Attractions of Zaporizhzhia region

The "City Beyond the Thresholds" Museum Studios is a branch of the "Khortytsia" National Reserve, located in the center of the city of Zaporizhzhia, on the second floor of the "Shoes House". It is an exhibition space and a cultural hub for the cooperation of cultural institutions and figures with the aim of popularizing Ukrainian history and culture.

The exhibition "Zaporizhzhia through the Ages: A Heroic History" is permanently open, where part of the exhibits from the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks History Museum, which is closed for reconstruction, is presented. Its sections are devoted to the Scythian era, the period of Kyivan Rus and the Cossack times. The expositions are designed in the style of a museum still life. In the exhibition hall, visitors will see symbolic boats - an ancient Rus boat, a Cossack Chayka, a Cossack ship - which combine and weave different pages of history into a single "text".

Another exhibition presents the latest archaeological finds that were discovered during the survey of the washed-up areas of the coast of the Dnipro River, which appeared as a result of the Russian aggressors blowing up the dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP. About 80 artifacts representing different historical periods from the Bronze Age, the Scythian Age, the Middle Ages to the Cossack period are presented in three display cases: fragments of molded ware and ancient Greek amphorae, a Bronze Age dagger, stone tools, a sling stone, varvarkas, arrowheads, arrows weapons of the Cossack period, a fragment of a mirror, a bracelet, a blacksmith's hammer, etc.

The photo exhibition "Reserved Khortytsia" is a creative installation in the form of unrolled photo film of the second half of the 20th century, supplemented with mirrors, branches and sand, which carry certain symbolism.

The "Khortytsia" National Reserve is named after the largest island on the Dnipro (23.5 square kilometers), which is now located in the middle of the city of Zaporizhzhia. Khortytsia Island is one of the most famous places in Ukraine, a unique historical and cultural complex and an ancient symbol of Cossack freedom.

The island was formed by a geological fault in the granite massif that occurred approximately 2.5 million years ago. Now Khortytsia impresses with its picturesque cliffs and small islands. In the north, granite rocks are majestically raised above the water mirror of the Dnipro by almost 30 meters, and the southern edge of the island is part of the Zaporizhzhia Velykiy Luh flooded by the Kakhovka Reservoir.

Long ago, this natural fortress served as reliable protection for the tribes that settled here, traces of which have been preserved in abundance. In particular, the "Scythian Camp" complex exhibits barrows and stone statues from the Scythian times, a pagan sanctuary has been preserved from the Old Slavic times, and the remains of the Protolche settlement from the Ancent Rus times.

In the 16th century, Zaporizhzhian Sich, a fortified camp of Ukrainian Cossacks, was founded on the island of Mala Khortytsia, which later became the center of the Cossack state, changing its location several times. A generalized image of Cossack fortresses is the Historical and Cultural Complex "Zaporizhzhian Sich" in Khortytsia, which reproduces in detail the arrangement of all eight Cossack Sichs that existed in the 16th - 18th centuries.

The current center of Khortytsia is the museum space around the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks History Museum, where a multi-year reconstruction is underway (part of the exhibits are presented in the Museum Studios "City Beyond the Thresholds"). The Hill of Unity with an observation deck and the "Circle of Unity" art object are located nearby. The venue for the ceremonial events is the Cossack Circle. Along the coast of the museum, there is a "Taras Trail", dedicated to the stay of the young Taras Shevchenko in Khortytsia in the summer of 1843.

In the southern part of the island, you can visit the only Zaporizhzhian Cossacks equestrian theater in Ukraine and see the famous Cossack seagull in the Museum of Shipping.

There is a car parking lot, bicycle rental, and a cafe in the pre-museum space. There is a hotel in the central part of the island, and in the eastern and western parts of Khortytsia there are several sanatoriums and recreation centers, and there are restaurants.

"Treasure Island" in Kyrylivka is one of the largest water parks in Europe.

It covers an area of 5.7 hectares, and the area of all pools is 6,000 square meters. At the same time, "Treasure Island" can receive 1.5 thousand visitors.

The main swimming pool is connected to other pools by the Linyva River, which flows through the entire territory of the complex. 16 attractions for adults: high-speed open slide "Kamikaze", closed "Tonell", smooth "Giant slide", intertwined tunnels "Kosichky", four-turn slide "Multislide", slide "Space hole" with a vortex and others. There are also 18 children's attractions and many playgrounds.

There are several themed cafes and restaurants: "Welcome" bar (drinks, sweets), "Sicilia" cafe (pizza, pasta), "Sturval" bistro (Ukrainian cuisine), "Asia" cafe (oriental cuisine), "Africa" children's cafe , fish restaurant "Billy Bones".

