House of Actors, Kiev

The Karaite Kenassa (Now the House of Actors) on 7 Yaroslaviv Val
Another object in Kyiv with a link to Turkey is the Karaite Kenassa. In the Middle Ages, Istanbul was one of the main centers of the Karaites, an ethnically Turkic sect who professed Judaism. In the nineteenth century there were more than 3000 Karaites in Turkey, making them the largest such community in the world. Today they are very few –elderly people of Turkish extraction scattered here and there. The first Karaites appeared on Ukrainian territory in the twelfth century - immediately after the Mongols took Crimea. There’s even a kenassa, or Karaite temple, here in Kyiv, just like in Istanbul. It’s at 7 Yaroslaviv Val, in the building that the Actors House now occupies. In the late Soviet era, the ‘Zorya’ cinema was located there. It was built at the end of the nineteenth century by the Kyiv architect Vladislav Horodetsky, who built the famous House of the Chimeras.

What's On Kiev