Attractions of Donetsk region

A monument to the insurance agent was erected in the center of Donetsk for the 10th anniversary of the ASKA insurance company.

The bronze sculpture of the "Derzhstrakh" agent, who is preparing to enter the office to the insured, depicts the popular movie hero Yuriy Detochkin from the movie "Beware of the car", embodied on the screen by the talented actor Inokentiy Smoktunovsky. According to the initiators of the installation of the monument, this film very well shows the specifics of the work of an insurance agent - daily, exhausting, but interesting and necessary for people.

The author of the monument is the sculptor Ihor Makohon.

A monument to the English industrialist John James Hughes, the founder of Yuzivka (now Donetsk), the creator of the Donetsk metallurgical industry, on which the economic power of Donbas is now based.

The monument was opened in 2001 in the heart of the student campus of the Donetsk National Technical University - a local technical educational institution, opposite the new building.

The author of the monument is the sculptor Oleksandr Skorykh. The sculptor decided to place the human-sized figure of John Hughes on a low pedestal, thereby emphasizing the human features of the founding father of the Donetsk industry. The monument was cast in the central repair and mechanical workshops.

Katerynivski hillocks (Granite Hills) is the popular name of a local natural monument.

Very unusual granite formations are located near the village of Katerynivka on both banks of the Kalchyk River (chronological Kalka). The oldest granites, polished over millions of years, have the appearance of frozen waves.

A very beautiful and majestic sight, which is impressive with its scale.

The reserve "Khomutivsky Steppe" is the largest part of the Ukrainian Steppe Reserve (1028 hectares), a preserved fragment of the Wild Field, as it was before the development of these lands.

The reserve was founded in 1926 to preserve and protect steppe vegetation. Today, the area of the reserve is 1,030.4 hectares, and 90 of them are a completely protected area, which has never been touched by a plow and which has not been grazed by cattle or mowed for 70 years.

The reserve is crossed by the Klymushevska, Brandtova, Chervona streams. On its territory, the plants of the group of plain multi-grass - typchakovo - kovilov steppe have been preserved and are protected. 604 species of flowering plants and ferns grow here - grasses, shrubs and trees. Including 19 - endemic, ie. spread over a very limited area.

59 species of mosses, 46 lichens and more than 270 mushrooms are also registered in the reserve. The feathered world of the Khomutivsky Steppe is represented by more than 80 species of birds.

The municipal cultural institution "Kostiantynivka City Museum of Local Lore" was founded in 1967.

The museum is located on the ground floor of a multi-storey residential building of the 1930s. It consists of seven exhibition and exhibition halls. The exposition is presented by the main sections: nature, ancient history, history of society and the city at its various stages, modernity. In the archeological collection: Polovtsian stone sculptures, tools and weapons of ancient times.

A special place is occupied by the collection of glassware of the XIX-XX centuries, when the glass industry began to develop in Kostiantynivka.

Exhibitions, thematic events and excursions are held.

The Kramatorsk City Council Art Museum is based on the art gallery opened in 1959.

Its funds were formed by enthusiasts led by the artist Ivan Parkhomenko. Artists from Kramatorsk, Donetsk and Kyiv donated their works to the museum. Now the museum's funds include more than 2,000 works of painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied art.

In particular, the works of famous Ukrainian artists Mykola Hlushchenko, Kostyantyn Trokhymenko, Tetyana Yablonska and others are presented. The

Museum of the History of the City of Kramatorsk is located in the same building.

The Mariupol Museum of Local Lore is the oldest museum in the Donetsk region.

It was founded in 1920 in a three-story building in the historical part of the city of Mariupol, built at the beginning of the 20th century according to the project of the city architect Viktor Nilsen.

Before the large-scale Russian invasion of 2022, the museum's holdings included more than 53,000 exhibits. The exposition highlighted the nature and history of the southern part of the Donetsk region. In particular, a diorama of the Bilosaraiska Spit was presented. Documents and household objects illustrated the process of the founding of the city of Mariupol in 1778 as a district city of Pavlovsk, the settlement of the region by Greeks and representatives of other nations. The Section of the History of the Soviet Period demonstrated the transformation of Mariupol into an industrial center on various household items, models, and original exhibits. A collection of Polovtsian stone babas was presented in front of the entrance.

During the siege of Mariupol in the spring of 2022, the building of the Mariupol Local History Museum burned down. The occupiers took the surviving exhibits to Donetsk, their further fate is unknown.

The National Natural Park "Meotida" is located in the south of the Donetsk region, covering a two-kilometer coastal zone of the Sea of Azov for 150 kilometers.

The reserve was created in 2000. It received the name of the ancient country of the Meotids, a tribe of Meots who lived in the 1st millennium BC in the Azov region. The area of the park is 13 thousand hectares of territory and the same amount of water area.

The park "Meotida" includes the nature reserves of national importance "Bilosarayska Kosa" and "Pryazovsky Chapelnyk", the ornithological reserve of local importance "Kryvokosky estuary", natural monuments of local importance "Kryva Kosa" and "Pine crops", as well as the regional landscape park "Polovtsian Steppe".

