Attractions of Odesa region

The ruins of the once luxurious palace of the Dubecky-Pankeyevs on the shore of the pond on the Baraboy River attract the attention of everyone who drives along the Chisinau highway through Vasylivka. This manor house is called the "Wolf's Lair" because of the extraordinary figure of one of its former residents.

The estate in Vasylivka was founded in 1845 by Major General Vasyl Dubetsky. According to some sources, the construction of the palace was completed in 1854. It is possible that the architect was the author of the Potomkin Stairs, Odesa architect Frants Boffo. In terms of beauty, the manor house, as they say, was not inferior to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. It was surrounded by a park with fountains and exotic trees.

At the end of the 19th century, the manor was bought from the descendants of Dubetsky by the Tavry merchant Kostyantyn Pankeyev, who moved to Odesa from Kakhovka. His son Serhiy also lived here, who went down in history as the "Wolf Man", one of the most famous patients of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

The Dubecky-Pankeyevs palace building did not survive the revolution and the Soviet-Ukrainian war, but the ruins are well preserved.

The first snail eco-farm in the Odesa region, "Bessarabia Snails", was founded in 2016 in the village of Safyany near Izmail by local entrepreneurs Andriy Shyrenkov and Serhiy Shulha. The farm is located in an ecologically clean area, on the shore of Lake Safyany in the lower reaches of the Danube.

Edible snails of the European breed Helix aspersa Muller are grown here on natural feed, without using any chemicals. A full production cycle is organized here - from eggs to semi-finished products suitable for transportation and ready-made dishes that can be tasted right on the spot.

For guests of the eco-farm "Bessarabia Snails", excursions are held, during which they show the snail brood chamber in an old village house, where snails lay their eggs, as well as premises for breeding, growing and fattening snails.

The farm has a tasting room with a panoramic view of Lake Safyany, where you can taste snail dishes in cold weather. And during the summer heat, large open gazebos are better suited for tastings. If desired, visitors can organize fishing, hold master classes. There is a playground for children.

Ecofarm "Bessarabia Snails" is a participant in the project "Wine and Taste Route of Ukrainian Bessarabia".

The Embroidery Museum was created in her house by Nina Hryshchuk, a resident of the village of Nehrove. The museum's exposition is located in five rooms, which present embroidered paintings by famous artists, towels, napkins, sheets, carpets, and colorful pillows.

Nina Hryshchuk began embroidering at the age of 12. Her mother taught her to embroider. She passed on her skills to her daughter Olha and granddaughter Dariya. The craftswoman is happy to conduct master classes and share embroidery techniques with museum visitors.

The Embroidery Museum of the village of Nehrove is a branch of the Nadiia Local Lore Museum.

The Novoselivka Village People`s Ethnographic Museum "Casa Perintyaske" was created in the village of Novoselivka in 2010 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the village's founding. It is a structural unit of the municipal institution "Novoselivka Village House of Culture".

The museum's exposition recreates the traditional life of a Moldovan village, since Novoselivka is a center where ethnic Moldovans live harmoniously and with dignity. Many documents and photographs are presented that tell about the history of the village and its prominent personalities, traditional household items, tools, antique products, etc.

Master classes are held on weaving national Moldovan carpets and rugs. Anyone can learn to weave carpets from woolen threads in various techniques and rugs from strips cut from fabric in the "nitsurka" technique on looms installed in the "Casa Perintyaske" museum.

School Ethnographic Museum "Ukrainian House" is located on the territory of Nerubaiske Academic Lyceum No. 1.

In the open air, an authentic Ukrainian mud house is presented here, which corresponds to the life of Ukrainian peasants of the 19th century. The center of the old house is a Ukrainian stove with a traditional painting of the Tree of Life at that time.

The exposition presents embroidered Ukrainian towels, various ceramic products and tableware brought from the east and west of the Odesa region.

Walking through the rooms of the museum, you can see how Ukrainians lived and what they did in the old days, how they spun on manual spinning wheels, how carpets, paths and other household items were made by hand.

The Ethnographic Museum of Bulgarian Culture "Голямата къща" (from Bulgarian - "big room, living room") is located on the second floor of the House of Culture of the village of Kamchyk.

