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.

Since 2019 the pedestrian bridge with the glass floor has run from right next to it, 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. There are two statues underneath it: a bronze of Ukrainian and Russian workers holding the Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples, and a granite group showing the participants of the Pereyaslav Council of 1654. 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.

You may also see it called the People's Friendship Arch.

It May Not Be Here Forever

The government announced plans to take the monument down in 2016 under the decommunisation laws. Two years later Volodymyr Viatrovych, then director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, said publicly that dismantling it was required, with a memorial to veterans of the war in Donbas planned for the site. It's still standing, but if you want to see it, don'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.