Attractions of Lviv

Lviv Children's Railway is located in Stryisky Park.

It was opened in 1951 on the basis of a narrow-gauge railway that connected the station "Persenkivka" with the station "Skhidni Torhy" since 1922.

The road, 1.2 kilometers long, runs along the outer perimeter of Stryisky Park in its southern part. TU2 and TU3 locomotives, as well as 4 Pafawag cars, run on the route between Parkova and Sonyachna stations, and the TU3 diesel locomotive is considered the last locomotive of this series.

The Lviv Citadel is a complex of Austrian-era fortifications that has survived almost unchanged since the 19th century.

It was built on a hill on the southwestern approaches to Lviv to control the city and the Stryi road.

Fortification work was started here by the Poles back in 1635 under the leadership of the royal engineer Friedrich Gaetkant. In 1672, during the siege of Lviv, the fortifications were used by the troops of the Turkish Sultan Muhammed IV. In 1852-1854, the Austrian authorities reconstructed and expanded the fortress, building a barracks building, two square and four round towers.

The complex did not play a significant role during the world wars, thanks to which it was perfectly preserved. In Soviet times, the "Citadel" park was demolished on the territory, the premises were used as warehouses. Now a bank is located in the barracks. One of the round towers has been transformed into a luxury hotel.

The Lviv City Hall is the dominant feature of Rynok Square, one of the most famous symbols of Lviv. The main entrance to the building is guarded by two symbolic lions holding shields with the city's coat of arms.

The first wooden building of the city hall was built in 1381, later it was rebuilt several times. In the Middle Ages, a punishment pole was located in front of it (in 1564, the Moldavian master Tomsha was executed here, in 1578 - the leader of the Cossack uprising, Ivan Pidkova).

In its current classical form, the city hall building was rebuilt at the beginning of the 19th century (architects Yozef Markl, Frants Tresher, Yosyf Vandrushka). Since 1939, the Lviv City Council has been located here.

There are tours of the building with a visit to the 65-meter clock tower. One of the best panoramas of Lviv opens from the observation deck on the city hall tower (climb 408 steps). Here you can get acquainted with the mechanism of the clock, made in 1852 at the factory of Vilhelm Shtil near Vienna.

Recently, the ancient tradition has been restored - every day at noon, the melody of the city's national anthem is played from the tower of the city hall. On weekends, a trumpeter blows every two hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The palace of Lviv patrician, rich merchant of Greek origin Kostyantyn Kornyakt on Rynok Square is a pearl of residential Renaissance architecture of Lviv, an architectural monument of national importance.

The house was built in 1580 by architect Petro Barbon with the participation of his student Pavlo Rymlianyn. For some time it was owned by the Sobieski royal family, receiving the second name "Royal Townhouse".

It is in the Kornyakt Palace is the famous Italian (Venetian) courtyard on the model of the Renaissance Italian cortile, which surrounds the inner perimeter with open galleries under the arcades. The gallery presents an exhibition of sculptures, in particular "Justice and Justice" - a shameful pillar (pranger), which stood on the front in front of Lviv City Hall.

Now the administration of the Lviv Historical Museum is located in the palace. The permanent exposition of the department "Kornyakt Palace" presents the history of the house through the fate of its inhabitants in the context of the history of the city, region, Europe.

The "Royal Chambers" are traditionally called the four former ceremonial halls of the royal residence, located on the second floor of the building. Today, the preserved interiors of the early 19th century feature paintings, sculptures, samples of salon furniture, clocks, porcelain, musical instruments, ancient European orders, and rare memorials. One of the most popular exhibits is a mysterious black chair in the form of a winged dragon. Usually, at the end of the tour you can hear the live sound of the music box Symphonion.

There is a café with outdoor tables and an antique shop in the Italian courtyard.

The building of the Lviv House of Scientists was built by the firm "Felner and Helmer" in 1897-1898 according to the project of the Viennese architects Ferdinand Fellner and Herman Helmer.

This creative tandem also worked on the George Hotel in Lviv, the Opera House in Odesa, and the City Theater in Chernivtsi.

The construction project was commissioned by the Club of Horse Stud Owners. The imposing appearance of the facades of the house is maintained in the neo-baroque style.

From 1918 to 1939, the People's (aristocratic, count, noble) casino (gathering) was located here. Since 1948, the Lviv House of Scientists has been located here.

