Kyiv is unrecognizable: rare footage of the capital in the 60s is shown online. Video

Nowadays, Kyiv is a modern metropolis, generously dotted with high-rise buildings throughout its territory. However, half a century ago, the central part of the city looked completely different.

Halytska Square, where the capital's circus is located, and the adjacent streets were lined with low 2-3-story buildings built at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Facebook community "Kyiv Historical" showed what it looked like in rare footage.

The archival black-and-white video shows the landscapes of the capital around the 1960s. The footage shows Halytska Square, Dmytrivska, Bulvarno-Kudriavska, and Oles Honchar streets.

Until the 1950s, the circus site was a covered market where representatives of the Jewish community of Kyiv traded for almost a century. That is why this area was called the Jewish Bazaar, or Yevbaz for short. Public trade began here following an order issued by Governor General Ilarion Vasylchykov in February 1858. The market was demolished in the late 1950s to build a circus building in its place. It has been preserved in its original form to this day, and has also received the status of an architectural and urban planning monument of local significance.

Since then, several tram lines have been running here. The tram of that time can be seen in the video.

However, in the footage of Halytska Square, we do not see the 42-meter-high Victory Stele. It was erected much later, in 1982, to celebrate the 1500th anniversary of Kyiv. For a long time, it was decorated with a Soviet star and an order depicting Vladimir Lenin. Pursuant to the law on decommunization, they were removed, and the date of the beginning of the war on the ceiling was changed from 1941 to 1939. As you can see in the video, before the obelisk appeared, it was just a regular section of the road.

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