Visiting Kiev

Ukrainians in traditional costumes take part in an advertising event for a restaurant in downtown Kiev, Ukraine in this June 19, 2007 file photo. Founded over 1,500 years ago, Kiev is one of the oldest and historically richest cities in Eastern Europe. The site of the ancient Kievan Rus, it is considered the birthplace of Slavic civilization. The city endured the Mongol-Tatar invasion, was a provincial center in the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union and in 1991 finally became the capital of an independent Ukraine.