Dear Hritzko and Andrij,
Actually, St Michael was the patron of Kyiv and of Ukraine.
For about four hundred years, the icon of St Michael eclipsed the Trident emblem as the coat of arms of Ukraine, as we read in "Ukraine a Concise Encyclopaedia"
. (I've had some time to read in the last few weeks . . .)
St Barbara was so popular in Kyiv that tourists often received a copy of an akathist to her as a souvenir.
The Kozaks had St Michael and St Nicholas, as well as St George as their patrons.
A number of these saints also seemed to replace ancient pagan gods in accordance with perceived similarities between them.
The first Christian Church in Kyivan Rus' was to St Elias and it was built on the site of a former pagan temple to "Perun" I believe, the god of thunder - and this was, of course, because Elias was the patron against lightning and thunder.
When it came to the pagan god, Elias literally "stole his thunder" in more ways than one . . .
Alex
(we're a strong and noisy minority here on the Forum; you want to get on our good side now, before the coup 
) .