Ar-Rahma Mosque

Kyiv is a capital of nearly three million with a single purpose-built congregational mosque, and it took more than a century of false starts to raise it. Ar-Rahma — Arabic for ‘mercy’ — stands on the green slopes of Tatarka, a short climb above the noise of Podil, its white minaret and turquoise dome catching the light over the rooftops.

It was finished only in 2011, the end of a project first attempted in the 1890s, and it remains the principal mosque and gathering point for the city's Muslims.

From 1897 to 2011

Kyiv's Muslims first opened a prayer house in 1897, in a rented building down in Podil, when several hundred — by some counts more than 1,700 — Muslims lived in the city. A proper mosque was designed in 1913 and its cornerstone reportedly laid, but the First World War, revolution and seven decades of Soviet rule buried the plan.

Independence revived it. The Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine (DUMU) was founded in 1992 under Sheikh Ahmad Tamim, and a mosque for the capital was among its first goals. The city granted a plot on Tatarka on 5 February 1996, and building began slowly, paid for mostly by worshippers and by donors from Muslim countries. Friday prayers were held in the half-finished hall by 1998, the crescent went up on the dome around 2000, and the complex formally opened in December 2011.

Volcanic tuff and a turquoise dome

Designed by the architect Oleksandr Komarovskyi, Ar-Rahma is a complex rather than a single building — classical Islamic architecture engineered for Kyiv's damp winters. Its pale walls are clad in volcanic tuff brought from Azerbaijan, chosen to shrug off frost and rain. The main hall carries a dome about six metres across under a gilded crescent, ringed by smaller copper cupolas that have weathered to dark green.

The tallest note is the minaret: a slender white tower roughly 27 metres high, with a spiral stair of around 118 steps inside, once the platform from which the muezzin called the faithful to prayer. Daylight falls through coloured glass onto more than a thousand square metres of Turkish carpet. The prayer hall runs to some 3,200 square metres and holds up to 3,000 people.

A community older than the mosque

The congregation is older and more mixed than the building suggests. Nizhny Novgorod Tatars — traders and craftsmen — settled around Tatarka and the Zhytniy market in the 19th century and, by one account, gave the district its name. Today it draws in Crimean Tatars, people from the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Arab world, and Ukrainian converts, held together by DUMU. A madrasa and Islamic courses run alongside the mosque, and the festivals of Ramadan and Kurban-Bayram (Eid al-Adha) fill the halls with thousands.

The interior rewards a quiet look — high columns, calligraphy, and the geometric and floral ornament of an art that depicts no people or animals. By the community's account the mosque keeps a relic, a hair of the Prophet Muhammad, which its custodians will show to those who ask.

How to visit

Ar-Rahma sits at vul. Luk'yanivska 46, on the quiet green edge of Tatarka. The nicest approach is on foot from Kontraktova Ploshcha metro in Podil — 15–20 minutes uphill through the slopes. Entry is free and respectful visitors are welcome, but this is a working house of prayer first.

Dress modestly, covering shoulders and knees; women are usually asked to cover their hair, and a scarf can often be borrowed at the door. You'll leave your shoes at the prayer hall, so wear something easy to slip off. Come on a quiet weekday rather than at Friday midday or on the great festivals, when the mosque is full; keep your voice down, and never photograph people at prayer. Ask, though — the staff are generous with anyone curious about the place.

Shchekavytsia, Podil and old Tatarka

The mosque anchors an easy walk through some of the oldest ground in Kyiv. Just uphill is Shchekavytsia, the hill folklore ties to Shchek, one of the legendary brothers said to have founded the city; its old Muslim cemetery, from the 19th and 20th centuries, links straight back to the congregation's story. Downhill, Podil opens out — Kontraktova Ploshcha, the Zhytniy market, churches and coffee. Tatarka itself feels half-village despite the nearby centre, all steep lanes and sudden views. Strung together, they make a few hours of very different Kyivs.