Attractions of Lutsk district

The Lutsk "House with chimeras" is the most colorful residential building in the city. Belongs to the family of the modern sculptor Mykola Holovan.

Built on the banks of the Styr River according to the project of the architect Rostislav Metelnytskyi, the workshop building is decorated with many stone sculptures in different styles, which creates an impression of complete eclecticism. Here you can find figures of fairy-tale heroes and mythical creatures along with sculptures of saints.

During his lifetime, the owner of the building personally conducted tours with an inspection of the interiors decorated with sculptures with antique motifs. Mykola Holovan died in early 2022, after which his wife Tamara announced plans to open a museum in the house. Since July 2022, the sculptor's widow has opened not only the courtyard, but also the inner rooms of the house to tourists.

The Volyn Icon Museum in Lutsk represents the regional school of Volyn icon painting, which is distinguished by its original character, style, and manner of execution of icons.

The creation of the collection is associated with the name of art critic Pavlo Zholtovsky, who led the scientific expeditions of the Volyn Museum of Local Lore in the 1980s to study and collect historical and cultural material in the temples of Volyn.

The exhibition presents more than 1.5 thousand works of sacred art, including about 600 icons of the Volyn art school of the XVI-XVIII centuries, works of metal, decorative carvings and sculptures.

One of the most valuable exhibits is the Byzantine icon of the Kholm Mother of God (XI-XII centuries). According to legend, it was written in Jerusalem by the apostle-evangelist Luke. It was the ancestral shrine of Prince Danylo Halytsky.

The center of traditional culture "Honey House" (Medova Khata) was opened in Lutsk on the initiative of the Volyn brotherhood of beekeepers "Swarm condition" (Royovyy stan).

The center tells about the ancient culture of beekeeping, production and use of honey and honey cosmetics. Two halls for 50 seats.

There are tours with tastings.

Beekeeping products are offered: honey of different grades, honey drinks (mead, drinking honey), cosmetics, apitherapy products.

The entrance Lutsk Gate is the only building of the once powerful external city fortifications of Olyka that has survived.

It was built in the 30s of the 17th century. The fortifications included earth ramparts, walls and two gates. The two-level tower of the Lutsk Gate is characterized by loopholes in the form of an inverted keyhole.

The restoration of the Lutsk Gate is underway.

One of the oldest residential buildings in Lutsk, known as the "House of Peter I", is located next to the pedestrian street of Lesya Ukrainka, on the former outskirts of the old city. Despite repeated reconstructions, it retains its archaic appearance.

On the site of this building, since 1227, there was a Vasylivsky Monastery, founded by Prince Vasylko Romanovich, which existed until 1607. Sviatovasylivska Street is named in his honor.

There is no exact information about the date of construction of the residential building on the site of the monastery, but it certainly existed in the 17th century. According to legend, in 1709, the Moscow Tsar Peter I stayed there on his way to Poland. Previously, this was announced by a memorial plaque, which was removed during the decommunization and decolonization of Lutsk.

The one-story brick house was built according to the principle of "a house in two halves" under a hipped roof. The left wing has retained its original appearance, while the right wing was significantly rebuilt in the 19th century. The main dominant of the central facade is a four-column Doric order portal with two side staircases and a platform above the entrance to the cellar.

During Soviet times, the "Peter I House" housed the city sanitary and epidemiological station, and a cafe-bar was located in the basement.

The chapel of Saint Tekla is located on a small mound on the western edge of the city of Berestechko.

The mound was built in memory of the tragedies of 1658, when the Tatars destroyed the city and captured 750 of its inhabitants, including 43 nuns of a Catholic monastery with an abbess named Teklya. According to legend, about half a thousand captured girls (Ukrainian and Polish girls) refused to follow the invaders and were executed, and the Tatars used their bodies to make a way for passage through the swamp.

The chapel, built in 1698 on the grave of tortured girls, was named after the first martyr Saint Tekla.

The open-air museum of the History of Agriculture of Volyn (skansen) is located in the village of Rokyni on the territory of the local dendrological park.

The life of the Volyn peasants of the 19th century is reproduced here. There are 12 old wooden architectural buildings on a small area: a church, a mill, a forge, white and dusty houses, farm buildings, etc.

All exhibits are active, visitors are offered to use tools and household items.

By pre-order, the museum staff in ethnic costumes will heat the ovens, prepare a peasant dinner, organize folk holidays and ancient ceremonies. A regular tour is available without prior reservation.

