Volodarka district occupies 646 km² or 2.2% of Kyiv region. The flatness of the local landscape makes the district a cozy one. Taking into account the amenable disposition of local residents, it is hardly possible imagining that they actively participated in the uprising led by Nalyvaiko, and that in the liberation war led by Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi they were the main driving force behind the uprising in the Kyiv region. A famous Haidamak’s leader Martyn Teslia, whose detachments were destroying the estates of the nobility, was born here…

As it is with many other towns along the Ros’ river, the rise of Volodarka, a village on the Ros’, 32 km from Skvyra is connected with the construction of fortresses to defend Kyiv from Polovets and Tatars. The Kyiv Rus’ mounds still remain here, for instance, The Tsar’s Grave and Orlykha. The first written record of Volodarka (Volodariv) dates back to 1150. In 1240 the Mongols destroyed Volodarka. Since those times and for almost two hundred years after that it has not been mentioned in historical documents. A new settlement was established there only in the mid-fifteenth century.

A picturesque village of Parkhomivka sprawls over Volodarka district in the Kyiv region close to the Tarhan river. The village was founded as early as the sixteenth century, in the nineteenth century it came into ownership of the famous Russian engineer V. Holubev. In a short period of time he built a school, handicraft school for the boys and girls, a library, a hospital, etc. After the death of V. Holubev in 1903 the building activities in Parkhomivka were carried on by his successors. Wishing to immortalize their father, they decided to build a majestic cathedral with a chapel there. They commissioned a famous architect V. Pokrovs’kyi.

The centerpiece of the St Mary-the-Protectress Church complex is the cathedral. This building consists of three aisles and one conch, and culminates with the helmet-like cupola.

The frescos, made by the painter V. Perminov based on the sketches of M. Rerikh, decorate the cathedral conch. Blue colors enrich the frescos with elegance and freshness, characteristic of the M. Rerikh easel works.

The mosaics are the main decoration of the cathedral; they are made based on the M. Rerikh’s sketches at the shops of the famous mosaics painter V. Frolov in St Petersburg. Depending upon the light, its intensity and their incidence, mosaic icons look differently: smalt colors are either flashing out brightly, glimmer, or completely fade away. Such an effect stimulates special sensation and raised spirits.