The museum's exposition is located in three spacious halls and is thematically divided into several sections: a reduced copy of the house of Bulgarian settlers with an internal layout of three rooms, "Bulgarian Weaving", "Land Cultivation and Agricultural Tools", "History of the Resettlement to Kamchyk", "Rites and Traditions of Kamchykans", "Volga and Danube Bulgaria", "Silver Ancient Women's Jewelry", "Money of Bessarabia", "Authentic Clothing - Northern (Northern Costume) and Southern Bulgaria (Rhodope Costume)".

During a tour of the museum, visitors are introduced to the traditions and folk rituals of Kamchych people - the intricacies of weddings, family relations between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law, the peculiarities of respectful treatment of men as heads of families, preparation of inheritance for girls, etc.

Organized tourist groups are met with a Hayda (a Bulgarian musical folk instrument), a tasting of traditional Bulgarian cuisine and a master class on the Bulgarian folk dance "Horo".

In addition, in the museum, the collectives of the House of Culture show seasonal Bulgarian folk rituals for guests.

In 2020, the "Голямата къща" museum was included in the Program of Activities within the framework of the implementation of the UNESCO Convention "For the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage".

The Experimentarium is the first branch of the Odesa Museum of Interesting Science. It opened at the end of January 2024 in the Atrium shopping center after the destruction of the main space of the Museum of Interesting Science on Shevchenko Avenue in the summer of 2023 by a Russian missile strike.

The museum team managed to save almost all of its exhibits, with the exception of special rooms, and after only 7 months, the Museum moved part of its exposition to a new location and continued its work as an Experimentarium with 23 exhibits of the collection. Now everyone who wants to can visit this space in the Atrium shopping center, which helps children to distract themselves from the war for 1.5-2 hours with scientific experiments.

If in other museums you can't even touch the valuable exhibits, then in the Experimentarium you can not only touch, check, feel and see everything in action. Both children and adults can conduct interesting experiments and unusual experiments.

The main task of the Experimentarium is to show schoolchildren and students that even the most difficult tasks and the longest formulas can be exciting, if you just look at them from a different angle.

The Experimentarium aims to teach subjects of the natural cycle: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, mathematics and many other fields of knowledge.

On April 12, 2024, the Museum of Interesting Science resumed its work at a new location in the Primorsky district of Odesa.

Cheese dairy "Shchedra Okolytsia"  is a small experimental family production with modern equipment and its own cheese cellar. The company manufactures traditional and original cheeses and dairy products.

The family cheese dairy is located in a unique place - near the beginning of one of the famous Trayan's Walls in the village of Tabaky on the outskirts of Bolhrad.

Within the framework of the project "Wine and Taste Route of Ukrainian Bessarabia", the founders of the enterprise Halyna and Petro Kurdov aim to preserve and popularize traditional Bessarabian cheeses, to restore forgotten recipes.

The cheese dairy "Shchedra Okolytsia" conducts excursions with visits to production shops and basements, where cheeses ripen in the cold. Guests are shown the production process of cheese making, during which all operations are carried out manually. After the tour, guests can be offered a tasting of finished products and workshops on the production of cheese.

The Odesa Football Museum is located in the Chornomorets Stadium complex. Opened in 2012 after the reconstruction of the stadium.

The exposition tells about the history of Odesa football and FC "Chornomorets" since the founding of the club in 1936. Photos of all football players who played for the club, coaches, the first matches with the participation of the Chornomorets team are presented.

The form of players of different periods, boots, goalkeeper gloves, balls, etc. is of the greatest interest.

During the tour you can visit the bowl of the stadium, locker rooms, technical areas, conference hall.

A branch of the Greek Cultural Foundation (Athens) was opened in Odesa in 1994 in a historic building, where in 1814 a secret revolutionary-patriotic organization "Filiki Eteria" was established, which was engaged in preparing the national liberation movement in Greece. 

The museum was founded in 1979 as a department of the Odesa Historical and Local Lore Museum. The completion of construction work and the transfer of the Museum to its historical site were made possible thanks to the contribution of Greek organizations in Odesa.

The museum's exposition demonstrates the activities and life of the Greek colony in Odesa in the pre-revolutionary period.