The club-museum of the history of the village of Baiv and Volyn beekeeping was opened in 2012 by Volyn enthusiasts-beekeepers in the premises of the former village club of the village of Baiv - a typical village hut.

The museum has collected more than 2.5 thousand exhibits, including unique historical finds, albums of the written history of the village of Baiv, and a separate thematic department - the beekeeping museum.

In the courtyard of the beekeeping museum, various types and designs of beehives are presented - from log to frame. In a special transparent observation hive, you can see how bees live and work.

Samples of natural wax, honey ointment and balsam, dozens of types of honey are presented: buckwheat, acacia, linden, rapeseed, forest honey, honey from various herbs, etc.

In front of the museum, the first monument to a bee in Volyn was installed (2015).

The Berestechko People's Historical Museum was founded in 1963 by the local historian Hryhoriy Fylypovych, and since 2019 it has been located in the premises of the Culture and National Memory Center of the Berestechko City Council.

The museum's holdings include about 1,500 objects, the most interesting of which are presented in three exhibition halls. The exposition of the first hall tells about life in this area from the Neolithic to Cossack times, in particular about the Battle of Berestechko in 1651.

In the second hall, crafts, trade and bourgeois life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are presented.

The third hall is dedicated to the events of the First and Second World Wars, the liberation struggle of the UPA soldiers, and the current events of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The monastery of the Brigids in Lutsk was located in the palace that occupied the southern part of the territory of the Okolny castle and was one of the links of the defense system of the city in the XV-XVI centuries.

In the 1940s, the monastery building was used as a prison.

Currently, the former Brigid monastery houses the Castle Monastery of the Holy Archangel of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The opening of the museum of totalitarianism "Lutsk Calvary" is planned.

The homestead-museum of decorative arts was opened in her own house in Zviriv by Halyna Minder, a Volyn artist and collector of antiques, a master of artistic wood carving.

Her village house, located at the entrance to the village from the Lutsk side, immediately attracts attention with bright paintings with traditional Ukrainian ornaments. The basis of the exposition is her own works of decorative and applied art – root plastic, decorative items, wooden souvenirs. Carved furniture, wooden sculptures, decorative figurines and original jewelry are presented. Also on display is an ethnographic collection of artist: embroidered towels and shirts, lace paintings, motanka dolls, household items.

Some exhibits can be purchased.

The defensive Great Synagogue, nicknamed the "Small Castle", was part of the system of fortifications of the Okolny Castle of ancient Lutsk.

The synagogue was built in 1622-1629. From the southwest, a five-tiered square tower with loopholes adjoins it.

Currently, the building is occupied by the children's sports school "Young Dinamovets".

Torchyn People's History Museum bears the name of its founder - historian and local historian Hryhoriy Hurtovy.

This is the oldest museum in Volyn, which began to operate on a public basis - since 1957. The museum's holdings include more than 10,000 showpieces related to the history of Torchyn and the Volyn lands.

The local historian personally collected most of them in the surrounding villages. Among them are flint tools, a coin treasure of the beginning of the 16th century, Cossack weapons (in particular, an original mortar gun), fragments of ammunition of the soldiers of the two world wars, and a large ethnographic collection. A wardrobe and a mirror from the residence of the famous Polish writer Józef Ignacy Krashewski in nearby Horodok deserve special attention.

In 2009, the Torchyn Historical Museum named after Hryhoriy Hurtovyi took first place at the All-Ukrainian Museum Competition in the "History of the Native Territory" category.

The Orthodox Holy Ascension Church in Horokhiv was built in 1844, when the city was part of the Russian Empire.

During the times of Soviet atheism, the temple remained in operation.

Currently, the Ascension Church belongs to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Cathedral of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the oldest active Orthodox church in Lutsk, which, moreover, has never stopped its activities.

The temple was probably founded in the 13th century by the grandsons of Prince Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv. Restored on ancient Rus foundations in the 15th-16th centuries, during the reign of Grand Duke Vitovt of Lithuania. After 1625, the church was dismantled and a new stone Intercession Church was built in its place, which was then reconstructed several times until the end of the 19th century.

In recent years, the wall paintings and the iconostasis have been restored. The main relic of the Holy Intercession Cathedral is the icon of the Volyn Mother of God, a masterpiece of Ukrainian painting of the 13th-14th centuries.

Currently, the Intercession Cathedral is in the use of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.