Andriyivskyy Descent - History

History

The descent, located between two hills, is the shortest passageway from the historic Old or Upper Town (Ukrainian: Князівська Гора; Kniazivs’ka Hora) to the commercial Podil neighborhood. One of the hills, known as Uzdyhal’nytsia, was the place where pre-Christian idols once stood (see: Baptism of Kiev), and another hill, called Zamkova Hora, served as a castle hill during the Middle Ages. For many centuries, this passageway was very steep and inconvenient, which is the reason why it was not inhabited for a long time. Therefore, the first buildings were erected here only in the 17th century, and the first apartment buildings began appearing towards the end of the 19th century.

In 1711, by the order of then-Governor of Kiev, the route between the Zamkova and Andriyivskyy mountains were expanded, thus allowing traffic to become more suitable for horses and wagon carriages. The Andriyivskyy Descent was renamed in 1920 in honor of young revolutionary Georgiy Liver. In 1944, it was decided to return the street to its prior name; in 1957, the street was renamed back to Andreevsky Spusk—the Russian variant of Andriyivskyy Descent. In the 1980s, the Andriyivskyy Descent received a thorough reconstruction after years of disrepair.

On April 9th, 2012, construction workers began demolishing legally protected historic structures, even though earlier that year, their safety was guaranteed at several news conferences and the buildings themselves were included in scale models of the "renovated" descent. The destruction of the buildings took place under the guise of "reconstruction" efforts, which began in October 2011. Preliminary reports indicate that the buildings directly across from, and next to the Museum of Bulhakov, (Buildings 10a, 10b, and 9/11) were all razed to the ground. The land was being redeveloped to make room for a new office and business complex to house Rinat Akhmetov's Kyiv operations.

Several hundred protestors, including boxer/politician Vitali Klitschko, gathered outside the main Kyiv office of Akhmetov’s SCM Holdings. On April 12, Akhmetov claimed he had canceled plans to build a multistory business center in the buildings’ place, promising instead to build a cultural center and restore the facades.