Attractions of Lviv

The Archcathedral of Saint George (Saint Yura)  in Lviv is one of the most beautiful architectural ensembles of the city, a pearl of the Ukrainian Baroque. The main shrine of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, where the residence of the metropolitans of the UGCC was located for a long time.

The first church on Svyatoyurska Hill in Lviv was founded during the times of the Galicia-Volyn principality. The current temple complex was built in 1744-1770 according to the project of Bernard Meretin, who combined the Rococo style with Ukrainian sacred aesthetics. Sculptures by Ivan Pinzel are installed on the main facade. The bell tower houses the oldest bell in Ukraine (1341). The most valuable relic of the temple is the miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary (XVII century).

Metropolitans Andriy Sheptytskyi and Volodymyr Sterniuk, Patriarch Yosyp Slipiy are buried in Saint George's Cathedral.

Next to the cathedral is the Metropolitan Palace, where Pope Ivan Paul II stayed in 2001 during his visit to Ukraine.

Since 1998, Saint George's Cathedral, together with the ensemble of the historical center of Lviv, has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

In the Armenian quarter of Lviv, between the streets of Virmenska and Lesi Ukrayinky, there is a cathedral, a bell tower, the palace of the archbishops and a nunnery. The buildings form a colorful "Armenian yard".

The construction was led by the Armenian architect Dorinh (Dorhi) at the expense of Armenian merchants. The image of the cathedral has many common features with the cathedral in the ancient Armenian capital of Ani. Over the centuries, the cathedral was renovated and extended. The oldest part is the eastern part (from the 14th century). Reconstruction in 1723 gave the building a baroque appearance.

In the altar part there are traditional "khachkar" stone crosses. The sculptural groups of the 15th century "The Belief of Khoma" and "Saint Sophia with Daughters" are of significant artistic value.

The building of the City Arsenal of Lviv is one of the preserved parts of the city fortifications of the 16th century.

The first small armory existed in this place at the beginning of the 15th century, but after a fire in 1571 it was demolished and a new two-storey building for the manufacture and storage of weapons was built in 1574-1575. The architects were probably well-known Lviv builders Pavlo Shchaslyvyi and Sebastyan Mochygemba.

On the east side, the Arsenal was adjacent to the High Defensive Wall between the Tokarivska and Shevska towers. There was a bastion in front of the building. Workshops for casting guns and bells and repairing weapons were opened at the arsenal. There was an ammunition depot nearby.

Under Austrian rule in the 18th century, the building was used as an unofficial prison. In particular, it housed the Haidamaks, participants in the Koliivshchyna uprising, as the memorial plaque reminds us.

In 1981, the Arsenal Museum was opened in the premises of the City Arsenal, which represents one of the best weapons collections in the country from 30 countries. The exposition includes ancient Rus and Cossack maces, graceful Arabian sabers, daggers of the peoples of the Caucasus and the Arab East, heavy European two-handed swords, armor of Polish "winged hussars", rifles and pistols with different types of locks, guns with coats of arms and much more. Many monuments are decorated with precious metals, gems, ivory, pearls, coral, mother of pearl. And this is only a small part of the weapons collection of the Lviv Historical Museum, which has about 4.5 thousand units.

The museum has an antique salon.

Visually impaired visitors are offered audio description.

The museum of authentic clothing and adornment from all regions of Ukraine was opened in Lviv by collector and ethnographer Roksolyana Shymchuk in 2024. The exposition is located in the basement of the Lviv Art Palace.

The founder of the museum began collecting her collection in the early 1990s. For over 30 years, she has sought out and restored vintage clothing, adornment and headwear. Now her collection includes several thousand examples of Ukrainian folk applied art.

Only a part of the collection is presented in the museum exposition. Here you can see the folk costumes of Hutsulshchyna, Boykivshchyna, Pokuttya, Bukovyna, Podillya, Lviv region, Volyn, Dnipro region, and Left Bank Ukraine.

By prior agreement, the founder of the museum conducts author's tours. On the first floor, there is an ethno-gallery, where you can buy modern designer items and adornment, the author of which is Roksolyana Shymchuk.

