On Saturday, 21 February 2026, the team of the Media Center Directorate organized a tour titled Secrets of the Mohyla Academy for representatives of the foreign diplomatic corps, during which guests visited one of the oldest Ukrainian universities and learnt about its history and contemporary life as a centre of education and science.
Among the participants in this insightful tour were Alexandru Victor Micula, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Romania, joined by his wife, as well as staff members of the embassies of Canada, Japan, Poland, Sweden, and representatives from the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Visits to leading educational institutions of Ukraine open new horizons for a deeper understanding of history, culture, and the state-building traditions of the Ukrainian nation. A prime example is the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy — one of the oldest universities in Ukraine, which holds 9th place in the consolidated rating of Ukrainian higher education institutions and continues the national university tradition, following the Ostroh Academy.
The history of this educational institution begins in 1615 with the founding of the Kyiv Brotherhood School, which was later merged with the Lavra School into a collegium under the patronage of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla. In subsequent years, it gained the status of an academy and became a powerful intellectual centre of Eastern Europe. Across different historical periods, the academy not only formulated educational standards but also influenced the development of social thought, science, and culture.
Among its graduates are figures who played a decisive role in the history of Ukraine: Hetman Ivan Mazepa, author of the first Ukrainian constitution Pylyp Orlyk, philosopher and thinker Hryhorii Skovoroda, architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi, and many other outstanding personalities.
The narrative of an experienced guide helped diplomats dive into the university’s early and modern history, learn about periods of decline and revival, the peculiarities of the educational process in past centuries, the everyday life of students, the traditions of rhetoricians and theologians, and student habits and entertainment.
The highlight of the tour was a visit to the NaUKMA Museum, whose exhibition traces the academy’s historical path and its revival from 1991 to the present. The revival of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy began in 1991 at the initiative of Viacheslav Briukhovetskyi, who became the first rector of the restored institution. The Academy’s return to its historic buildings in Podil was made possible with the support of Ivan Salii, Head of the Podil District Council, a member of the first convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Representative of the President of Ukraine in the city of Kyiv, and Head of the Kyiv City State Administration, who consistently supported the university’s revival and later contributed to its further development as prefect of the academy. Thanks to the presented museum collection, which allows visitors to trace the university’s development in the context of the establishment of independent Ukraine, every participant of the tour discovered interesting facts about one of the oldest Ukrainian higher education institutions.
During the tour, foreign guests were introduced to the historical buildings of the university, explored the cozy courtyard, and saw the oldest civil building in Kyiv, from which the history of the academy began, the majestic baroque Old Academic Building, and the 18th-century sundial. No less impressive was the diplomat’s acquaintance with the New Academic Building corridors, where tradition and modernity are harmoniously combined.
