Attractions of Samar district

The huge and majestic Holy Trinity Cathedral in Samar is the only nine-bay wooden church in Ukraine.

It was built in 1775-1778 by the order of the last basket chieftain of the Zaporizhzhia Sich, Petro Kalnyshevsky, under the leadership of Colonel Antin Holovaty of Samar, at the expense of the Zaporizhzhia Army.

The complex 9-log structure was assembled from 559 logs without a single nail by Yakym Pohrebnyak, a self-taught craftsman from Nizhny Vodolaha, Kharkiv province, having first made a model. Colonel Antin Holovaty of Samar Palanka supervised the construction. The foundation of the temple took place a few days before the liquidation of Zaporizhzhia Sich.

After the fire of 1855, the Trinity Cathedral was restored in its former form. Collection of funds for the restoration was conducted by the outstanding historian Dmytro Yavornytskyi. At the beginning of the 20th century, oil painting in the domes was added to the original handmade wooden friezes.

In 1930, the temple was closed and was used as a grain warehouse. The services were restored in the period from 1942 to 1963, then the Historical and Local Lore Museum was placed in the premises.

In 1988, the Trinity Cathedral was returned to believers, although until now the architectural monument was used by the Dnipro Art Museum for the exposition of the department of decorative and applied arts. The list of the icon of the Mother of God of Samar, the original of which disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century, is stored here. Restoration has been underway since 2012.

The Samar Museum of History and Local Lore named after Petro Kalnyshevsky was founded in 1963.

Initially, the museum was located in the building of the Trinity Cathedral. In 1983, the exposition was moved to a building in the style of Ukrainian Art Nouveau, built in 1901.

The collection includes 5 Polovtsian idols, ancient weapons and household items, pottery, embroidery.

The Kozachchyna Hall is dedicated to the events of the XV-XVIII centuries, in particular the history of the first Cossack monastery, stories about the priest Kyrylo Tarlovsky, known as the "wild peep", as well as about the last Cossack chieftain of Zaporizhzhia Sich, Petro Kalnyshevsky.

The Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary in Novoselivka was founded in 1780.

The wooden temple served the parishioners properly until the 1930s, then it was closed by the Bolsheviks. Divine services were restored during the Second World War. The church operated until 1960, then it was closed again, and the building was equipped with a gym, then a warehouse. In 1981, the village council decided to destroy the church building: the wooden structure was broken with difficulty, and the granite plinth and foundation could not be destroyed even with a bulldozer.

In 1985, a small church in the name of Archangel Gabriel was built on the foundation. In 2003, a place was consecrated for the construction of a new temple, the construction of the walls of which was completed in 2008. Soon, the first divine service was held in the lower church of the Assumption Church.

The reconstructed Cossack becket is located on a hill above Samara near the village of Vasylivka.

Cossack observation posts in the form of wooden towers, from which observers controlled the surrounding steppes, were called bekets. Beckets also served as signal baths - in case of danger, signal fires were lit on them.

A beautiful view of the Samara forest opens from the becket near Vasylivka. A wooden cross is installed nearby.

The Mahdalynivka Museum of History and Local Lore named after Dmytro Kulakov was founded in 1962 in the urban-type village of Mahdalynivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

It bears the name of its founder – historian and local historian Dmytro Kulakov. In 1985, the museum received a separate building in the center of Mahdalynivka, next to the village council.

The museum's funds include 2,500 exhibits. In particular, the ethnographic corner presents household objects of the 18th-19th centuries. The diorama of the battle of local partisans with the German invaders on the outskirts of the village of Krymynivka is dedicated to the partisan movement in Pryorillya during the Second World War.

The Church of the Holy Intercession in the village of Orlivshchyna was built at the end of the 20th century on the site of a destroyed wooden church founded in 1782.

In the 1920s, the Church of the Holy Intercession was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. In 1992, the revival began, and 6 years later, the solemn consecration of the new stone Holy Intercession Church took place.

Shrines: the ancient Athos icon of the Protection of the Mother of God, an image with a portion of the relics of the holy martyr Mykola Iskrivsky.

There is a parish Sunday school, the church takes care of orphans who live in the "Horobynochka" children's boarding school.

Saint Nicholas Desert Samar Men's Monastery - the main shrine of the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks.

The first church with a hospital and a school was built by the Zaporizhzhians on the island between the Samara River and its bend Samarchyk back in 1576. Since 1602, the shrine has been transformed into a monastery with a shelter for retired elderly Cossacks, but the official date of foundation is 1672.

Fortifications were built during the Turkish war. Saint Nicholas Church in Baroque style was built in 1782-1787.

In the 1930s, the Samar monastery was closed, a home for the elderly was placed in it, then a boarding school for the mentally retarded.

In 1993, it was returned to the Orthodox Church. The main shrine is the Okhtyrska icon of the Mother of God, called "Samara".

Salt lake on the outskirts of the Samara Forest between the villages of Znamenivka and Novotroitske.

The shape of the lake is close to a circle with a diameter of about 1.8 kilometers. The area of the lake is about 3.5 square kilometers, the length of the coastline is about 11.5 kilometers. In the center of the lake there is an elongated island, on the shores there are several small bays.

The salt estuary is a place of growth of rare species of salt marsh and seaside flora. Many species of waterfowl nest here, including rare ones: stilt-billed stilt, steppe grebe, gray crane, stilt.

At the bottom of the lake lies mud that has healing properties. A mud reservoir has been erected on the shore, which ensures the preservation of the therapeutic properties of the mud for a long time.

The "Salt Estuary" resort is functioning.