Kyiv's waterfall is the outflow of a power station. Water leaves the CHP-5 plant near Vydubychi, runs two kilometres south down a straight canal through floodplain woods, and at one point steps some two metres over a concrete lip onto broken rock. That step is the Kyiv Waterfall.
Ask a Kyivan about it and you'll often get a raised eyebrow. It appears on no city itinerary and isn't a reason to visit Kyiv. But it is a real cascade inside the capital's limits, half an hour of mud path from a metro station.
Kyiv CHP-5 — TETs-5 in Ukrainian — is the country's largest combined heat and power plant: 700 MW electrical, its first 100 MW unit online in December 1971. Its discharge canal runs about two kilometres south from the industrial zone below the plant and ends at two hydraulic structures, one releasing into the Dnipro, the other feeding a fish farm's ponds. The cascade is simply where the canal drops. Published heights cluster around two metres and agree on little else; local accounts date the structure to the same 1970s build-out as the plant. The forest closed over it afterwards, which is why it reads as natural.
The cascade sits in urochyshche Pokol — also written Pokolit — on the right bank in Holosiivskyi district, off Stolychne Shose, between Lysa Hora and the Korchuvate neighbourhood. Kyivzelenbud lists Pokol as a municipal park of 49.9 hectares; the wooded massif around it runs past 73. Guides routinely file the place under Holosiivskyi National Nature Park, though the park's own territorial breakdown doesn't include it — parkland, forestry land and technical land interleave out here. The wood is damp deciduous floodplain, thick underfoot and loud with birds. Save the coordinates first: 50.3728, 30.5686. The paths all look alike.
No bus goes to the waterfall; Vydubychi metro is the usual start. Head towards the Dnipro, cross to the river side of Stolychne Shose and walk about two kilometres south to a long painted fence at the treeline. There are gates in it — take the second — then follow the canal, which does the navigating for you. Bus 54 down the highway shortens the road section. The trap is your phone: routing apps cheerfully draw a line straight through fenced technical ground nobody can cross, so study the satellite view and pick your entry. The last stretch is forest path, and after rain it is mud rather than path.
The cascade only works while the plant is discharging. Cut the flow and what remains is a bank of concrete slabs with rebar sticking out of them, and people have been finding exactly that for years. The war has made it less predictable still. Russian strikes in late December 2025 and again on 9 January 2026 damaged CHP-5 badly enough to halt it outright, and repairs have been slow. Check recent photographs before you commit to the walk. Spring and the days after heavy rain give the fullest flow; October gives the thinnest flow and the best pictures, when the floodplain wood turns.
Treat the waterfall as one stop on a longer day. Lysa Hora is the obvious pairing: a regional landscape park of 137.1 hectares since February 1994, topping out at 169.2 m, seventy-seven above the Dnipro, with the Lysohirskyi Fort — begun in 1872 as part of Totleben's ring of Kyiv fortifications — dug into its slopes. The hill has carried a reputation for witches' sabbaths since at least Oleksa Storozhenko's 1861 tale The Enamoured Devil. West of it lies Holosiivskyi forest, with lakes and made paths — easier going after the wild part of the day. Downhill are Zhukiv Island and the Halernyi Peninsula, and the fish-farm ponds, whose anglers give better directions than any app.
Boots you don't mind ruining, with grip: the concrete beside the water is slick, and the drop, low as it is, has no railing. Download an offline map — the signal thins among the trees. Go with someone; on a weekday you can spend hours here without passing anybody. And stay outside the fences: the energy and fish-farm installations next door are working, guarded property, and under martial law photographing energy infrastructure is prohibited in Ukraine. Keep the camera on the water and the trees.
За 20 хвилин тут уже не чути міського галасу й метушні. Сонце, тиша та мальовничі краєвиди справді варті поїздки, хоч майже відсутня дорога може добряче випробувати нерви водія. Але враження це повністю компенсують. Побачити, як жаба полює й обідає серед кувшинок, - особлива нагорода для киян, які можуть ненадовго сповільнити ритм міста і швидко повернутися до справ.
На жаль, заклад уже не працює. Попри це, саме місце справді чудове.
Дуже красивий водоспад і справді вражаюче місце. Для весільних фото - чудовий варіант. Дорогою до нього відкриваються фантастичні краєвиди. Територія чиста й охайна. Неподалік ще й можна порибалити в блакитному озері. Справжнє задоволення.
