Golden Gate redux

The restoration work that took place in fits and starts for 25 years is finally over: the Golden Gate in downtown Kyiv has been restored. The opening ceremony took place in keeping with historical traditions: Ukraine’s highest official, President Viktor Yushchenko, arrived to the sounds of drums and fireworks and was greeted by actors playing the role of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, his military retinue, and foreign ambassadors.

From now until New Year’s Day, all well-wishers can pay a free visit to the structure that was erected during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise. Starting in 2008 there will be a nominal fee of five hryvnias for adults and three for children. The restoration of the Golden Gate cost eight million hryvnias, provided by the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction. The subcontractor was the UkrNDIproektrestavratsiia State Research and Development Institute and the Ukrrestavratsiia Corporation.

“The restorers of UkrBDIproektrestavratsiia, the leading restoration institute, worked on the project together with eminent historians. They cleaned up the ancient ruins and overhauled the pavilion. Experts suggested that it be covered with specially-treated oak wood, which corresponds best to the period when the Golden Gate was built,” said Ihor Sokolov, Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Construction.

Since this architectural monument was once the grand entrance to Kyiv, experts from the Sofia Kyiv National Preserve, to which the Golden Gate belongs, want to revive the tradition of letting visitors pass through it.

“We want to make a historical symbol out of this ancient gate. This will apply particularly to VIPs,” explained Nelia Kukovalska, the director-general of the preserve. “The most important thing is that now everyone will be able to see the functioning of the portcullis, which was in bad shape for a long time. While specialists from Dnipropetrovsk repaired the mechanism that raises the portcullis, we completely changed the latter by installing a metallic one covered in wood. We also equipped the Golden Gate with cutting-edge media systems, video cameras, and a flat screen that will show historical films and slides.”

Experts claim that all this is being done to liven up this historical monument so it can attract more visitors. There are also plans to hold feasts next to the Golden Gate and encourage young people who are interested in Kyivan Rus’s defensive architecture and everyday life and crafts to take up museum traditions.

So far, the Golden Gate will function as a historical site, but there are plans to turn it into a museum by next spring: experts are already collecting items, preparing museum sites, etc. According to Kukovalska, there will be three exhibits: one will be devoted to ancient Kyiv’s defensive architecture, another to the development of Orthodoxy in the capital, and a third to Kyivan life (crafts, everyday life, etc.)

COMMENTARY

Larysa SKORYK, architect and professor at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture:

“For me the Golden Gate is a paradigm of so-called pseudo-restoration, which should never have been done. It is absurd to restore the pavilion above the gate on the basis of conjecture. The remnants of the Golden Gate, which have been preserved inside the present-day crypt since the Kyivan Rus’ era, were really authentic. When it came to restoring this structure (to prevent it from falling into ruins because of various factors), I think the restorers should have applied absolutely simple and modern techniques: build a glass dome over it and preserve the remnants in all their beauty so that visitors can see authentic pieces of history. The newly-constructed site is not restoration. Now the Golden Gate will be endlessly restored because the timber will begin to decay and peel — it rests on concrete and no air reaches it. The impression is that the restoration is being done by people who want to do something but don’t know how. You can repair or buttress, but don’t restore the structure over the monument, because it is sheer infantilism to update something that built very recently, in Soviet times. But infantilism is proliferating in Kyiv: new things are being disguised as old ones, ancient authentic artifacts are being destroyed or built over, and that which should be restored is being radically reconstructed.

“That is why I cannot call the attempt to guess at the Golden Gate’s original look restoration. This resembles the story behind the restoration of the Church of the Tithes, whose original appearance is not known. If there is an old, even ancient, structure, people must do their utmost to preserve it instead of making a plaster cast copy — for one’s own pleasure but a strain on the budget. The worst thing is that people begin to believe that the restored structure is allegedly the Golden Gate. This is deception pure and simple. Ordinary people are being cheated as far history and culture are concerned, and they no longer dream of finding out the truth someday. And any falsification is a sin against history.”