Perfectly preserved interior elements - grand staircase, stucco, alabaster fireplaces, original transparent ceiling, elegant balcony - all this makes the former casino one of the most beautiful and architectural buildings in Lviv.

It was here that the scene from the movie "D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers" was filmed, where D'Artagnan climbed the stairs to the cardinal to play chess with him.

Lviv National Art Gallery named after Borys Voznytskyi is one of the largest art museums in Ukraine. Its funds number more than 62 thousand works of art from different eras.

It was founded in 1914 as the Lviv Art Gallery and has since been housed in a house built in 1874, which belonged to the prominent historian and collector Vladislav Lozynskyi.

Now the administration of the Lviv National Art Gallery and its department "European Art of the XIX-XXI Centuries" are located in the Lozynsky Palace. About 400 works by French, Austrian, German, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian masters are presented in 24 halls.

The pearl is considered to be the only work in Ukraine by Georges de la Tour "The moneylender", one of the most expensive and most valuable paintings of world importance in the country. Only 32 paintings of this mysterious European master have survived in the world. There are also several portraits of Artur Hrotther, "Portrait of a Daughter" by Henrykh Rodakovskyi and others.

The art halls of Lviv of 1900-1930 acquaint with the works of artists who were members of the associations ANUM, ARTES, "New Generation".

Lviv National University named after Ivan Franko is one of the leading higher education institutions of Ukraine, one of the oldest in Europe.

It was founded in 1661 by decree of the Polish king Yan Kazymyr. The building of the main building of Lviv University was built in 1877-1881 (architect Yuliush Hokhberger). Initially, it housed the Regional Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria. The facade is decorated with a majestic portico with columns and a loggia, sculptural allegorical groups "Work" and "Education" at the entrance, "Galicia, Vistula and Dniester" - on the attic (sculptor Theodore Rieger).

In 1920, the building was transferred to the Lviv University of Yan Kazymyr. Currently, more than 10,000 students study at 18 faculties.

The Museum of History of Lviv University operates.

The first oceanarium in Lviv opened in 2020 in the city center, on Tarasa Shevchenko Avenue, in the former premises of the "Kyiv" cinema. This is one of the projects of a team of professional aquarists led by Oleksandr and Yana Yanovsky.

On three floors there is a labyrinth with more than 20 aquariums of various sizes, as well as an underwater tunnel 18 meters long. At the time of its opening, the collection included more than 3,000 different sea creatures. In particular, blacktip sharks, three types of rays, spotted gars, porcupinefiseh, clownfishes, yellowface angelfishes, red lionfishes, Midas cichlids, giant gouramis, piranhas and other types of fish and sea turtles live in the oceanarium.

Excursions are conducted in Ukrainian, Russian, English and Polish. A souvenir shop is open, orders for aquarium fish are accepted.

The Lviv Region Electrification History Museum was opened in 2018 at the initiative of Lvivoblenergo PJSC. The exhibition is located on the first floor of the "Lvivoblenergo" building near the "Zalizna Voda" park.

The museum tells about the history of energy development in Lviv from the end of the 19th century. In particular, the model of the first electric tram, which was launched in the city in 1894, is presented. Visitors are offered to set the tram in motion with the help of a dynamo.

You can also see a plan for the laying of cable lines of the city of Lviv from 1908, a copy of a street arc lamp from 1909, a model of a coal mine and its electrical equipment, electric meters from different times, working tools and remains of electricians.

The interior of the laboratory of engineer-inventor Nikola Tesla is reproduced in the museum, and the work of the Tesla coil is demonstrated.

In front of the entrance to the museum, there is a stand dedicated to the memory of Taras Krukenytskyi, director of the Lviv City Electricity Networks. A landmark for visitors is the mural depicting Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison on the fence.

Visiting the museum is possible only with a guided tour and by prior appointment.

The elegant Renaissance building of the palace was built for Count Sapeha, but later architect Yan de Vitte rebuilt it for the Lyubomyrskyi family.

Since the 19th century, the building belonged to the Ukrainian society "Prosvita".

Currently, the premises of the Lyubomirskyi Palace house the exposition of the Museum of Ancient European Furniture and Porcelain (680 items) - a branch of the Museum of Ethnography and Art Crafts of the Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

The Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes "Territory of Terror" was opened in Lviv on the territory of transit prison No. 25.

