The article examines the conditions of the functioning of the National museum-reserve «The Lavra of Caves in Kyiv» since its reestablishment in the 1940s and until the late 1960s. Special attention is devoted to the conclusions regarding the conditions of the museum-reserve functioning drawn by the Special Commission of the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of the Monuments of History and Culture after its investigation of the former in April–July 1967. The monument protection activities by the members of the Society – Ukrainian scholars and art students – are analyzed as a form of their everyday resistance against the policies of the Soviet state.