![\"Image](\"http:\/\/static.atlasobscura.com\/images\/place\/kiev-monastery-of-the-caves-and-microminiature-museum.7798.main.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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This 1000 year old relic-filled cave monastery and UNESCO World Heritage Site also hosts an amazing micro-miniature museum<\/b><\/p>\n
The Kiev Pechersk Lavra in Kiev, Ukraine is many things.
\nAlso known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, first and foremost it is a a historic Orthodox Christian monastery, built on top of a massive series of tunnels. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the one of the largest museums in Kiev with many sub-museums held within it.
\nThough from a distance it looks like an standard orthodox church it is built on top of a hage and “very complex system of narrow underground corridors” that contain monks living quarters. Travelers in the 16-17th century wrote that “that the catacombs of the Lavra stretched for hundreds of kilometres, reaching as far as Moscow and Novgorod” which, though an exaggeration, helped make the complex famous. The catacombs also contain numerous burials and relics, such the bodies of mummified saints such as Saint Kuksha, Nestor the Chronicler, and Alipy of the Caves, which today are displayed covered with cloth.
\nAmong the museums in the above-ground complex are the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, a Book and print history museum, a museum of Ukrainian folk art, a theater and film arts museum and the state historical library, but by far the strangest and most curious of the museums is the microminiature museum.
\nThis too has a Ukrainian connection, as the micro miniatures are the work of the world microminiature master Mykola Syadristy. Syadristy was born in Ukraine in 1937 and has been crafting micro-miniatures since he was in his twenties or for nearly forty years. Among his creations are the words “\u2018Long Live Peace in Ukrainian engraved on a human hair, minuscule portraits of Ernest Hemingway and Yuri Gagarin, what is believed to be the world\u2019s smallest book with 12 pages at an astonishing 0.6 square millimetres, each page filled with the writing and illustration of Syadristy himself.
\nAmong the other items to be seen (all of which must be viewed through a microscope) are a golden chess set on a pin head and the picture of Russian composer V V Andreev etched onto glass and fitted into one half of a poppy seed.<\/p>\n
Read more about Kiev Monastery of the Caves and Microminiature Museum on Atlas Obscura…<\/a><\/p>\n Category: Miniatures<\/a>, Microminiature art<\/a>, Memento Mori<\/a>, Relics and Reliquaries<\/a>, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries<\/a>, Curious Places of Worship<\/a>, Subterranean Sites<\/a> Kiev Monastery of the Caves and Microminiature Museum This 1000 year old relic-filled cave monastery and UNESCO World Heritage Site also hosts an amazing micro-miniature museum The Kiev Pechersk Lavra in Kiev, Ukraine is many things. Also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, first and foremost it is a a historic Orthodox Christian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3562,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Location: Kiev<\/a>, Ukraine<\/a>
Edited by: Dylan<\/a>
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