It is located in a natural boundary surrounded by wooded Dnieper hills, on a peninsula washed from the southeast by lakes. The name of the tract comes, apparently, from the Turkic word "kitai" ("strengthening", "fortress"). One of these hills, which bounds the tract from the east and is separated from the monastery by lakes, is called China Mountain. The ramparts of the ancient Russian settlement, which was an outpost on the southern approaches to Kiev, have been preserved here. This fortress was preceded by a small fortification on the site of the current desert, protected from the northwest by a moat and rampart, and from the other sides by water. During construction at the beginning 11th century the fortresses on the mountain, the described ditch and rampart, were destroyed, and a settlement arose on the peninsula, which eventually reached enormous proportions. People lived in it after the Mongol invasion, in the 15th century.

In the ХV1-ХVП centuries. Hermitage lovers from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra founded a cave monastery on Kitay-mountain, and on the site of the current buildings of the desert - a ground-based Lavra monastery.
In the XVIII century. in Kitaev, the Monk Dosithea (+1776) became famous for her great deeds. She was born in 1721 in the family of the Ryazan noblemen Tyapkins (they descended from Vasily Vargos, a participant in the Battle of Kulikovo, who became a devious St. Prince Dimitri Donskoy). From 2 to 9 years old, Daria (the worldly name of the Reverend) was brought up in the Moscow Kremlin Ascension Monastery by her own grandmother, nun Porfiria, who monastics there (the monastery was founded by the widow of St. Demetrius of the Don, Venerable Euphrosyne; m. Porfiria retired under the prayerful intercession of the holy princess, from whose husband the ancestors of the Tyapkins received wealth and nobility for their faithful service). Having become a real nun in 7 years in her way of life, Daria, upon returning to her parents' house, did not want to lead a secular noble life and labored in piety. At the age of 15, fearing marriage and the fading of her desire for God, Daria secretly left her relatives. Fearing to be found and forcibly returned, the ascetic took the example of Saints Euphrosyne and Marina, who fled under male names in male monasteries: she bought peasant clothes, cut her hair and called herself a fugitive serf Dositheus. The low voice, the steady gait, and the emaciated tanned face made it impossible to recognize the girl in "Dosifeya". For three years she worked at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Once Daria's relatives came to the monastery and identified the fugitive, but the latter immediately disappeared and went to Kyiv, where on Kitay-mountain, not wanting to use the fruit of someone else's labor, she dug a separate cave for herself and settled in it. Dozens of years of harsh wilderness life attracted the attention of the world to "Dositheus", full of reverent respect. It was possible, however, to talk with the ascetic only through the cave window. In 1744 Empress Elizaveta Petrovna visited Dositheus. In her presence, Daria was tonsured into a cassock with the name Dositheus (as before, no one knew the secret of the ascetic: from the harsh deeds, the appearance of the Reverend could less and less give rise to suspicion over time).
It is from Rev. Dosifei received a blessing in Kitaev to go to the Sarov monastery, the future great elder, Ven. Seraphim. One day, a sister visited the Reverend and said that Daria, who had once disappeared, had not yet been found. The ascetic, naturally not being recognized (the conversation took place through the same window), advised her sister not to look for Daria, who had left home for the sake of the Lord, but to rejoice in her spiritual calling.

When hermitage was forbidden in the Russian Empire, the Reverend moved to the Far Caves in the Lavra and spiritually raised here the future famous Solovetsky ascetic Theophan (d. 1819; with the blessing of the ascetic, he was for some time in the obedience of St. she herself indicated to Feofan to go to the Solovki). The ascetic spent the last four years of her earthly life in the land-based Kitayevsky skete.
"Elder Dositheus" was found in his cell reposed on his knees in front of the lectern (in the same way, St. Seraphim of Sarov reveres in the Lord). In the hand of the "old man" there was a note with a request to bring the body prepared for burial to the ground "without touching it", which the Kitaev brethren fulfilled. When later the sister of the Reverend visited Kyiv a second time and saw the portrait of the "old man", everyone finally learned the secret of the ascetic.

All R. 19th century in the desert labored for Christ for the sake of the foolish hieroschemamonk Theophilus (d. 1853), a widely known and deeply revered elder, who had the gift of clairvoyance and miracles. Vladimir Shepelev, the future Kiev-Pechersk ascetic Ven. Alexy (died in 1917). Volodya, the elder predicted asceticism in the rank of hieromonk.

In the second floor. 19th century in the monastery he worked and buried his mother Mary and another holy fool of Kyiv glorified in the face of the saints of Christ for the sake of - the cassock monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Paisius (d. 1893). Before being transferred from the Lavra to Kitaevo, he also visited St. Theophilus.
In the desert, the ascetic of piety, holy fool John Bosyi (Kovalevsky, d. 1855), known in his time in Kyiv, was buried.
In the 30s. 20th century the monastery was abolished. The revival of the desert began with the discovery in the beginning. 1990s parish in its stone altar church (erected in 1763-1767 in the Ukrainian baroque style on the site of a dilapidated wooden church of St. Sergius of Radonezh, erected in 1716; during the restructuring of 1854 and 1892-1893 acquired a modern look ; five chapters are set with a straight cross; had side-chapels of St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Demetrius of Rostov; retains the status of a parish). In the square to the north of the temple, the relics of St. Dosifei. Nearby are tombstones on the former grave of St. Theophilus (the relics were found in 1993 and openly rest in the desert) and on the grave of the first abbot of the revived monastery, Elder Schema-Archimandrite Theophilus (d. 1996). Northwest of the Trinity Church is the Church of Sts. 12 Apostles (1835; domeless), and to the south stood a four-tiered bell tower (1835; classicism) that has not come down to us. Kitaevskaya Street separates the church of St. Seraphim of Sarov (the handrails and epitrachelion of this Pleasant are kept in the monastery), attached in 1904 to the building of the Lavra almshouse (1871, expanded in 1900; one-story, wooden, lined with bricks). Monastic caves have been preserved on Kitai Gora, some of which were built in 1990-1993. cleared and landscaped for visiting by the efforts of the staff of the scientific department "Kyiv-Underground" at the Museum of the History of Kyiv and the brethren of the desert (the specified department is engaged in research and protection of monastic dungeons). In the second floor. 19th century an underground room for the temple lined with bricks was arranged here. During the construction work, an unknown monk approached the monks working on the mountain and said: “It’s a good idea, pleasing to God, and there really will be a church, but it won’t be built soon,” after which he became invisible. And indeed, only in our days in the described underground chamber was a church consecrated in the name of St. Dositheus of Kiev-Kitaevskaya. Monastic cells with earthen walls and benches have been preserved in the caves. This is how the Lavra caves originally looked. The monastery has an almshouse and a pilgrimage hotel.