Saint Andrew's Church

A small Baroque jewel commanding the highest viewpoint above the Dnieper. Bartolomeo Rastrelli — court architect to Empress Elizabeth — designed it in 1747-1754 in the same Italianate Baroque idiom he used at the Winter Palace and Catherine Palace in Saint Petersburg.

The church sits on a tall plinth above Andriyivskyy Descent, the bohemian street that winds down to Podil. The interior is not always open; the exterior, the bell-shaped cupola, and the panorama from the terrace are what most visitors come for.

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A story
Tradition holds that the Apostle Andrew planted a cross on this hill in the first century, prophesying that a great Christian city would rise on the spot — the only reason a major Baroque church was built at the top of an impossibly steep, geologically unstable hillside in the 18th century.