User:Jwkozak91

“[...] The director of the Kiev City Museum, a nice man beset with worry that his beloved collection was about to lose its premises to the new High Court, once gave me a peroration on the superiority of Ukrainian [culture] over Russian culture. ‘When we were building Santa Sofia, over there’ – waving an arm vaguely eastwards – ‘there was nothing but wolves.’ For my benefit, he said, he was talking in Russian. But did he speak Ukrainian at home? He blushed a little and shifted in his chair: ‘Well, you know how it is, it isn’t easy...’[.]”
• Reid, Anna (1997, 1999). Borderland : A Journey Through The History of Ukraine. Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, page 86.

A model of the original Cathedral of Santa Sophia (Cathedral of Holy Wisdom) in Kyiv, built from 1037–1057. The model is housed in the narthex of the cathedral, which is now a museum.
The Cathedral of Santa Sophia today, with most of the exterior changes made between c. 1634 – c. 1767. The Soviet government exposed some of the original 11th century stonemasonry when the cathedral became a museum.
Flag of the Ukrainian Zaporozhian Cossacks during the Rebellion of 1648.
A map of Eastern Europe with the area of the former Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia highlighted in blue (West Galicia) and green (East Galicia).
The coat of arms of an independent Ukrainian state that existed from 1918 to 1922.
The unofficial, more elaborate coat of arms of Ukraine.
The rebuilt St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv. The original, built from 1108–1113 – with exterior changes made between c. 1634 – c. 1767 – was systematically leveled by the Soviet government during 1934–1936. The monastery's bell tower is in the foreground.