Golden Gate

Come out of Zoloti Vorota metro station and the Golden Gate is directly in front of you, which makes this one of the easiest historic sites in the city to tick off. It was built in 1037 during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, whose statue stands beside it, and along with St Sophia's Cathedral it's one of the oldest structures in Kyiv.

This was the main entrance to the city when Kyiv was the seat of the East Slavic federation of Kyivan Rus. It worked as a defensive gate and as a place for triumphal celebrations, a tradition that started after Yaroslav held off the nomadic tribes camped outside it. The gate itself is brick and stone with a domed passageway 12 metres high and 7.5 metres wide.

What You're Actually Looking At

Worth knowing before you go: most of what you can see was built in 1982. The Soviet authorities restored the gate completely, and because nobody knows what the original actually looked like, the reconstruction is essentially an educated guess. It split opinion in the city at the time and some prominent Kyivans wanted the new structure pulled down so the genuine remains could be seen again. It didn't happen, but the argument is still worth knowing about - you're looking at an interpretation rather than an 11th century gate.

The real history underneath is dramatic enough. The Mongols nearly destroyed it in 1240, though people carried on using it as a passage into the 16th century. In 1750 it was buried in the ground after the victory over the Poles, and it stayed there until the archaeologist Kindrat Lokhvytsky found the remains in 1832. A metal framework was added later to hold what was left together.

It's better after dark. The floodlighting makes far more of it than daylight does, so if you're staying nearby it's worth walking past twice. The opera house is two minutes further down Volodymyrska if you want to make an evening of it, and the 11 Mirrors Rooftop Restaurant & Bar is less than half a mile away if you want somewhere to go afterwards.