Attractions of Kirovohrad region

The "Khashchuvate Tragedy" Memorial is one of the largest memorials to the victims of the Holocaust in Europe.

Opened in 2014 in memory of 978 Jews from Khashchuvate and its surroundings, shot in 1942 in the Khashchuvate ravine.

The memorial is a smaller copy of the Wailing Wall, on which black granite slabs with a list of the dead, whose names are known to this day, are fixed.

The Haivoron Local Lore Museum was created in 2005 on the basis of the materials of the Railway Workers Museum, which was founded in the 1950s and told about the history of the Haivoron Railway. It is located in the Center for Culture and Leisure of the Haivoron City Council.

More than 2,000 exhibits are presented in 40 thematic expositions, which are dedicated to the nature, history, culture and art of the Haivoron region, outstanding personalities of the region.

The historical section of the museum is decorated in the form of wall books, which highlight the history of the Haivoron region and the Haivoron railway. A large collection of Trypillya ceramics is also exhibited.

In the ethnographic department, the color of the Ukrainian house of the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century is reproduced. The most interesting exhibits are a working loom, embroidered towels and shirts, and old agricultural implements.

The art department contains works of art by outstanding artists-compatriots, including 150 works by Mykola Zhydeliov, made in various artistic techniques and styles. Paintings by the folk artist Nataliya Shevchuk and wooden sculptures by the master of folk art Hryhoriy Pylypyshyn are also presented.

In 2024, the museum received from Latvian partners a unique narrow-gauge locomotive of the ESU2a series, which can work as a mobile power plant.

The Haivoron narrow-gauge railway is one of the few operating narrow-gauge railways in Ukraine. It was built in 1897 as part of a large network of narrow-gauge railways, created in the south of Ukraine by the Southern Association of Access Roads.

The 130-kilometer long route starts in the village of Rudnytsia, passes through Bershad, Haivoron and ends in the village of Holovanivsk. The Haivoron narrow-gauge railway is the longest in Europe.

The infrastructure of the railway included a station, a locomotive depot, a locomotive repair plant, and repair workshops. Since then, Haivoron has been the capital of Ukrainian narrow-gauge railways.

The station is located next to the regular railway station, on the other side of the tracks. Regular passenger traffic is carried out along the entire route (TU-2 locomotives). At the request of tourist groups, the old steam locomotive Gr-280 can enter the route.

In order to popularize and preserve the Haivoron narrow-gauge railway, the "GoodoK_Fest" festival was introduced in 2021, which is planned to be held annually.

The museum of the underground youth organization "Spartak" was opened in 1978 in a specially built building in the center of the Krasnohirka village. Dedicated to the history of the village of Krasnohirka, in particular to the partisan movement in the Holovanivsk region during the Second World War.

In the first hall of the museum, you can learn about the settlement of the region in the 18th century, see interesting archaeological finds and household items of 19th-century peasants, read materials about forced collectivization, the Holodomor, and Stalinist repressions.

The exposition of the main hall tells about the history of the underground youth organization "Spartak", which operated in Krasnohirka during the Second World War. In particular, the weapons and clothing of the partisans are presented.

The Hall of Modernity is devoted to the Chernobyl events, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the Russian-Ukrainian war, etc. Exhibitions of masters and craftsmen of the village are organized in the hall.

The Pedagogical and Memorial Museum of Anton Makarenko in Dolynska was opened in 1978 at the local school. Since 1991, it has been housed in the historic building of the Dolynska Railway Lower Primary Two-Class School, built in 1891.

The one-story building is made of wooden beams, was faced with brick in 1904, and was remodeled several times. It was here in the years 1911–1914 that the then young teacher and writer Anton Makarenko lived and taught.

Today, the museum's collections include more than two thousand exhibits. The exhibition in five halls introduces the history of the formation and development of education in the Dolynska region from the abolition of serfdom to the present, tells about the life and creative path of Anton Makarenko. In particular, photos, documents, works of Makarenko and other outstanding teachers of the world are presented.

In the room where Makarenko lived, the typical atmosphere of those times is reproduced. The transition room is decorated with views of the then Dolynska station, you can read the text of Makarenko's story about Dolynska and its surroundings.

"Veseli Bokovenky" is a dendrological park as part of the breeding and dendrological research station subordinated to the Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Agroforestry named after Heorhiy Vysotskyi.