The active Lviv synagogue "Beis Aharon ve-Israel" (translated from Hebrew - "House of Aaron and Israel") is located near the railway station.

The building, built in 1897, originally belonged to Moses Grifeld, a member of the Tsori Gilod Jewish Society.

In 1923-1925, according to the project of the architect Albert Kornbluth, the building was rebuilt as a synagogue. The two halls of the prayer house were designed for 384 seats. The central lamp of the main hall is decorated with a stained glass window in the form of a Star of David. The walls were painted by the artist Maximilian Kugel.

During the Second World War, the building was not damaged - it housed a warehouse.

Since 1989, the service has been resumed. The restoration was carried out in 2007. In the interior of the "Beis Aharon ve-Israel" synagogue, a polychrome painting has been preserved. The synagogue has a kosher kitchen and a mikvah.

The ensemble of the Benedictine monastery in Lviv - the church and the monastery building - was built with the participation of the architect Pavlo Rymlyanin. It has a pronounced defensive character.

The Church of All Saints is a small stone building, rectangular in plan. Adjacent to the south-eastern part is a two-story building of cells, which has preserved techniques and elements of Renaissance architecture. The complex is surrounded by walls with baroque gates of the 17th century.

Today it is an active Holy Intercession Monastery of the Sisters of the Studio Statute.

The monastery of the Bernardine order in Lviv with the church of Saint Andrew the First-Called in the 17th century was a separate fortification unit outside the city.

It was surrounded by a moat, a rampart and a defensive wall, which is partially preserved, with a tower of the Hlynyansky Gate overlooking the Customs Square. Powerful monastery fortifications were connected with a ring of city walls.

The Church of Saint Andrew was built in the years 1600-1630 according to the project of architects Bernard Avelides and Pavlo Rymlyanin in the Renaissance style. The lush interior is made in the Baroque style, there are many wooden altars of the 18th century. The decorative column in front of the facade was installed in 1736 in honor of Saint John of Dukla, the patron saint of the Bernardines.

The premises of the monastery now belong to the Central State Archives of Lviv, and the church of Andrew the First-Called was handed over to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

One of the most interesting examples of Lviv Renaissance architecture in the ensemble of Rynok Square is the Lorentsovych house, better known as the "Black House" (Chorna Kamyanytsya).

Built in 1577 by architect Petro Krasovskyi. Pharmacist Yan Lorentsovych opened one of the first pharmacies in Lviv here. During the XVI-XIX centuries, the house changed owners many times, as well as completed and rebuilt. Initially, the building was not black, but under the influence of precipitation, the sandstone masonry was greatly darkened, and now it is specially painted black.

Back in 1926, the city bought the "Black House" from the last owner and opened the Museum of the History of Lviv, which is now a department of the Lviv Historical Museum. The almost 800-year history of the city is represented on three floors by authentic objects of XIV-XX centuries: symbolic keys to the city, seals of the magistrate, inaugural chains of the president and mayor, benches from the conference hall, portraits of city leaders, coats of arms of Lviv in different historical periods. You can see a model of princely Lviv of the XIII-XIV centuries and a model of the Renaissance town hall.

In the courtyard and the first floor there is a Lapidarium - an exposition of stone monuments of Lviv: carved from stone architectural and sculptural fragments, parts of old monuments, epitaphs, etc. In total, about 50 samples of stone sculpture from ancient, mostly non-existent, buildings in Lviv.

Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Central Park of Culture and Rest is located in the central part of Lviv, on the slope of the hill between Stryiska, Heroiv Maidanu, Vitovskoho and Zarytskyh streets. A recreation and entertainment zone existed here as early as the 19th century.

The modern park was laid out in 1951 and arranged according to the Soviet traditions of creating typical parks of culture and rest for working people. From those times, the central avenue with a length of more than 800 meters, the colonnade of the central entrance and the premises of the "Druzhba" cinema have been preserved. In 1970, the central entrance was decorated with fountains.

