Foto: The SpasoPreobrazhensky Cathedral (bron: Ronald van der Veer)
Ukraine - The Cathedral of the Holy Transfiguration is a Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral in the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Empress Catherine the Great, the founder of Odessa, commissioned the construction of a church dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Lord. Construction began in 1795. After Paul I came to power, work stopped for several years. Under Governor Mikhail Vorontsov, construction resumed and progressed swiftly. A few years later, in 1827, the cathedral was completed, initially with a separate bell tower. Over the 19th century, the cathedral saw major expansions, including the incorporation of the bell tower into the main building. This made the cathedral one of the largest Orthodox churches, capable of holding up to 9,000 worshippers. After the Soviet regime took power, the cathedral was looted in 1919 and closed in 1932. The atheist authorities saw no architectural value in the structure and had it demolished in May 1936. A few years later, during World War II, when Odessa was occupied by Romania, plans for reconstruction were already being discussed. Although rebuilding took longer than hoped, it finally began in 1999 after the fall of the Soviet Union. By July 2010, the new cathedral was consecrated by Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia. The reconstruction was made possible by donations from private individuals and companies. The Transfiguration Cathedral is one of the most striking examples of the rebirth of religious architecture after the systematic destruction of churches during the Soviet era.
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv
Ukraine - The Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv is one of Ukraine’s most famous monuments on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The church's name is derived from the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It was built in the 11th century and served as the burial place of ...
The Chernobyl reactor
Ukraine - The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was a major accident involving one of the reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which occurred in 1986 near the town of the same name in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), close to the Belarusian border. ...