Do you know that the history of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and Pechersk district is full of curiosities that may sometimes change the traditional image of this part of the city? We will tell you stories from different eras - facts about everyday life and holidays, episodes from the lives of locals or travellers, about different functions of buildings over the centuries, as well as traditions, habits, sometimes annoying surprises or amusing incidents.

Did you know that:

A favorite cold beverage of the Lavra brethren of the 18th - early 20th centuries was a sour drink (“kysloshi”). According to the Lavra Cookbook to make this drink you should take three parts of barley malt, three parts of rye malt, one part of rye flour, one part of wheat flour, and one part of buckwheat flour. The sour drink, as kvass (bread drink) and beer, was brewed in the Lavra Lybidska Brewery. At the end of the 19th century, a wine cellar was built for this purpose. Its premises have been preserved to our time. Since in the documents of the Lavra archives this drink is called sometimes “semi-beer”, it can be assumed that the beverage had strength of around 2% alcohol similar to English ale.

Sour drinks were kept in barrels in the monastery's ice cellars. The beverage was pumped out with the help of copper pumps in order not to break the layer of ice. On the Great Feasts and on Sts. Anthony and Theodosius Day the sour drink was distributed to the brethren in their cells in the evenings, and on festive and solemn days it was served in mugs at the monastic meal.

By order of Metropolitan Filaret of Kyiv and Halych (Amphitheatrov) (1837–1854), the brethren began to serve at table a sour drink during the Lavra public dinners and temple feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God. That way the beverage became rather popular in Kyiv in the late 19th - early 20th centuries as “Lavra kvass”. It could be purchased in the monastery tea shop near the Dormition Church.

Kvass from Lavra wine cellar was delivered to the table of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky as the best one at that time in Kyiv (1918).

#Печерські_цікавинки

#Kyiv-Pechersk_curiosities

Picture captions:

1. The western façade of the old Lavra Refectory (1694–1893), where sour drink was served together with festive drinks during monastic meals.

2. A new Lavra wine cellar was arranged in the basement level of the building of the icon-painting school and workshop (1880–1883). The brethren began to make there sour drinks, which had previously been brewed in the Lybidska Brewery.