It was wanted to create a pantheon at Askoldʼs Grave, but instead it was created a chaos, with the spontaneous graves of Ukrainian heroes at its center. The incredibly complicated history of the sacred place in the Kyiv center

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The idea of creating a pantheon of the founding fathers of the Ukrainian state arose in the early 1990s — “long before Yushchenko,” says journalist, historian, and now military man Vakhtang Kipiani.

In 1994, members of the Writers’ Union and the Local History Union raised money for the reburial at the Askold’s Grave of Ukrainians who fought for independence and were buried abroad. Those whose graves had not been preserved — Ivan Mazepa, Pylyp Orlyk, and Petro Sahaidachny — were planned to have cenotaphs erected.

“But in the 90s, the country was so poor that it didn’t feel like a pantheon. Moreover, politically, it was impossible,” says Kipiani.

The parliament was filled with communists and pro-Russian politicians. President Kuchma’s administration was headed by the pro-Russian Dmytro Tabachnyk — issues of historical memory were uninteresting and out of date.

A chance to change the situation appeared when Viktor Yushchenko became president. He wanted to reconcile the soldiers of UPA and the Soviet army, gathered them in the World War II museum, and asked them to shake hands.

Volkov recalls how once on Victory Day the president carried flowers to the Kyiv Walk of Fame, which is located next to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

Someone in the crowd exclaimed: “Are there Ukrainian heroes here? There are only Soviet ones.”

From that moment, Volkov says, the president became passionate about the idea of creating a pantheon. This was six months before the trip to Baturyn.

Viktor Yushchenko at the Victory Day celebration, 2009. His wife Kateryna and then Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are next to him.

Прес-служба Президента України

Yushchenko inspects the renovation of Hetman Rozumovskyʼs palace in Baturyn, 2006.

Прес-служба Президента України

The Askoldʼs Grave did not appear in the discussions about the pantheon by chance. Yushchenko wanted Ukrainian heroes to be closer to the center. Volkov recalls that he said that a typical "Kyiv dandy" would not take children out of town to show the pantheon. The Askoldʼs Grave was promoted to the president as a priority because the place was "sacred".

For three centuries, a nunnery operated there. For two centuries, the Kyiv elite — military leaders, priests, and city officials — were buried there. In the center of the park stands the Church of St. Nicholas, which was built at the beginning of the 19th century, and before that, a wooden church had stood there for three centuries.

According to legend, the first Kyiv prince Askold and 26 high school students who died in 1918 in a battle with the Bolsheviks near Kruty are buried there.

Few people know that during the years of independence, scientists refuted the last two myths. According to the researcher of the history of Kyivan Rus Vadym Aristov, the legend of Askoldʼs burial was invented by the clergy of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

Scientists believe that if Askold existed (which is not a proven fact), then he was buried in the area of the monument to Prince Volodymyr and the funicular.

Kipiani says that as for the Krutyans graves, only two students are known to have been buried on Askoldova Street, who were later reburied at the “Lukyanivka” cemetery.

During Stalinʼs time, the Soviet authorities gradually demolished the cemetery on Askoldova Street and turned the hill into a park. Paths were paved with gravestones, and a restaurant was opened in the church that stood in the middle of the cemetery.

Kipiani also says when the cemetery was demolished, researchers decided that the mass grave of 24 Krutyans students had been razed to the ground. To date, his search has yielded no results, and there is speculation that the students were buried elsewhere — at the Kyiv military cemetery on Zvirynets, which the Soviet authorities also destroyed in the 1950s.

After Yushchenko returned from Baturyn, meetings began in his Secretariat. One of the “lackeys” — as Volkov calls government officials — said that during the occupation of Kyiv during World War II, the Germans buried their soldiers at the Askold’s Grave.

If a pantheon is to be built, exhumation and reburial are required. Volkov set about resolving this issue. It turned out to be a long and expensive process.

Negotiations for the exhumation began in 2008, and the search began in 2012, when Viktor Yanukovych had been president for two years. He didn’t care what was happening at the Askold’s Grave.

“He didn’t see it as a step towards creating a pantheon,” Volkov says. He says that Yushchenko left office without leaving a single decree on the subject, i.e. “it was all just words”.

The search was financed by the Germans. They paid €40 for each exhumed body. At the end of November 2013, the remains found were reburied in the Kyiv region and a buffet was arranged.

After that, its participants went to Independence Square. It was the place where the Revolution of Dignity began.

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End of March 2014. Volkov walks across Independence Square to the chapel at the beginning of Instytutska Street (the place where most of the Maidan protesters were shot on February 18-20).

