Description of the attraction
This convent, also called the Kiev Intercession or the Monastery of the Intercession of the Mother of God, was founded in January 1889 at the initiative of Grand Duchess Alexandra Romanova. Initially, the monastery was conceived not as an ordinary monastery, but also as a hospital for those in need. For more than twenty years (from 1889 to 1911), active construction was carried out here, as a result of which a church, school, dormitory, buildings for nuns, icon painting and gold embroidery workshops and a hotel appeared here. For the treatment of patients, a free hospital (with surgical and therapeutic departments), a shelter for the sick and the blind, an outpatient clinic and a free pharmacy were erected here. The hospital workers did everything to equip it with the most modern equipment - it was in the monastery hospital that the first X-ray machine in Kiev appeared. This approach to business contributed not only to the high level of medical care, but also to the growth of the institution's popularity. In just one decade, more than five thousand people have used the services of the monastery hospital. Often, during operations, surgeons were assisted by the founder of the monastery herself.
The monastery was designed by Vladimir Nikolaev, a leading Kiev diocesan architect. It was he who erected the Church of the Intercession and the Nikolsky Cathedral, made in accordance with ancient traditions.
In the 1920s, the monastery was closed, but it was reopened during the German occupation. After the liberation of Kiev, a hospital worked here, and later - an infirmary. At the end of the 40s, the question of repairing the Nikolsky Cathedral was raised, which had been badly damaged by that time. At the end of the restoration work in 1949, the cathedral was re-consecrated and it still functions, like the monastery itself.