After the water park is closed, the restaurant and night club "Somali" are open, which operates in the DJ-cafe mode during the day.

Aquapark "Treasure Island" is open from the beginning of June to the end of August.

The municipal institution "Balky Historical and Local Lore Museum" of the Mala Bilozerka village council of the Zaporizhzhia region has been operating since 1970.

The museum fund has more than 10 thousand exhibits. The archeological exposition presents some of the treasures of the Haymanova Mohyla mound, including amphorae and a copper cauldron.

The ethnographic exposition "Ukrainian Room" recreates a fragment of the interior of a village house with a stove, household items, embroidered clothes, towels, a samovar.

The Hall of Fame tells about the events of the Ukrainian Revolution and the Second World War.

The Berdiansk Art Museum was founded in 1930 on the initiative of painter and graphic artist, doctor of art history and professor, collector Isaac Brodsky.

The exposition was based on his personal collection of paintings, including paintings by Illya Repin, Kostyantyn Korovin, Mykhaylo Vrubel, Mykola Rerikh, Isaak Levitan, Kostyantyn Makovsky, Valentyn Syerov, Oleksandr Benua, Mark Shahal, and others, as well as works by Brodsky himself.

Currently, the museum fund consists of 4.5 thousand works of painting, sculpture, graphics and applied art. In particular, the museum presents Ivan Ayvazovsky's painting "Storm at Sea" (1896).

The Museum of the History of the City is the youngest of Berdiansk's museums. It was opened in 2005 for City Day.

The exhibition, formed on the basis of part of the collection of the local lore museum, highlights the history of Berdiansk from the time of its foundation at the beginning of the 19th century to the present day.

In particular, collections of samovars and irons of the 19th and 20th centuries are presented.

The Berdiansk lighthouse on the far spit began to operate in 1838.

One of the oldest buildings in Berdiansk has practically not changed in two centuries. Changes affected only navigation devices. Currently, a radio beacon is installed at a height of 70 meters, which is turned on when necessary. And in everyday life, an installation with rotating electric beacon equipment works.

The lighthouse is located on the edge of the Berdiansk spit.

DniproHPP is a unique hydroelectric facility, the first hydroelectric power station in the USSR and the largest in Europe at that time.

The construction was led by academician Oleksandr Vinter with the assistance of American consulting engineers - Frank Feyfer, Vilhelm Meffi, Fridrikh Vinter, Heorh Binder and "General Electric" engineers Charlz Dzhon Tomson and Hyu Kuper. As a result of the construction of the dam, the Dnipro rapids were flooded, which ensured navigation along the entire course of the Dnipro. Thanks to the construction of the station, the rapid economic development of the city began.

Next to the building of the HPP directorate is the massive building of the DniproHPP museum. Currently, two halls with expositions on the construction, restoration and construction of the second stage of the hydroelectric power station are available. During the tour, you can see the layout of the station, operating turbines in the engine room.

On the morning of March 22, 2024, during a massive missile-drone attack on Ukraine, Russian troops attacked the DniproHPP with missiles, hitting hydroelectric structures and a dam. A fire broke out at the station. In addition, a Russian missile hit a trolleybus with people moving along the DniproHPP embankment.

In the south-eastern part of the island of Khortytsia, in the area of Plavni, there is a folklore and ethnographic equestrian theater "Zaporizhzhia Cossacks", which carefully preserves ancient Cossack traditions.

At the request of large tourist groups, equestrian performances and folklore performances are held here with the performance of folk ensembles and demonstrations of traditional Cossack crafts (the date and time of the next performance should be ascertained in advance by phone). After the performance, you can ride horses, and also buy souvenirs, made in front of your eyes by a blacksmith and a potter.

On the territory there is a cafe "Cossack Zastava" (traditional Ukrainian cuisine) with a banquet hall, two huts and summer canopies.

A Cossack seagull and a brigantine from 1736-1739, which were raised from the bottom of the Dnipro in 1999-2007, are stored nearby in the hangar, with which archaeologists and restorers are working.

Jumping with a rope (Flying rope) in Zaporizhzhia is carried out on the iron Arch bridge connecting the island of Khortytsia with the right bank of the Dnipro.

The Archway bridge in Zaporizhzhia was built in 1974 according to the project of Mykola Artemenko. The height of the bridge is 40 meters with a length of 320 meters. Here, for the first time in the practice of Soviet bridge construction, a unique 205-meter-long metal prefabricated beam was used, which works together with a stiffening beam.

In 2000, Oleksandr Shkalikov performed the first rope jump from the bridge. Flying rope or Bridge swinging rope differs from classic bungee jumping in that when jumping on a dynamic climbing rope, there is a direct transfer to the pendulum, which is safe for the person who jumps. The rope is passed and fastened under the bridge. The attraction on the Zaporizhzhia iron bridge is organized by the club of extreme sports "Hermitage".