The work on the foundation of the park was started in 1893 by Mykola Davydov according to the project of the Ukrainian landscape artist Ippolit Vladyslavskyi-Padalka. The well-known connoisseur-botanist Arnold Regel participated in the design.

The area of the park is 109 hectares. The park is laid out in a landscape style. Its main compositional axis is the Bokovenka River and the Skotuvata stream, on which a system of picturesque ponds has been built. Five plots reproduce in miniature the natural landscape of certain geographical areas. The park's collection includes about 1,000 species and forms of trees and shrubs, including mountain oak, Nutkan cypress, tulip tree and others. The only ginkgo tree in Kirovohrad Region grows here.

The Archaeological Museum named after Ninel Bokii at the Central Ukrainian State University named after Volodymyr Vynnychenko in Kropyvnytskyi was opened in 2011. It bears the name of its founder, historian and archaeologist, assistant professor of the Department of History of Ukraine, Ninel Bokiy.

The main exposition of the museum represents the work of the archeological expedition of Kirovograd archaeologists for 30 years and contains artifacts from almost all archaeological eras. In particular, items from such well-known monuments as the Melhunovskyi kurgan, Samur-Mohyla, Scythian burial mounds near the village of Zalom and the city of Svitlovodsk are presented. Among them: ceramics, weapons, jewelry, horse bridles and ritual objects.

The pearl of the collection is materials from the Golden Horde period, which represent a unique archaeological site near the village of Torhovytsia in the Kirovohrad Region.

The exposition of the Art Museum in Kropyvnytskyi is housed in a building in the Art Nouveau style, built at the end of the 19th century by the order of the merchant Israel Shpolyanskyi.

For the first time, the question of creating an art museum in the city was raised by the local intelligentsia back in 1870, but real work began only in 1921.

Today, the museum's holdings include 9,000 exhibits: painting, graphics, sculpture, ceramics and glass, fabric, wood, metal, archival and documentary, photos. The museum received part of the exhibits from the funds of the Hermitage, Tretyakivska Gallery, Kyiv museums, others represent the creative work of famous artists from Kropyvnytskyi.

The museum has five exhibition halls, three of which are stationary: "Sacred Art", "Art of the 18th - early 20th centuries", "Compatriot Artists".

The pearl of the collection is the painting "Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg on January 9, 1905" by the original Polish artist Voytsekh Horatsiy Kossak.

A complex of decorative and applied art is also presented in the museum exposition.

The Ascension of Cross Church (Khrestovozdvyzhenska Church) in Rozumivka is the ancestral burial ground of the ancient noble family of the Rayevsky family. This is one of the most outstanding architectural monuments of mid-19th century classicism in Ukraine. It is located on a high hill above a pond in the center of the village of Rozumivka, which belonged to the Rayevsky family since 1805.

The stone temple of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church was laid in 1833 on the grave of the hero of the French-Russian War of 1812, cavalry general Mykola Rayevsky, who spent the last years of his life in his Bovtyshka estate near Rozumivka. General Rayevsky became famous in the Battle of Saltanivka and during the Battle of Borodino. The panoramas that opened from the hill in Rozumivka reminded Rayevsky of the places of his battles. He was buried here, and later his descendants built the stone Ascension of Cross church-tomb on this place, the construction of which was completed in 1855.

The white-stone temple-pantheon is made in the style of classicism. The entrance portico is supported by 12 cast-iron columns, each made of seven prefabricated blocks. There is a stone crypt in the basement. On the cast-iron plate covering the burial of Mykola Rayevsky, it is written: "He had a shield in Smolensk, and a sword of Russia in Paris." Nearby are the burial grounds of the general's descendants. Other representatives of the Rayevsky family are buried in the cemetery adjacent to the tomb.

The Ascension of Cross Church is an active church. Since 2006 it has been part of the Historical and Architectural Reserve "Ascension of Cross Church" (the former the Raevsky Family Reserve), which is now a branch of the Central Ukrainian Regional Museum of Local Lore. Excursions are conducted by the abbot of the temple.

The Cathedral in honor of the Ascension of the Lord is considered the main architectural decoration of Bobrynets.

Founded in 1898. Construction was carried out for 14 years. The construction was supervised by the architect Yakiv Pauchenko, for whom this work was the last.

In terms of architecture, the Ascension Cathedral resembles the Volodymyrsky Cathedral in Kyiv.

"The Battlefield Trophies Museum" opened in 2022 in Kropyvnytskyi in the public space "Krop:hub".

