Kiev proved to be quite a surprise for me. But it was not the first time I travelled to former Eastern European countries in order to find that it’s not all concrete, Stalin-architecture and generally miserable.

Same thing happened again in Kiev, a town that turned out to be a relaxed place, with beautiful buildings where even the post-Stalin architecture blends in well. A city filled with nice restaurants, cafés, incredible parks, good shopping and - of course - the magnificent churches and monasteries of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and Santa Sophia Cathedral, the World Heritage Site of Kiev.

The monasteries and churches are really the landmark of Kiev and someone said that there are over 200 churches in this orthodox “junction” of Slavic Europe. To even further grasp the religious history I took a trip to Tchernigov, some 170 km north of Kiev, today a small town of northern Ukraine but once a religious centre with some of the oldest churches and monasteries in the country. Even one of the monasteries is located complete underground. Tchernigov is also found on the tentative list and might become a real World Heritage Site one day, which it well deserves.