Starokyivska Hill

The site of the state pantheon

The Russian Primary Chronicle records that in 980, before his conversion, Prince Vladimir of Kiev set up six wooden idols on a hill just outside his palace: Perun given pride of place with a silver head and golden moustache, alongside Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Simargl, and Mokosh. This was, as far as the chronicle records, a deliberate act of state religious policy by a newly established prince, drawing together gods from across the peoples he ruled rather than a single inherited local cult site. The hill is generally located in what is now the historic Starokyivska ("Old Kiev") Hill area of the city, near the later Desyatynna Church.

Dismantled in 988

After Vladimir's baptism and the mass conversion of Kiev in 988, the chronicle reports the same idols being torn down: Perun's image was bound to a horse's tail, dragged down the hill and beaten with sticks, then thrown into the Dnieper and, per the chronicle's account, escorted downstream past the rapids by men posted along the bank to make sure it did not wash ashore and be venerated again. The episode is one of the most vivid and specific passages in the whole chronicle, and is read by historians as much for what it says about Vladimir's political theater of conversion as for what it says about the gods themselves.