Take me to your Heaven (1989) 

Pagan Kyiv 

KYIV DESTINATION: Bald Hill 

Andriyvskiy Spusk is the main tourist drag in Kyiv, a pleasant cobbled road winding down a hill drenched in souvenir stalls and a Saturday art market.
But if you want some great views of the city and something a bit more edgy then this is also the starting place for a mini adventure into paganism old grave yards and Ukrainian literature.

The road is squeezed between two hills and there are stairs and viewing platforms leading off both sides of the road. If you are walking down Andriyivsky Spusk you will pass a yellow and white cassalated gothic building  called Richard the Lion Heart's castle. Shortly afterwards are some wooden stairs on the left. This steep climb will take you up to a large viewing platform with views of the river and the south of the city.

Carry on a for about 50 meters down Andriyvskiy Spusk and on the right side of the road are some more stairs (see below), which take you onto Bald Hill. In Ukrainian folklore there are stories of bald hills being the place where witches meet. This may go back to the pagan associations of the god Pirun's links to hills where lightening strikes. But in this case it really is a place where witches meet. When you finally get to the top there is a star-shaped pagan altar and a memorial to pagan beliefs.

 But in addition Bald hill gives you great views of the eastern edge of Kyiv, plus Andriyvskiy Spusk itself. If you follow the hill top you will enter a wood which was a pre-revolutionary graveyard. The church here has long gone, but the ornate 19th century gravestones remain. 

To your left you can look down on Vozdvizhenska - a colourful new gastronomic district of Kyiv http://kyiv.restaurantnews.com.ua/feed/reviews/1306.html. 

The street is also where one of the Soviet Union's best writers was born. Mikhail Bulgakov was both Stalin's favourite playwright and the USSR's best underground writer with his unpublished novel Master and Margherita the novel is a satire of the country under Stalin's terror and one of its main symbols is how it links places called Bald Hill.

 Before you come to the end of the hill you should find some secret steps that lead you down the hill and back onto Andrivskiy Spusk. They are walkable but are not 100% there. As you come out onto the road again, you can turn right back up the hill. The Mikhail Bulgakov museum http://bulgakov.org.ua/museum_news.php?lang=en and memorial statue are at number 13A on the left.

 What's your favourite walk in Kyiv?