Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Kyiv, Ukraine

Thanks to Ksenia, I can finally say that my collection of a one single Ukrainian card, has increased to 4 now :)))  And that feels really great for the sake of the versatility and enrichment!!
I was struck by the beauty of the colours of the card...im a blue-against-white addict...but apart from the blue, the green and the goldish colour just feel so perfect...i dont know if its due to the sun-ray reflection or something else, but it certainly feels lovely!

What you can see is the Kyievo-Pecherska Lavra, among the chestnuts' candles (if it wasnt written on the back, i would have never figured its chestnuts),
This Orthodox monastery (also known as the Kyiv Monastery of the caves)  was founded by Saint Anthony of the Caves in the mid-11th century near the village of Berestove in a cave that the future metropolitan of Kyiv, Ilarion, had excavated and lived in until 1051. The first monks excavated more caves and built a church above them.
Since its foundation, as the cave monastery in 1015, the Lavra has been a preeminent center of the Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe. It is also inscribed as a UNESCO whs.

here's one of my favoruite 'language-issues'
the word 'pechera' means 'cave' (in Macedonian, the word for a cave is 'пештера' (peshtera)). The word 'lavra' is used to describe high-ranking monasteries for (male) monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Therefore the name of the monastery is also translated as the Kyiv Caves Monastery.

Thanks a LOT Ksenia for the absolutely great card! :)

5 comments:

Linn said...

One year ago, one of my best friends travelled to Ukraine. He bought me almost all available postcards. :-D

There's a set of which I think it is even more beautiful than the one from which is the card you're showing here.

Оксана said...

I'm glad that you liked this card! :) Actually, I found only one set of Kyiv cards in Ternopil', but probably that's because there's 500km distance between these cities :)
I visited the Kyevo-Pechers'ka Lavra in August. There are graves of the Orthodox saints there and monks often pray there. It's really something very unusual and worth seeing.

Gone with postcrads said...

Kyiv is not Kiev? Maybe I just made a mistake~~

Оксана said...

Gone with postcards, I think this city is called "Kiev" more often than "Kyiv" by English-speaking people. But "Kyiv" is more correct, because it's closer to the original (Ukrainian) pronouncation, while "Kiev" is the Russian name.
Well, Ukraine used to be a part of the Soviet Union for a very long time, so many Ukrainian cities are known under their Russian names abroad. But the only official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian.

Ana said...

@ Linn: your friend seems like me...whenever i go somewhere i buy almost all available cards i come across, even if 10 of them show the same site, where the differences are just minor...but if i dont get them, i know for sure that when i come home it will bother me of why i hadnt bought them, coz still it IS a different card indeed :)

@ Ksenia: thanks again for the card...the colours are just really stunning...i absolutely love it...and thanks for the Kyiv/Kiev explaining...i should hire you as my personal assistant ;-))

@ gone with postcards: well, Ksenia had put it really well about the Kyiv/Kiev difference, so, dont worry, you are not wrong...just that in general, i often like to put the original name of places, instead the English adopted one...

Post a Comment