The makeshift chapel was quickly set up by a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Father Ihor. They have known Volkov for a long time. Since 1992, Father Ihor has served in the church at the Askoldʼs Grave. It was he to whom Volkov came (during Yushchenkoʼs times) with news about the pantheon and the exhumation, and he blessed him.

Volkov found the priest praying. Father Ihor was praying for a man who burned to death in the Trade Unions Building on the night of February 19, 2014. The body lay in the morgue, unrecognizable, for over 40 days. Volkov decided that the deceased had no relatives, and suggested to the priest that he be buried with honors at the Askoldʼs Grave, "to begin the pantheon that Yushchenko had conceived".

"But donʼt say that I opened the door to ʼlimitlessnessʼ! I had permissions," Volkov says, anticipating false stories.

According to him, the order to begin the formation of the pantheon and the burial of the deceased was issued to him by the then acting head of the Kyiv City State Administration (KCMA) Volodymyr Bondarenko. Volkov assures that he has these documents, but he never handed them over to Babel upon request.

The place for the grave of the unknown Maidan participant was chosen by Father Ihor. It was in a flowerbed near the church, where Germans were previously exhumed. As it might be said, the priest on Askoldova Street is the “master”.

Over the decades, he has seen all Ukrainian presidents and officials. He found a common language with everyone, "because we respect everyone". Mykola Azarov helped put a "WC for people" in the park, Petro Poroshenko renewed the pavement, and "the honorable mayor Vitaliy Klitschko does not refuse [him] anything".

The deceased Maidan activist was buried on April 5, 2014. The grave was dug by municipal workers, for which Volkov officially paid them UAH 12 000. The farewell ceremony was held in the Ukrainian House, then the coffin was taken to the Askoldʼs Grave.

Volkov expected to see at the funeral "those who became at the helm of the country thanks to the deceased", i.e. Petro Poroshenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitaliy Klitschko, Oleksandr Turchynov, but none of them came.

No one knew the name of the deceased, but the call-sign was known — “Boyets”. His comrades, Rodnovers, like him, insisted that the man be buried according to Scythian traditions, so that he would go to Valhalla.

Volkov invited Rodnovers, Greek Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox Christians to the funeral. Each of them "whispered something over the body", and the coffin was lowered into the ground.

This was the first burial at the Askoldʼs Grave since Soviet times.

Klitynskyʼs funeral, April 2014.

The head of the UGCC Svyatoslav near Paslavsky's coffin, August 2014.

A few months later, using a DNA test, the police identified the deceased as 25-year-old Oleksandr Klitynsky. His relatives wanted to rebury the body in his native village in the Khmelnytskyi region, but Volkov and Father Ihor persuaded them not to do so.

Six months after the burial of the Maidan activist, at the end of August 2014, Volkov received a call from the MP Volodymyr Yavorivsky and asked how to bury Mark Paslavsky — a fighter of the Donbas Goodwill Battalion — on Askoldova Street. He died near Ilovaisk.

“Yavorivsky and Semenchenkoʼs deputy (someone whose name is Vitya) said: ʼA man lied down his life for Ukraine, and he should be buried as a heroʼ," says Volkov.

Volkov immediately called the newly elected mayor of the capital Vitaliy Klitschko, who asked him to resolve the issue with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The Prime Minister sent a message to the President Petro Poroshenko. The Presidentʼs reception explained that Petro Oleksiyovych does not interfere in the affairs of local government.

"I have known Poroshenko for a long time and did not expect that we would find ourselves in a dead end, but then a mystical case happened," says Volkov.

Mark Paslavsky was a US citizen who moved to Ukraine after 2004. His brother and mother came from America to attend his funeral, and they invited the head of UGCC Svyatoslav to the funeral.

Volkov went to the priest and suggested that he call Poroshenko, saying something like “he won’t refuse you”. And so it happened. The next day, the municipal funeral enterprise of Kyiv dug a second hole at the Askold’s Grave.

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In January 2015, Petro Poroshenko, the Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and the Speaker Volodymyr Hroysman came to the Askoldʼs Grave on the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of Kruty. They laid flowers at the cross and drew attention to the fresh graves. Volkov recalls that it was Yatsenyuk who told the president and speaker who was buried and where.

“I approached Hroysman and asked: ʼWill you help [us]? Let’s rebury Yevhen Konovalets here’,”recalls Volkov.

The speaker did not refuse, and later the parliament and the government adopted a decision (here and here) that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, and the Kyiv City State Administration should "work out the issue of reburial of Yevhen Konovalets in Kyiv".

