Once Vladimir had secured his bride from a distinctly reluctant Emperor Basil and brought her in triumph to Kiev, he provided her with a setting worthy of her heritage. Kiev soon boasted a stone-built palace complex and the beginnings of a proliferation of stone churches amid its fleet of wooden buildings, remaking the city in a Christian mould. Byzantine in style were the monumental architecture, mosaics and frescoes – naturally no statues – together with the liturgy which they sheltered, but individual features took on a local life of their own.
cultural conversion
