Kyiv Pechersk Lavra area returns to Mazepa Street: Lavrska Street renamed

On Thursday, December 4, the Kyiv City Council restored the name of Hetman Ivan Mazepa to a section of Lavrska Street. The decision was supported by 72 deputies.

Under the new naming, the stretch of Lavrska Street from Slavy Square to Volunteer Battalions Street will now be called Mazepa Street, while the section from Volunteer Battalions Street to Navodnytska Square will become Novonavodnytska Street.

Ivan Mazepa Street first appeared in 2007, when it was renamed from January Uprising Street.

In 2010, under President Viktor Yanukovych, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church and its head Vladimir Gundyaev (Kirill), the section of the street where the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is located was renamed Lavrska Street, leaving Mazepa Street as a 500-meter stretch between Arsenal Square and Slavy Square. The newly restored Mazepa Street now extends nearly 2 kilometers.

"Ivan Mazepa is one of the most prominent statesmen in Ukraine’s history and a philanthropist who made a huge contribution to the development of the Kyiv Cave Monastery. His name should be immortalized on the street where the churches he funded stand. The 2010 renaming at the request of the Moscow Patriarchate was a humiliation of Ukrainian history and direct enemy influence on our city government. Today, we are returning Kyiv residents the right to their own memory," said Olesia Pynzenyk, a Kyiv City Council member and initiator of the renaming.

On December 1, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra also unveiled the first monument to Hetman Mazepa in Kyiv.

The Institute of National Memory points out that during his reign, Ivan Mazepa distinguished himself as a patron of the arts and invested heavily in the development of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex. The memory of the hetman's contribution was silenced and erased under pressure from the Russian occupation authorities, who considered Mazepa a traitor.

"It was easier for the Moscow leaders [of the UOC-MP] to live on the street of the Bolshevik January Uprising than to accept that there will be a Mazepa street here," said Oleksandr Alfyorov, head of the UINP, at the unveiling of the bust.