The prison was established in 1944 by the Soviet occupation administration, which replaced the Nazi one. During the Second World War, this place was the Lviv ghetto.

The museum complex has two barracks, watchtowers, barbed wire fence and other infrastructure facilities.

The museum tells the story of political, social, ethnic and religious repressions of totalitarian regimes against the population living in Ukraine.

A new exhibition of contemporary art of the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Gallery of Arts - Modernism Museum - opened in 2021 in a modern two-storey office building made of silicate brick, erected in Soviet times behind the Potocki Palace.

A retrospective of Lviv art from early modern experiments to examples of the aesthetics of late structuralism is unfolded in the seven halls of the museum.

The exhibition hall of historical avant-garde and high modernism of 1914-1939 begins the exposition. The next section illustrates the existential sensitivity of postwar society and the state of social alienation of Lviv intellectuals in the days of totalitarian pressure of 1939-1953, in particular the work of Karl Zvirynsky and the artists of his "hermetic circle". The following are the works of artists of 1960-1970: Yevhen Lysyk, Lubomyr Medvid, Ivan Ostafiychuk, Roman Zhuk, Roman Petruk, whose works trace the influences of European trends: Dadaism, Surrealism and Neo-Expressionism, as well as the large-scale phenomenon of the "Lviv neo-avant-garde".

The last halls exhibit the works of the final phase of modern aesthetics and visualize the transitional period between Lviv modernism and postmodernism. The works of Myroslav Yahoda, Roman Zhuk, Rostyslav Lakh, and Andriy Sahaydakovsky reveal the phenomenon of anti-social alienation, close to the Western definition of "trans-avant-garde."

The "Ancient Lviv" museum opened in 2020 in the dungeons of the Transfiguration Church in the center of Lviv, near Rynok Square.

This is the second institution of a large project of innovative museums under the brand "Formation of the Ukrainian Nation", which combines modern exhibition technologies, realistic 3-D figures of prominent Ukrainians and exhibits from private collections and museum funds.

The Lviv museum presents 40 figures of notable figures who had an impact on the development of the city from 1256 to 1722. Among them are King Danylo Halytsky, Prince Vasylko Romanovych, King Casimir III, sculptor Ivan Heorhiy Pinzel, founder of the first Viennese coffee houses Yuriy Kulchytsky and many others.

Classical and thematic excursions, children's quests, master classes on decorating weapons, weaving chain mail, pottery, making a motanka doll, painting with coffee, and medieval dances are held.

Tickets can be purchased online in advance.

The Boim Chapel near the walls of the Latin Cathedral is one of the most remarkable architectural monuments of Lviv.

The chapel was built at the beginning of the 17th century over the family crypt of the Lviv patricians Boim (the city cemetery was located next to the cathedral). Presumably, the construction was carried out by the team of architect Andriy Bemer.

Experts call this building in the style of the mature Renaissance with a transition to Baroque a vivid example of southern mannerism in Ukraine. The western facade of the chapel impresses with the wealth of decorative decoration. The author of the sculptural composition is considered to be the master from Wroclaw, Hanush Sholts. The dome is crowned by an unusual sculpture of a seated Christ. The interior is also filled with many sculptural images, most of which are by Yan Pfister.

Currently, the Boim Chapel is a department of the Lviv Art Gallery.

The very ancient church of John the Baptist is one of the few buildings preserved in Lviv from princely times. It is located in the Old Market (Stary rynok) area at the foot of the High Castle (Vysoky zamok).

According to legend, the Hungarian princess Constantia, the wife of Galicia-Volyn prince Lev Danylovych, king of Rus, is buried here.

The first written mention of the Church of John the Baptist in Lviv dates back to 1371. The building was rebuilt in the 19th century in the pseudo-Romanesque style, but some fragments of the original architecture have survived to this day.

Currently, the premises are occupied by the Museum of the Oldest Monuments of Lviv (a branch of the Lviv National Art Gallery). The exhibition tells about culture, crafts and life in the times that belong to the founding of the city. The most valuable exhibit is the "Lviv Mother of God" icon (XIV century). A plastic panorama of Lviv from the 18th century is also exhibited.

Since 2009, UGCC services have been held in the church every Sunday and on holidays.