History, legends, and reality.

There is no exact date as to when Kyiv was founded.

There are definitely quite a few legends, and I, for example, adore the one about brothers Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv, and their sister Lybid', who founded Kyiv in the VI-VII centuries. There is some historical evidence that this theory might be a fact rather than a legend, but no one has proven it yet.

Otherwise, we know for a fact that the permanent settlements in this area appeared in the VI century and took their final form somewhere in the late 800s. At least, this is the earliest we know for Kyiv to be mentioned in written documents. By the late X century, supposedly year 988, Kyiv and its subordinate lands got officially converted to Christianity by Volodymyr the Great. There were quite a few tries to turn Slavic pagans into Christians before him, but no one succeeded. Even when Volodymyr christened people in Kyiv, and the churches and cathedrals started to pop up like mushrooms throughout the country, many people followed pagan rituals for centuries after. Volodymyr put the foundation to the Saint Sophia Cathedral. It took over 2 decades to finish the construction, and the Cathedral was completed by Yaroslav the Wise in 1036, Volodymyr's son. By that time, Kyiv was a city with over 50000 population, more extensive than London, Roma, or even Venice of the XI century. It was a blooming capital with a well-developed economy, investments in culture and education, and stable international relationships. Kyiv was a center of the Slavic world, capital of Kyiv's Rus since IX century, and people called it "Mother of Rus' cities." You must understand, though, that while Kyiv's Rus was a vast area covering modern Ukraine, Belarus, and some of Western Russia, there was no Moscow just yet, and the baltic tribes of Belarus were under Kyiv's rules.

Besides photographs of the Cathedral itself, you can also see a couple of photos of the first Ukrainian constitution issued by Pylyp Orlyk in 1710, when he was elected as the Hetman. It established the principle of the separation of powers in government between the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches well before the publication of Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. The document limited the executive authority of the Hetman and established a Cossack parliament called the General Council (General Rada, nowadays Verkhovna Rada). The council was to consist not only of the general staff and the regimental colonels but also of "an outstanding and worthy individual from each regiment." Articles protected the rights of towns, limited the taxation of peasants and poor Cossacks, and restricted the innkeepers. In the introduction to the constitution, Ukraine's independence from Russia and Poland was stipulated as a precondition. Charles XII of Sweden, who was present at the time, confirmed these articles as "the protector of Ukraine."

St. Sophia Cathedral is undeniably one of the most culturally significant monuments for the Slavic world. But more than that, it represents something more personal, the only still existing place where the whole nation was formed, the transitioning portal in history from paganism to Christianity, from separateness to unity, from legends to documented history. It's heartbreaking to think it flourished only for a few centuries before the neverending fight for freedom started. But this is partly why Ukrainians share this collective unconscious will and stamina to fight for their freedom.