The Kiev Fortress, also known as the Pechersk Fortress, is a generic name for the 19th century fortification buildings situated in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, that once belonged to the system of western Russian fortresses. These structures (once a united complex) were built in the Pechersk and neighbourhoods by the Russian Imperial army. Now some of the buildings are restored and turned into a museum called the Kiev Fortress, while others are in use by various military and commercial installations.
Having lost their military importance in the 20th century, the buildings continued to be used as barracks, storage and incarceration facilities. Some of them played independent historical roles. The Kosyi Caponier ("Skew Caponier") became a prison for the political inmates in the 1900s–1920s and was later turned into a Soviet museum. Now it is the center of the modern museum. A small fortress built in 1872 on the legendary Lysa Hora ("Bald Mountain") in 1906 became a place of executions for convicted political inmates. It is now a landscape reserve and part of the museum complex.

Kiev Fortress

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The Klov Palace (Ukrainian: Кловський палац) is the seat of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in Kiev. The building takes its name from Klov, a neighbourhood of Pechersk District where it is situated. Architect Stephen Kovnir supervised the construction of the building elements which is thought to have been designed by Johann-Gottfried Shedel and Pyotr Neyelov.
The Baroque residence was constructed between 1752 and 1756 with funds provided by Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The Russian royals were expected to stay at the palace during their visits to the monastery, as they did in a wooden palace that had preceded it. The architects are thought to have been Johann-Gottfried Schedel and Pyotr Neyelov. The actual construction was supervised by Stepan Kovnir. The main hall has the plafond frescoed in 1760. A formal garden was laid out around the palace.
The palace was never visited by any royals, however, and it was not long before it fell into ill repair. Catherine II of Russia, when passing through Kiev in 1787, preferred Mariyinsky Palace for her residence. It was gutted by a fire in 1858 and was rebuilt soon after with the addition of an upper storey and the side wings. The palace burnt down in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. A restoration process was undertaken in the 1970s.

Klov Palace

Mariyinsky Palace is the official ceremonial residence of the President of Ukraine in Kiev and adjoins the neo-classical building of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine. It is a Baroque palace on the hilly bank of the Dnieper River.
The palace was ordered to be constructed in 1744 by the Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, and was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the most famous architect working in the Russian Empire at that time. One of the students of Rastrelli, Ivan Michurin, together with a group of other architects, completed the palace in 1752. Empress Elizabeth, however, did not live long enough to see the palace. The first royal figure to stay in the palace was Empress Catherine II, who visited Kiev in 1787. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the palace was the main residence of Governors-General.
In the early 19th century, the palace burned down in a series of fires. Roughly half a century later, in 1870, Alexander II of Russia had the palace reconstructed by the architect Konstantin Mayevsky, using old drawings and watercolours as guide. It was then renamed after the reigning Empress Maria Alexandrovna. By her wish, a large park was established off the southern side of the palace. The palace was used as a residence for visiting members of the imperial family until 1917.
During the years of the Russian Civil War in 1917-20, the palace was used as the Kiev revkom headquarters, particularly during the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising. In the 1920s the building belonged to an agricultural school, soon after which it became a museum. The Mariyinsky was badly damaged in World War II, and restored at the end of the 1940s. Another major restoration was completed in the early 1980s.