Attractions of Zhytomyr

The Museum of Ancient Instruments "Craftsman's Yard" in Zhytomyr is located at the Kroshnya railway station.

Every item in the exhibition is an original. The entire collection includes several thousand exhibits, including 115 examples of axes.

Presented are kerosene all-weather lamps for railway workers and policemen with a tricolor semaphore, an ancient manual device for roasting coffee beans while stirring them, a copy of an ancient forge, in which air is supplied by real Austrian bellows from the end of the 19th century.

Also in the collection are tools intended for production, the technology of which is considered lost.

The Roman Catholic Concafedral Church of Saint Sophia with a bell tower 26 meters high is considered one of the main architectural monuments of Zhytomyr thanks to a successful combination of late Renaissance and Baroque styles.

The church was built in the 18th century on Zhytomyr's Castle Square on the initiative of Bishop Samiylo Ozhyha, and was reconstructed in the 19th century using classicism techniques. The thickness of the brick walls reaches 2 meters. The facade is divided into two tiers, the house is topped by towers with sharp spiers. One of the pylons of the building is decorated with a bas-relief created by the famous pianist and composer Yuliush Zarembskyi.

The rich interior decoration - stucco and wall paintings - has been preserved. Currently, it is an active Catholic cathedral of the parish of Saint Sophia.

In 2011, a monument to Pope John Paul II was erected in front of the Saint Sophia Cathedral.

The memorial house-museum of Academician Serhiy Korolov in Zhytomyr is a part of the Museum of Cosmonautics named after Korolov, located opposite the main building of the exhibition "Space".

The first museum in the apartment, where the future rocket scientist, a leading designer of Soviet space rockets, was born in 1907, opened in 1970. 7 years later, the memorial part was supplemented by a new exposition about the life and career of the general designer.

The museum recreates the atmosphere of the apartment in which the Korolov family lived at the beginning of the XX century. The exposition includes many materials, documents, personal belongings, which were donated to the museum by relatives and colleagues of Korolov.

Photographs, utensils, interior items belonging to the Queen's family, notes and drawings made by the genius designer, his costume and even a strand of hair from the very first haircut - all this can be seen during a tour of the museum.

The National Museum of Cosmonautics named after Serhiy Korolov was opened in 1970 in Zhytomyr, where in 1907 the future founder of the practical development of outer space was born.

The memorial part of the museum is located in a small house in which the Korolov family lived at the beginning of the 20th century. The interiors were restored according to his mother's memories.

The exposition of the space pavilion, opened in 1991, presents the originals and models of spacecraft, spacesuits and other equipment of astronauts. Among them are a technological sample of the Soyuz spacecraft, a model of the Lunokhod-2, and the original of the Soyuz-27 spacecraft, which has been in space. One of the most valuable exhibits is a capsule with the soil of the Moon, donated by NASA.

The museum actively uses modern museum technologies and innovative methods of working with the audience. In particular, during the children's excursions, a robot-assistant guide Mekkanoid is used, who recognizes voice commands, moves, jokes and even dances. In the museum you can book an interactive tour "Star Aeneas", which uses equipment such as simulators to train professional pilots. With the help of virtual reality glasses, visitors can visit the Moon or Venus.

Zhytomyr Museum of Cosmonautics provides a high level of accessibility. There is a ramp at the entrance, there are no thresholds and stairs in the exposition rooms, adapted excursions and an inclusive toilet are available.

The modernized Gothic water tower is one of the symbols of old Zhytomyr.

It was built in 1898 according to the project of architect Arnold Ensh.

After the commissioning of the new "Vodokanal" complex, the need to use separate water towers disappeared.

Currently, it is an architectural monument of local importance.

The ancient mansion built in the 19th century on Castle Square for the head of the Zhytomyr Catholic Diocese is called the Bishop's House in Zhytomyr.

Currently, the Zhytomyr Regional Local Lore Museum is located here, founded back in 1865, when Volyn Governor Mykhaylo Chortkov exhibited his collection of samples of 48 minerals and rocks in the public library.

Then the exhibition was supplemented by the coin collection of the leader of the Zhytomyr nobility, Symonych, materials of the Volyn Diocesan Antiquities, nationalized art collections of Counts Ilinsky-Stetsky from Romanov and Baron Ivan de Shoduar from Zhytomyr.

Currently, the funds of the Zhytomyr Museum of Local Lore include 150,000 monuments of history and culture, but the exposition presents only a small part, which relates to the historical events of the first half of the 20th century. The main exhibition space is occupied by the art department of the museum, where a unique collection of works of fine art by Italian, Dutch, French, Polish and Russian masters of the 16th-20th centuries is presented.

The historical exhibition is planned to be opened in the magistrate's house.

The building of the regional state philharmonic named after Svyatoslav Richter was built in Zhytomyr in 1858 as a city theater on the initiative of the Polish playwright and public figure Yuzef Ihnatsiy Krashevski, who was also the theater's artistic director.

