What is the correct way to spell and pronounce the capital of Ukraine?
No, this is not a fixture in the Ukrainian football league derby. Kyiv and Kiev are the Ukrainian and Russian spellings of the capital city, respectively. Most Westerners will be more used to the Russian version, but for rather obvious reasons 'Kyiv' is generally preferred in Ukraine. While the spelling issue is quite straight forward and easily explained, when it comes to the pronunciation, we're going to leave the explanation to this professor from Kansas University, as she does a very good job of it:
History of Kyiv & How It Got Its Name
So now that you're totally clear on how to both spell and pronounce the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, maybe it's time to find out how the name itself came to be. As with everything in this part of the world, the history Kyiv and how it got its name goes back quite some time, in the former case all the way back to pre-historic times, and in the latter to the 5th century.
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