Friendship Of Nations Arch

Use Dnipro or Arsenalna metro and walk up. The arch stands on the right bank above the Dnipro, behind the National Philharmonic in Khreshchatyk park, and the reason to come is the view rather than the monument: you look out over the Shore Highway, the Park Bridge and the river, with the green of the far bank running to the horizon.

The pedestrian bridge with the glass floor has run from right next to it since 2019, so the two are one trip. The water museum is in the old water tower in the same park, which is where to head if the weather turns. Come back after dark if you can, when the whole thing is lit.

What You're Looking At

The arch is titanium, 50 metres across, and was designed by the architect I. Ivanov and the sculptor A. Skobilkov in 1982. It opened along with the All-Union Lenin Museum, now Ukrainian House, to mark 1,500 years of Kyiv and 60 years of the USSR.

What stood underneath it until recently was a bronze of a Ukrainian and a Russian worker holding up the Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples. That came down on 26 April 2022, two months into the full-scale invasion, and the head of the Russian figure broke off on the way to the ground in front of a crowd who had come to watch. The granite group showing the participants of the Pereyaslav Council of 1654 is still there.

The Name

The arch was renamed the Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People in May 2022 and repainted in the colours of the flag. You'll still see it signed and mapped as the Friendship of Nations Arch or the People's Friendship Arch, and locals will still call it that, so don't be thrown if you're asking directions.

Whether it stays is an open question. The Ministry of Culture has since taken away its status as a listed monument, which clears the way for it to be dismantled, though no decision has been made. If you want to see it, we wouldn't leave it indefinitely.

It had a brighter moment in 2017, when the arch was temporarily turned into a rainbow for the Eurovision Song Contest and lit up at night.

Varenichnaya Katyusha and Guramma are both nearby if you want Ukrainian food afterwards.