More than 250 species of birds (including curly pelicans) and 47 species of mammals have been registered on the territory of the reserve, some of them are listed in the Red Book. The flora of the park has preserved the aboriginal features of the steppe vegetation, which includes 640 species, including more than 40 endemic ones.

In 2001, Meotida Park was accepted into the international organization "Federation of Europarks".

Excursions for children and adults, boat trips, bird watching and horseback riding are available. In particular, tourists can observe the life of unique birds in their natural environment from the 26-meter tower.

Russian armed aggression in the east of Ukraine led to serious environmental consequences, including in the territory of the Meotida National Nature Park, which was damaged during the hostilities. Some objects of the nature reserve fund of the reserve were damaged or destroyed by shelling.

A monument to the KSP-32 tunneling combine was installed next to the Technical University of Donetsk.

Tunneling combines are complex mining machines designed for underground work in mining operations: rock destruction, loading on conveyors or trolleys, etc.

KSP-32 combines are manufactured at the Yasynuvata Machine-Building Plant. The inscription on the monument reads: "To the residents of the city of Donetsk from Yasynuvata machine builders."

A 22-meter statue of the famous revolutionary Artem (alias Fedir Serhyeyev) rises above the domes of the Holy Assumption Sviatohirsk Lavra on top of one of the chalk mountains above Siverskyi Donets.

The cubist monument was created in 1927 by the sculptor Ivan Kavaleridze. Most of the work on the construction of the 1,000-ton monument was carried out by hand: on the terrace of the monastery, parts were cast from reinforced concrete, which were lifted up the mountain by truck and installed in place with the help of an ordinary truck crane.

A new monumental complex to the heroes of the Second World War was built nearby.

Mount Karachun is a natural landmark of local importance. Translated from Turkic, "karachun" means "black death". There are many legends about the mountain.

Today, there is a large chalk quarry on Mount Karachun, and chalk tericones are produced nearby. From the mountain and the nearby chalk tericones, a wonderful view of Slovyansk and its surroundings opens up.

Until recently, on the feast of Ivan Kupala, fire dances were held on the mountain and flaming wheels were lowered from it.

Due to the strategic importance of Mount Karachun, its commanding height above the city of Slovyansk, and the location of the TV and radio transmission center on it, during the Russian-Ukrainian war, it became the object of a protracted military confrontation in April-July 2014. On the night of July 1, 2014, as a result of pro-Russian armed formations shelling Ukrainian positions on Mount Karachun, the TV tower was destroyed.

On December 5, 2016, a new TV tower was inaugurated on Mount Karachun.

The "Environment" museum of the history of Oleksandro-Kalynove village was created by local enthusiasts in 2011.

The museum complex is a miniature open-air museum consisting of an ethno-house, an exhibition hall and a courtyard. The ethno-house reproduces the interiors of a rural residence of the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century.

The exhibition hall occupies the premises of the old school. There is an ethnographic collection (towels, embroidery, household items, tools), artifacts of the Soviet past, as well as an exhibition of items related to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

An open-air exposition has been opened in the yard, the central element of which is the ancient UD-2 tractor, which started the creation of the museum. Also in the yard you can see other old agricultural machines, stone millstones, crane well, etc.

The Museum of Folk Architecture, Life and Children's Creativity in the village of Prelesne is the only skansen (open-air museum) in Donetsk region. It was founded in 1983 on the initiative of a local teacher, local historian, and artist Oleksandr Shevchenko.

The complex of wooden buildings reproduces a peasant yard of the 19th century in the Slobozhanschyna region: a typical residential house under a reed roof, a windmill with wooden mechanisms, a storeroom and a forge with tools, a well, beehives.

All these exhibits are authentic, collected in the villages of Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. In the whitewashed wooden house, you can see a stove, furniture, ceramic dishes, icons, towels, and embroidery.

The most interesting is the windmill, in which the working mechanism, millstone and various utensils have been preserved. The exhibition hall presents samples of folk art of Slobozhanshchyna and children's art.

There is a restaurant on the territory that offers visitors traditional Ukrainian cuisine.

The Museum of Folk Architecture in Prelesne is a department of the Donetsk Regional Art Museum.

The Museum of Folk Life in Mariupol has been operating as a branch of the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore since 1989.

The exposition tells about the ethnic culture and traditional life of the inhabitants of the Azov region.

The Museum of Folk Life in Mariupol was destroyed by Russian occupiers during a large-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

Mykilske Museum of Local Lore occupies a separate one-story building in the center of Mykilske village.

It has a large exposition about the history of the resettlement of Greeks in these regions, and about what happened during the entire 180-year history of this settlement.

The collection includes more than 8,000 items. The decoration of the nature hall is a diorama of the "Stone Graves" reserve.

On the territory of the museum, open-air expositions have been arranged for the demonstration of large-sized stone tools of agricultural work and monuments of the Polovtsian tribes - the so-called "Polovtsian women".