Later, a new local history department was opened with objects that recreate the interior of the house of the former mayor of Odesa and a famous public figure, Hrihoriy Marazli, in the premises of which the museum is now located.

The Fine Arts Museum named after Oleksandr Biliy is located in the center of the city of Chornomorsk opposite the central entrance to the Primorsky Park.

The museum was opened in 1978 as an exhibition of fine arts and porcelain. It is named after the outstanding Ukrainian collector Oleksandr Biliy, on the basis of whose private collection the museum was created.

The museum funds include over three thousand exhibits, each of which is a masterpiece in the field of applied art. The porcelain collection contains exhibits that come from over 30 porcelain factories around the world and covers the period from the 18th century to the present day.

The museum lobby houses three panels by the famous Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas, who was born in Chornomorsk. The concert and exhibition hall of the Oleksandr Biliy Museum of Fine Arts hosts exhibitions by famous foreign and Ukrainian artists.

The Izmail Memorial Park-Museum "Fortress" was created in 1991 to protect the historical territory of the Izmail Fortress of the XVI-XIX centuries and other architectural monuments of the city.

The administration and exhibition halls of the museum are located in an old one-story building in the city center. The exposition consists of one large hall and three rooms, which shows the history of the formation and development of the fortress of Ishmael, reflects the life of the medieval city.

In the courtyard of the museum there is a Park of Miniatures, which exhibits models of objects that took place in Turkish Ishmael in the XVI-XVIII centuries: a general view of the fortress, the Broska Gate, the stone bastion of Tabia, the Red Mosque in the Tatar districts, the Small Mosque diorama "Assault on the fortress of Izmail"), St. Nicholas Church, residential buildings, caravanserai, city fountain. The miniatures are made at a scale of 1:30.

A sightseeing tour of the main sights of the city of Izmail is offered.

The "Free Roses Country" farm was created in 1995 by amateur florist Mykola Hromlyuk.

The farmer breeds more than 500 varieties of roses here, including unique ones. On 20 hectares of former fields of a local poultry farm, tens of thousands of seedlings are grown at the same time.

The "Rose Republic" is popular as a tourist attraction - there are tours with tastings of rose jam and liqueur, which are prepared according to unique recipes from the petals of especially fragrant varieties.

Roses on the farm bloom from spring to late autumn, but it is better to choose May-June to visit the "Free Roses Country".

The Izmail Museum of History and Local Lore of the Danube Region was founded in Izmail in 1990.

Located in an old two-story mansion of the late XIX century, which belonged to the Bessarabian landowner and mayor Fedir Tulchianov.

The museum's collection includes more than 40,000 exhibits. The exhibition area of ​​about 1,000 square meters features permanent exhibitions: "Ancient History and Archeology of the Lower Danube", "Turkish Izmail", "Contribution of the Tulchianovy Merchant Dynasty to the Development of Izmail", "World War I in Memory of Izmail", Gloty Hall and the pavilion of nature.

You can see archeological finds, precious coins and jewelry, ceramics, furniture, watches, musical instruments, samples of folk and secular (salon) clothing and more. Of particular note is the collection of costumes of the museum theater "Sophocles", created in the style of different eras: Kyivan Rus X-XI centuries, aristocratic and folk clothing of the XVI-XIX centuries.

The theater, which employs museum staff, shows a number of performances and mini-performances.

The courtyard of the museum with flower beds, trees and exotic shrubs is open to the public, where an old two-storey 19th-century Balkan-style wing with a wooden gallery on the second floor and a corner tower is located.

The Museum of the History of Fire Protection of Odesa operates on the territory of the Third State Fire and Rescue Department of the city, where a fire and technical exhibition operated for 20 years, and now the history of fire protection of the Odesa region from the beginning of its foundation to the present has been collected here.

In the hall of memory of the Chornobyl accident, a diorama "Explosion at the Fourth Power Unit of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant" is installed, made according to the sketches of the specialist of the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region Larysa Leonova.

Among the exhibits of the museum's exposition you can see models of ancient and modern fire equipment, a horse-drawn barrel train, a manual fire pump of the 19th century, real fire equipment, archival photographs of the 18th-19th centuries, and reduced copies of fire equipment.

Only group tours are held by prior arrangement.