The collection of military trophies began in 2014. Most were brought by the defenders in 2022. The trophies here are from Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The exhibition presents more than a hundred trophies: dry rations, flasks, rocket parts, remnants of ammunition, drones and helicopters, money and clothing of Russian occupiers, etc. They are transferred to the museum in the public space from the front by Ukrainian military personnel. It is planned to make an open-air museum.

The public space and volunteer center "Krop:hub" is located on the first floor of the House of Life (entrance from Ostrivska Street).

Black (Berestuvate) lake is located near the highway "Znamyanka - Oleksandrivka", near the village of Bohdanivka. This reservoir is the southernmost sphagnum bog on the territory of Ukraine.

The origin of the lake is connected with the accumulation of warm water in the glacial and post-glacial periods. Its depth has not been fully explored (according to legend, it is bottomless). Different types of algae grow in the lake at different depths, and the debris that settles on them forms a multi-layered bottom, making it difficult to measure the depth.

Another feature of Black Lake is floating islands, so-called rafts. They are formed by overgrowing the surface of the water with sphagnum, reeds, ferns and trees. In some places, the distance between the rafts and the lake shore reaches 10-15 meters.

In addition, several species of rare orchids and several huge oaks 400-600 years old grow in the vicinity of Black Lake. In April, flowers bloom around the lake, many of which are listed in the Red Book.

Near Lake Berestuvate (towards Znamyanka) you can find excavation sites of Scythian settlements.

The Blahovishchenske Historical Museum was opened in 1970. It is located on the second floor of the House of Culture "Myr" in the center of Blahovishchenske.

The exposition of the museum reveals the history of Blahovishchenske region from Neolithic times to the present day and tells about prominent countrymen.

The archaeological section presents materials from the Stone Age, Trypillyan culture, Scythian period, Chernyakhiv culture, and Kyivan Rus. In particular, archaeological finds near the villages of Danylova Balka, Sabatynivka, and Lupolove are exhibited, where the remains of two settlements of the Trypillian culture of the IV millennium BC were discovered.

The second chapter tells about the settlement of the region in the 18th-19th centuries, the life of peasants and townspeople of the 19th century and their ethnographic features, the development of industry in Blahovishchenske. In the next section, you can get acquainted with the events of the 20th century in Blahovishchenske, including the Ukrainian revolution, forced collectivization and the Holodomor, World War II, and post-war reconstruction.

A separate exposition is devoted to the events of the modern Russian-Ukrainian war. The art gallery, in particular, presents the works of local artist Anatoliy Holtzman.

The stone church of the Holy Virgin of Volodymyrska with a bell tower was built at the expense of the Greek community of Yelysavethrad (now Kropyvnytskyi).

Initially, there was a wooden temple built in 1766 by Greek merchants at this place. In 1898, the building was rebuilt, the rector's house is located next to it.

The interior has preserved ancient paintings, which were restored in 1905. Today it is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Central Ukrainian Regional Museum of Local Lore in Kropyvnytskyi is a descendant of the first museum institution in the region, which was created in 1883 at the initiative of historian and teacher Volodymyr Yastrebov. Previously, the institution was called the Kirovohrad Regional Museum of Local Lore.

Since 1929, the museum has been housed in the former house of the merchant Oleksandr Barsky, which is a vivid example of the "early modern" architectural style. It was built between 1895 and 1910 by the city's leading architect Oleksandr Lyshnevsky. According to legend, the owner never had to live in it, as he died after completing all the works just on the doorstep of his new house.

The museum collections include about 68,500 thousand items of the main fund, which characterize the historical development and culture of the region from ancient times to the present day, as well as the nature of the region. The basis of the collection is the collection of private collector Oleksandr Ilyin: archaeological finds, paintings, icons. The museum lapidarium presents a Neolithic anthropomorphic stele, a log culture sarcophagus and 6 Scythian statues.

The branches and departments of the Central Ukrainian Regional Museum of Local Lore include:
- Reserve-museum of Ivan Tobilevych (Karpenko-Kary) "Khutir Nadiya";
- Marko Kropyvnytsky Memorial Museum;
- Ukrainian Choreographic Art History Museum;
- Museum and nature reserve "Tobilevychi";
- Historical and architectural reserve "Ascension of Cross Church" (Rayevsky Family Reserve);
- Historical and memorial reserve "Black Raven".