Yet there some places to visit in Kiev for those not completely ignorant in regard to the history of their city:

Owrucka street--somewhere up the hill over the old Podil industrial quarters, right above the Frunze and Podil'skyi Uzviz streets. There is an outstatnding example of the 30-ties soviet Social-Realist trend: a remarkable appartment building on the corner of the Owrucka vs. Nahirna streets. Though, there are some other interesting pre-WWII houses nearby, this tall house with a light-pink façade undoubtly dominates the whole quarter and makes unforgotable impression. It's truelly curious that i haven't heard neither about this building nor this Kiev corner at aLL, no matter i usually try to keep an eye on everything going about local culture. You may find it somewhat complicated to get there--i've did it on foot directly from my office, but you may try to seize the 31 bus route, near the Politechnichnyi Instytut subway station and go till the end. Or, artenativelly, wait for 18 trolleybus route on the Independence sq. and go out somewhere at the Bahhowutivs'ka stop.

Another interesting place is almost in the downtown, so the next time you'll be near Sofiyivs'ka sq. or Mykhaylivs'ka sq., don't miss the chance to see the unique Functionalist building of the early 30-ties on the Velyka Zhytomyrs'ka, 17--so called «Doctors' Building», designed by architect Pavel Aleshin. Lemme cite something about it:

One of the most famous Soviet buildings of the time. The building was planned as a four-storey living space with the fifth floor occupied by a library and club but during construction the design was changed into five storeys of appartments with a roof terrace. The building is an exceptional example of the use of the corner lot and traditional for the time in Kiev use of yellow and red brick. The interior was also designed by Alelshin with attention given to even such small details as door handles and flower containers.

This was an excerpt from the book «Great Expectations, Crashed Hopes: Disappearing Treasures of Constructivist Architecture of Ukraine and Azerbaijan» by Julia Bourianova (Kyiv, 2003). The book contains dozens of photos of Kiev buildings, to which i almost used to, as well as many interesting facts about Soviet architecture. Julia's narrative style is somewhat passionate and ironic wich is quite uncommon for the book about architecture. Be hurry to get this foliant in the your book market!