Great Lavra Bell Tower of the Kiev Cave Monastery

As one of the oldest monasteries in Kievan Rus', the Kiev Cave Monastery is one of the most important sights in Kiev and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The name of the monastery goes back to the extensive, artificially created cave system, which includes church rooms as well as small cells for monks and was also used as a burial site. Most of the current buildings in the monastery complex date back to the Ukrainian Baroque period from the 18th century. The construction of the Great Lavra Bell Tower pictured here began in 1731. After the Russian Revolution, the new rulers converted the cave monastery into a state museum in 1926 and the caves were closed from 1929. It was not until 1988 under Mikhail Gorbachev that the Soviet leadership allowed Orthodox monks to return.

Great Lavra Bell Tower of the Kiev Cave Monastery, colour photograph, 2005, photographer: Sergiy Klymenko; source: Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kievo-Pecherska_Lavra_Belltower.jpg,  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/.