then a decade, but only a small section of them has been explored. These caves have great tourism potential. In his time, a researcher named Antonovych discovered 12 caves with a total length of 365 m.
There is an archived complaint dated back to 1925 that the archaeologists filed against the kids of the neighboring penal colony that crawl down into the 11th century caves and steal ancient treasuries.
Later a recreational complex was built on the territory of the former colony. The caves are in poor condition, but their main wealth is an underground church and a chapel from the times of Ancient Rus.
Hnyletski caves: explored length – 365 m on three tiers.