Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Ukraine

Standing on a bluff overlooking the Dnieper River is the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves, founded in 1015. This massive complex of churches and cloisters--a miniature city of gilt onion domes and spires--is built atop an underground labyrinth of catacombs, chapels, and monastic cells from which it takes its name.

Keywords: Kiev Pechersk Lavra; Kiev Pecherska Lavra; Monastery of the Caves; Kiev (Kyiv, Kyyiv, Knib); Ukraine (Ukrayina); former Soviet Union; USSR; eastern Europe; Christian religion; Christianity; eastern Orthodoxy; stock photography