Jumping with a rope in Zaporizhzhia is possible in several variants: in a climbing system or, in special braces, by the legs, along or across the bridge, with or without diving, various exotic jumps, for example blindfolded, with an umbrella, couples.

The historical and cultural complex "Zaporizhzhian Sich" on the island Khortytsia in Zaporizhzhia reproduces a generalized image of all eight Sich, which existed in the XVI-XVIII centuries on the banks of the Dnipro.

Sich is a fortified military town surrounded by a fence, which served as a military and political center of the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks - the capital of the Liberties of the Zaporizhzhian Lowland Army, ie free Cossack lands.

The island of Khortytsia at that time was a strategic point on the way of Tatar raids on Ukrainian lands. At the same time, the political influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moscow Principality, which controlled other Ukrainian lands, did not extend to these territories.

Khortytsia was associated with the activities of the first organizer of the Zaporizhzhian Army Ostap Dashkevych and the founder of the first Sich Dmytro (Bayda) Vyshnevetsky, who in 1553 built a Cossack castle on the island of Mala Khortytsia (now Bayda Island). All subsequent Sichs were located below the Dnipro, but were formed on common principles.

A reduced copy of the Cossack fortress is surrounded by a moat, an embankment and a fence made of logs with several defensive towers. The interior space consists of two parts - the Small Kosh (trade and craft suburb) and the Large Kosh (Cossack garrison). The main building of the Sich is the current Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin on the central square. There are Cossack huts, a smithy, a pottery, an inn and a Greek house where ambassadors were received.

The expositions in the premises tell about the functioning of the Sich governing bodies (the House of the Kosh Ataman, the Military Chancellery), the work of the Pushkarnia (arsenal), and the traditional crafts of the Cossacks. The exhibition "Cossack Mamay and the Cradle" is dedicated to the image of the legendary Zaporizhzhian warrior-characterist.

The Cossack Battle Theater "Sich Cossacks" is based in the "Zaporizhzhian Sich", which regularly holds demonstrations of Cossack martial arts and master classes on the possession of Cossack weapons.

The Holy Intercession Cathedral is the main Orthodox shrine of Zaporizhzhia.

The cathedral was rebuilt on the site of the five-headed stone Intercession temple destroyed by the Bolsheviks (the Komsomolsky recreation park was laid on its site).

The exterior and magnificent interiors of the cathedral are reproduced from old photographs.

The residential building, built in 1896 by the German Mennonite Arnold Peters in Ruchaivka, was transformed by his descendant Victor Dick into a museum of German colonists.

The original layout, interior, and furniture have been preserved in the house. Various tools and household items of German settlers are collected here. Of particular interest is the machine for cleaning corn cobs, manufactured in 1861 at the Kopa factory. There is a working smokehouse in the attic.

The hosts conduct tours, during which (by prior order) they offer visitors a tasting: sausages of their own production, German keg beer, as well as homemade bread and oven-baked potatoes with lard.

WARNING! The house-museum of the German colonists has closed - the owner of the museum, Victor Dick, died and his family decided to close the museum. Other houses built by German colonists have been preserved in the village of Ruchaivka.

The Huliaipole Museum of Local Lore is located in the historic building of the former Mutual Credit Bank in the city center.

The exposition of the museum consists of 9 sections with a fund of 17,000 exhibits, which tell about the most ancient history of these lands, the era of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, the life of peasant and burgher houses, crafts of the Huliaipole region, etc.

The most interesting part of the exposition tells about the life and activities of the glorified anarchist, leader of the Revolutionary Rebel Army, Nestor Makhno. In particular, the legendary tachanka is presented - a movable point of fire on a horse-drawn vehicle invented by the Makhnovists. A monument to Tachanka was installed in the yard.

During the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the city of Huliaipole was on the front line and under constant fire from the Russian army. At the beginning of 2023, not a single surviving building remained in the city. The local lore museum of Huliaipole also suffered significant destruction.

Melitopol City Museum of Local Lore is located in the old three-story house of a merchant of the 2nd Guild of Chernikov.

Currently, the museum has 48,000 items. A unique collection of Scythian gold (IV century BC) from the excavations of the Melitopol mound is presented.

The pride of the numismatic collection is the treasure of silver coins of 1895-1925 release.

Of the exhibits of the art gallery, the graphic and painting works of the world-famous artist Oleksandr Tyshler are of great value.

During the large-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the Melitopol City Museum of Local Lore was under occupation. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, the occupiers stole 1,841 pieces of museum objects, including historical weapons, jewelry from the Melitopol Scythian mound (Scythian gold), ancient coins, orders and medals of the Soviet era.