In 2016, it was 125 years since his birth. In another resolution, the parliament supported the public initiative to create a national pantheon in the center of Kyiv. Neither the first nor the second instruction of the parliamentarians was fulfilled by the government officials.

The then director of the Institute of National Remembrance Volodymyr Vyatrovych held meetings about creating a pantheon at the Askoldʼs Grave, but the issue was considered "in a theoretical plane and no practical solutions were reached". There were several reasons.

"Everyone knew that two people were buried illegally there and that there was a Greek Catholic church. If we were to build a pantheon, we would have to negotiate with them. Additionally, there is not enough space in the park," says Viatrovych.

Historian Vakhtang Kipiani, who also participated in the discussion of the pantheon, adds that "the process stalled, and then finally died because of the land issue". Representatives of the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA) said that there was no free space in the center of Kyiv.

Discussions around the pantheon resembled a vicious circle. Several ended in scandals with Volkov. He was told: there are many graves in the park and exhumation is needed. He replied that he did not see a problem: "There has been a cemetery here for centuries, clear a piece of land and build a pantheon."

After the Revolution of Dignity, a chaos on Askoldova Street grew.

While historians searched for the remains of previously undiscovered German soldiers in one part of the park, Volkov and Father Ihor dug in another part, looking for the burial places of Krutyans (who most likely are not there).

The cross in honor of the fallen in Kruty was erected by students in 1992. In 2012, Father Ihor replaced the wooden cross with a stone one.

Діма Вага / «Бабель»

Memorial stones in honor of those who died in ATO. During the 12 years of the war, there has been no other place in Kyiv to honor the fallen. Generals Zaluzhny, Syrsky, and many military personnel come here.

Діма Вага / «Бабель»

In 2016, another scandal erupted on Askoldova Street — around three memorial stones in honor of those who fell in ATO — “Ilovaisk,” “Debaltseve,” and “Cyborgs”. Volkov proposed installing them.

The Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko gave money for one of the stones. 15 000 was donated by the first Prosecutor General of independent Ukraine Viktor Shyshkin. Despite Klitschko’s participation in the project, over time, utility workers began to demand that the stones be removed, because they were installed without permits. Clashes broke out on Askoldova Street between “indifferent Kyivans” (as Volkov calls them) and his support groups — “people were going to wall-to-wall fight”.

The conflict was resolved only in the fall of 2021. The “Muzbat” battalion received the permits (which “Zelenbud” demanded) and formed a single monument from three stones. In February 2022, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny came to its grand opening. Two days later, a full-scale war began.

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On March 10, 2023, a third burial appeared at the Askoldʼs Grave. It was the grave of the 27-year-old commander of the "Da Vinci Wolves" assault battalion Dmytro Kotsiubaylo. The farewell to the Hero of Ukraine was in the St. Michaelʼs Golden-Domed Cathedral, on Independence Square and the Askoldʼs Grave. The funeral procession was accompanied by thousands of people.

The burial place at the Askoldʼs Grave was agreed upon by Dmytroʼs girlfriend — a military woman and a member of the Kyiv City Council Alina Mykhailova. She did not explain how she managed to do this, only mentioning that she had "conflicts with the city authorities" because of this and could not see a more worthy place [for burial].

Two weeks after the burial, Mykhailova created a petition to establish a pantheon on Askoldova Street and quickly collected the required number of signatures. The president instructed the Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko to respond to the petition.

No one mentioned that the story with the pantheon on Askoldova Street had been going on for many years. The topic was in the news, and friends encouraged Volkov to write to Mykhailova that it all started long before her.

He replied: “It doesn’t fucking matter from whom started it all. If she succeeds, and it will work, we should be happy.”

The funeral of Dmytro Kotsiubaylo at the Askoldʼs Grave.

Українська Греко-Католицька Церква

The farewell to the Hero of Ukraine.

Українська Греко-Католицька Церква

Although, Mykhailova failed. In 2024, she said that she would no longer seek to create a pantheon on Askoldova Street, but new burials have appeared there and everything is developing without her. What she really wants from the state is regulation — who should be buried there and what the graves should look like.

Five months later, she solemnly unveiled a monument to Dmytro Kotsiubaylo on his grave — a full-length figure of soldier with a weapon and three wolves behind him. The monument was almost immediately criticized for being Soviet — Father Ihor says that’s how soldiers were depicted in the USSR.

So far, this is the first and last such monument on the Askold’s Grave.

At the end of August 2023, the Hero of Ukraine, the fighter pilot Andriy Pilshchykov (“Juice”) was buried next to Kotsiubaylo.