Since 1984, the Park of Culture has the status of a monument of garden and park art of local importance. There is a children's entertainment zone "Zhu-Zhu Park" and a park of moving dinosaur figures on the territory.

Street cafes and restaurants are open. Various festivals and fairs are held regularly.

The private museum of carriages in Lviv operates on the basis of the horse club "Carriage Yard", where Tori horses are bred.

The exposition presents 14 carriages of different types: landau, fiakr, phaeton, tarantas, visavi, etc. "Carriage Yard" also offers hippotherapy, horse riding lessons, horse tourism and a carriage tour through the streets of old Lviv.

The Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin  (Voloska) in Lviv is a landmark of Galicia's Renaissance architecture.

For a long time, the temple was made of wood. The construction of the stone church began in the 15th century and lasted for more than four decades (architect Pavlo Rimlyanin) at the expense of the Ukrainian (Rus) community, as well as the Moldavian (Volochian) master Oleksandr Lopushanin, for which the church received its second name. The Orthodox community of the city was concentrated around the temple.

Built in 1572, the belfry (height 66 meters) is called the Kornyakt tower in honor of the Greek merchant and philanthropist who promoted Orthodoxy in Lviv.

In the interior there is a painting of the XVII-XVIII centuries, an iconostasis of 1773, stained glass windows by Petro Kholodnyi. The Chapel of the Three Saints (1578-1591) was combined with the Church of the Assumption in the middle of the 19th century.

The parish belongs to the Lviv Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The monument to King Danylo Halytskyi, the founder of Lviv and the creator of the Galician-Volyn state, was erected for the 745th anniversary of the city.

Prince Danylo Romanovych from the Galician branch of the Rurik family united the country by force, defeating the regiments of Hungarian and Polish feudal lords, as well as Galician boyars in 1245.

The project of the monument was developed by the sculptors Yarych and Romanovych, as well as the architect Churylyk. The monument is a bronze equestrian figure on a granite pedestal.

The Dominican church is one of the most significant baroque monuments in Lviv.

The cells of the Dominican monastery date back to the 16th century. In 1559, Princess Halshka Ostrozka, the heiress of the powerful Volyn family of Ostrozkyi, hid here from the magnate Lukash Hurka, who forcibly forced her into marriage. In 1701, Tsar Petro I signed a treaty here on the military alliance of Russia and Poland against Sweden.

Until the 18th century, the building of the Dominican church was Gothic. In 1792-1798, the architect Jan de Witte reconstructed it at the expense of Yuzef Potocki, the facades were decorated by master Sebastyan Fesinher. The interior contains a number of valuable works of art: alabaster tombstones of the 16th century, a marble monument to Arthur Grotger.

In Soviet times, there was a museum of atheism here. Today it is the Greek Catholic Church of the Holy Eucharist. Part of the collection of monuments of sacred art of the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion is exhibited in the dungeons. Organ music concerts are held.

The dungeon of the Garrison Holy Apostles Peter and Paul Church is a complex of premises under one of the largest churches in Lviv, the history of which begins in the 17th century. Remains of houses of the 14th-15th centuries, which were located on the site of the temple before its construction, have been preserved here.

Until the end of the 18th century, the dungeons were used as crypts for the burial of priests and donors to the temple. Hetman Stanislav-Jan Yablonovskyi, the defender of Lviv from the Tatars and the hero of the Battle of Vienna in 1683, found his resting place here.

Currently, 10 halls are available for inspection. The exhibition tells about the history of the Garrison Church and the development of Lviv from the 14th to the 18th centuries. In particular, a layout of Lviv during princely times is presented. Restoration work and design of new expositions are ongoing.

Every Saturday at 16:00 a comprehensive tour of the dungeons and the upper part of the Garrison Temple is held. Individual tours of the temple are available by prior arrangement.

Art Center "Dzyga" in Lviv is the residence of the creative association "Dzyga" - an organization of artists, public figures and entrepreneurs. Active since 1993.

The gallery presents modern art. Jazz and blues concerts are held every night in the club.

At the gallery, there is a cafe "Pid klepsydroyu" - a meeting place of Lviv bohemians with a democratic and creative atmosphere.