At that time, the theater building was considered one of the best in Ukraine.

Currently, the Zhytomyr Philharmonic Hall is an architectural monument of local importance.

Castle Hill in Zhytomyr is located on the banks of the Kamyanka River. A stone castle surrounded by moats stood here until the 19th century.

The castle was probably founded in the 9th century by a retainer of the Kyiv princes Askold and Dir, but then it could have been located in another place. Zhytomyr Castle was first mentioned in written annals in 1392, when it was captured by the Grand Duke Vitovt of Lithuania. Subsequently, it was repeatedly destroyed and restored. The last castle buildings were demolished in 1852.

Currently, a city square has been laid out on the territory of the castle, and a memorial sign has been installed in honor of the founding of Zhytomyr.

The luxurious two-story town hall building on Castle Hill in Zhytomyr was built for the magistrate in the 18th century.

Made in Neo-Renaissance forms, it is distinguished by durability and strictness of architectural forms. Although the building was badly damaged during the Second World War, it was completely restored in 1951. For some time, residential apartments were located in the premises of the former magistrate.

In 2021, to the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Independence, the capital reconstruction of the magistrate's building was completed. Later, it is planned to place the natural and historical expositions of the regional museum of local history here. The museum space will be filled with a three-dimensional archive of the natural world and human relations with the environment. A small museum garden will be laid out in the courtyard with an experimental plot where children can plant a plant and then watch it grow.

The complex of buildings of the 19th century post office in Zhytomyr includes the main building, a hotel wing and a stable, surrounded by a fence. Taras Shevchenko stayed here in 1846.

Regular postal service between St. Petersburg, Kyiv and Radyvilov began to be established after the royal decree of 1827. In the 1840s, several postal stations were built on the route between Kyiv and Zhytomyr at a distance of about 20 kilometers from each other (several of them have survived).

All of them were built according to a typical project, the characteristic feature of which are the arrow windows in the Neo-Gothic style.

Zhytomyr State University named after Ivan Franko is located in the center of the city in a complex of buildings of the former male gymnasium.

Construction of a gymnasium for boys began in Zhytomyr in 1862. For many years, it was the largest and most authoritative educational institution not only in Zhytomyr, but also in the whole of Volyn. First, the main building was built, later two auxiliary buildings were added on the sides - for the gymnasium teachers' apartments and for the library. In front of the main entrance was a front garden with rare trees and a fountain in the center. A large garden adjoined the houses.

Until now, the complex has been completely preserved, but the educational building of the gymnasium was reconstructed after a pedagogical institute was opened in it in 1919.

Today it is Zhytomyr State University named after Ivan Franko.

"Shoduarivsky" Park of Culture and Recreation is the most popular recreation area for Zhytomyr residents.

It was created in the 19th century by a well-known patron and researcher in Volyn, Baron De Shoduar.

The park covers an area of 36 hectares, a large part of it is located on the slopes of the banks of the Teteriv River. 80 species of trees and shrubs grow on the territory, some imported from different parts of the world. In front of the central entrance there is a beautiful cascade of fountains, behind the entrance - observation decks. There is a descent from the park to the boat station on the river.

The most picturesque place is the suspension pedestrian bridge (350 meters) across the Teteriv River.

The half-ruined cell building of the Jesuit monastery is the oldest architectural monument of Zhytomyr.

The monastery on Castle Hill was built in the 18th century by Jesuit monks, who were invited to the city by the castellan of Kyiv, Yan Kazymyr Stetskyi. Possible architects include Pavlo Hizhytskyi, Paolo Fontana, Domeniko Fontana.

A three-class school operated at the monastery. The Polish king Avhust II, by his privilege, transferred the adjacent lands under the jurisdiction of the monastery, excluding the Jesuit Jurisdiction, a kind of "city within a city", from the control of the city self-government.

The Jesuit church was destroyed by Russian hussars and Don Cossacks in 1769. From the entire monastery complex, only the ruins of the two-story cell building have survived to this day. Restoration is planned.

The building was built in 1897 for the Zhytomyr Regional Court according to the project of the architect Volodymyr Bezsmertny.

Currently, it is one of the buildings of the Agroecological University.

It is an architectural monument of local importance.

"Chatsky's Head" in Zhytomyr is called a rock of a bizarre shape above the Teteriv River (30 meters), a geological monument of state importance.

According to legend, the Polish nobleman Chatsky, who was being pursued by the Cossacks, threw himself into the river from here. According to another version, the name is related to the surname of the founder of Kremenets Lyceum, Tadeush Chatskyi.

The rock is clearly visible from the observation deck at the dam of the Teteriv reservoir and from the hill near the Glory Monument. Opposite - the "Four Brothers" rock.

"Chatsky's Head" rock is a popular summer vacation spot for residents of Zhytomyr.