The microscopic world - the world that usually goes unnoticed, walked over as our giant footsteps make great indentations in it - is now keenly the centerpiece of a wonderful permanent exhibition in Kyiv.
The Museum of Micro Miniatures is open daily and you can view it alongside a variety of other sites inside the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. A list of various galleries and museums are ahead as you enter. You'll need time inside the gates to wander and look around.
 Who would ever dream of making miniature shoes for a flea? Only the creator, eccentric, curious and highly skilled Mykola Syadristy. Why did he choose to dwell on the microscopic world and to expose such amazing creations? Was it the challenge of doing something so very different that drove him on? The artist's work has to be viewed through a microscope because the art is too small to be viewed with the naked eye.
The viewer is taking part in the process of bridging art, science and technology together.
This is one of life's treasures in the heart of Kyiv and if you haven't seen it yet then you must. A short queue outside (as there has to be a restriction on how many people enter at one time) then you are staring into a pair of large microscopic lenses that changes your world forever.
The exhibition holds a particular interest for children who love the unexpected and magical.
Small is beautiful and the beauty of these creations is that they are works of art in miniature, created by the artist. Syadristy set himself many challenging feats of ingenuity such as the welding of gold shoes to his fat house flea? Have you ever imagined just what a flea might look like in an extreme close up?
Other works include a life-size mosquito made of gold; a girl with an umbrella sits on its proboscis. Like a watchmaker with the meticulous demands of his craft, Syadristy's technique combines the use of fine instruments with the imagination of the artist to create these masterpieces.
A gold charioteer complete with chariot inside the eye of a needle, the parts of the image are 500 times smaller than that of a human hair, another piece shows a chessboard placed on a pin head. The actual chess moves are the ones made by Alexander Aliokhin represented by the black pieces on the chess board and his opponent, Raul Capablanca.
 Syadristy has devoted many years to this microscopic art, meticulously created as he works behind a microscope and pieces together fragments of beauty many times smaller than the natural size of the object.
Gold and other precious metals as well as many natural materials like apple, pear, grape seeds, rice corns and cherry and grape stones are used. These are engraved or inlaid with a keen eye and imagination. Many depict famous Ukrainian people in semi-relief beautifully carved, cameo-style renderings.
Mykola Syadristy was born in 1937 and educated at the Kharkiv Art College, Ukraine. Since his formal education he has worked in many roles and gained valuable skills along the way. Today, he holds the title of Honored Master of Folk Arts Ukraine. He is like all great geniuses that realized a dream and saw it through. These works are marvels and remain unchallenged; they are awe-inspiring and have been shown all over the world.
All images included with this article originated in the catalogue produced by the Museum of Micro Miniatures, a permanent exhibition of the Kyiv Pechersk Museum, Sichnevoho Povstannya 21, telephone: 290 3071. The museum is open in the Upper Lavra area from 9.30 am- 18.00 pm daily.
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