In 2024, the grave of aerial reconnaissance, the Hero of Ukraine Pavlo Petrychenko (“Investor”) appeared there.

In 2025 the grave of the drone operator Lyubomyr Sochenko appeared there. His mother — the artist Maryna Sochenko — is a parishioner of Father Ihor. She painted the memorial bell tower on the Askoldʼs Grave, which was built there in 2017 on the priestʼs initiative for the future pantheon. Father Ihor helped Sochenko with the burial of his son.

Not far from the military, an urn with the ashes of the Peopleʼs Artist of Ukraine Anatoliy Haydamaka, who died in 2023, is buried. He bequeathed that his ashes be scattered in Crimea, but while the peninsula is occupied, it rest on Askoldova Street.

The mother of “Juice” tells Babel that to bury the urn there, the Haydamaka family spent a long time knocking on the doors of the Kyiv City State Administration. She says that officials "did not give permission at all" for the graves of soldiers, but they did not prohibit it either — they avoided responsibility because they were afraid of protests.

“When they buried Kotsiubaylo, the whole town came. But I understand that Alina opened Pandora’s box with this burial,” Liliya recalls.

Averyanova visits her sonʼs grave every day. She has her own rituals: talking to her son, feeding the cats, but she always starts with cleaning. She hides a broom behind the graves — "we have to look after them every day so they see that heroes are honored".

Liliya Averyanova has the same logic that President Yushchenko had in the 2000s — many delegations come to the center of Kyiv, many citizens come, but none of them will go out of town to pay tribute to the heroes, and thatʼs true. For “Juice”s mother — unlike politicians and officials — Askoldova is a place where "poetry comes to life". There is a panorama of the Dnipro River, there is a church, trees, and owls fly there.

"Life has shown that people need such a place in Kyiv. It doesnʼt look like a cemetery, but like a place of strength and honoring heroes," says Liliya.

In July 2026, it became known that the pantheon of Ukrainians who fought for independence would be created in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (according to Babel, on the Salt Hill in the Lower Lavra). One of the reasons why not the Askoldʼs Grave is illegal burials, which (according to historian Vyatrovych) "left even fewer opportunities for him to be placed there".

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No one publicly talks about the fact that the burials of soldiers at the Askoldʼs Grave are unauthorized, but for those who are interested in the issue, it is no secret. Babel first heard about this from Volodymyr Vyatrovych at a meeting dedicated to the memorialization of the war.

KCSA responded to an editorial inquiry that they do not know on the basis of what documents relatives bury their loved ones (and relatives) in the central park, which has the status of a local monument. The Administration also does not have information that the current acting head of KCSA Volodymyr Bondarenko gave permission for such burials many years ago.

While the authorities have no idea what to do with the illegal graves and the Askoldʼs Grave, Liliya Averyanova proposes to build a memorial there to the heroes of this war. In fact, it is already there, starting from the grave of the Maidan activist and ending with the last burials. She also proposes to move the wall of memory that volunteers established in St. Michaelʼs Cathedral to the Askoldʼs Grave, because "there is no place to stick photos of the fallen there, but here is plenty of space [for it]."

She created a similar wall near her sonʼs grave. It lists the names of pilots who have died since 2014 — "all of whom are honored, not just Andriy". There are 128 names in total.

Averyanova says that the same wall, but dedicated to drone pilots, can be made next to the graves of Pavlo Petrychenko and Lyubomyr Sochenko. Although, for this, someone must come to an agreement with the families of the deceased. She says that “Zelenbud” cannot be responsible for the national memory policy. This should be done by institutions and officials.

The historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych says that Averyanovaʼs idea to create a memorial to war heroes at the Askoldʼs Grave is interesting because such a place is needed. Maksym Yelihulashvili (who has been studying the topic of memorialization in the world for over ten years) adds that it doesnʼt necessarily have to be turned into a wailing wall or fill the space with obelisks and sculptures.

«Babel'»

«Babel'»

There is enough space at the Askoldʼs Grave to create a memorial park dedicated to the war in general. Yelihulashvili says that separate spaces can be set up for different episodes of the war: the defense of Mariupol, the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP, the kidnapping of children, and other important milestones.

The first Maidan protester buried there during the independence period is not an obstacle, but — on the contrary — a symbol of the beginning of the struggle.

“You could wander around in such a park all day. It would be the place of our defeats, tragedies, and victories,” says Yelihulashvili.

But to implement this major project, KCSA will have to make many difficult and unpopular decisions, starting with banning unauthorized burials, regardless of merit and connections.