Attractions of Kyiv

The Contemporary Art Center "Ivan Marchuk Museum" is planned to be opened in the former premises of the US Embassy in Kyiv. The artist personally developed the project of reconstruction of the administrative building into a modern museum and exhibition center.

Ivan Marchuk is People's Artist of Ukraine, laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine, Knight of the Order of Freedom, recipient of the "National Legend of Ukraine" award of the President of Ukraine, member of the Golden Guild of the Roman Academy of Modern Art. In 2007, he was included in the rating of "Top 100 living geniuses", according to The Daily Telegraph.

The Ivan Marchuk Museum and Cultural Center of Contemporary Art was created in 2021 by decree of the President of Ukraine.

The creative work of the master includes about 5,000 paintings, which are exhibited in museums on all continents of the world. Some of them are kept in the National Art Museum of Ukraine, a branch of which is the Contemporary Art Center "Ivan Marchuk Museum".

Exhibitions of Ivan Marchuk's paintings from the museum's collections are currently being held at other venues.

The Jellyfish Museum in Kyiv was opened in 2018 by a team of professional aquarists under the leadership of Oleksandr and Yana Yanovsky. The institution is located in the very center of the city, on Maidan Nezalezhnosti.

About 20 types of live jellyfish are presented in the exposition. Among the exhibits are fire jellyfish, Atlantic aurelia, "cannonball", Cassiopeia jellyfish, Amakusa jellyfish, spotted Australian jellyfish, "lion's mane" jellyfish and others.

During the tour, you can find out, in particular, how many species of jellyfish known to mankind inhabit the Earth, which of them are deadly poisonous, and which jellyfish is the only immortal creature on the planet.

Dream Island Aquapark in Kyiv is the largest indoor water park in the CIS and one of the largest indoor water parks in Europe (25,000 square meters). Its capacity is up to 4 thousand people.

Located in the "Dream Town" shopping and entertainment center.

The creators of the water park call it the "Jurassic Aquapark" because it is designed in the style of the Lost World: an island with blue lagoons, wild plants and prehistoric animals.

The arsenal of the "Dream Island" water park includes 14 slides, 2 wave pools, 3 pools with current, a lagoon with an aqua bar for 55 seats, a jacuzzi, all types of baths, as well as a children's area with an area of about 700 square meters. Animation for children and adults.

The SPA-zone "Banny world" presents the bath cultures of different peoples of the world: Roman steam room, Indian, Moroccan, Russian bath, Turkish hammam, Finnish or Egyptian sauna, hydromassage showers, etc.

On weekends, aqua parties with exotic cocktails are held in the "Dream Island" water park. There is a tent town where you can stay for the night.

Currently, the "Dream Island" water park is closed for reconstruction.

The Borshchahivka Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God "Living Source" was founded in the middle of the 17th century, immediately after the founding of the village of Bratska Borshchahivka (now a district of Kyiv) on lands donated to the Kyiv Bratskн Epiphany Monastery by the Cossack hetman Ivan Petrazhytsky-Kulaha.

The main shrine was the miraculous image of the Mother of God of Borshchahivka, which, according to legend, was found by a blind monk next to an ancient well.

The current stone building of the Church of the Living Source in the pseudo-Byzantine style was built in 1872. The church is cruciform in plan, five-naped, with a large central dome and a three-tiered bell tower. Later, two side porches were added.

During Soviet times, the church was closed and used as a granary. In 2002, the revived temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God "Living Source" was consecrated by Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv and All Rus.

The Museum of Sports Achievements of the Klitschko Brothers was organized on the initiative of the sportsmen's official fan club. It is located on the territory of the "Olimpiyskyi" National Sports Complex in Kyiv.

The Klitschko brothers donated about 70 of their exhibits for the exhibition, including their championship belts, robes, boxer briefs, medals, cups and other trophies of honor. Vitaliy Klitschko also handed over his Hero of Ukraine star and order to the museum.

Museum visitors are shown a film that tells about the most outstanding episodes of the career of the Klitschko brothers. With the help of modern multimedia equipment, visitors to the exhibition can feel the atmosphere of boxing matches.

Koncha-Zaspa is a resort area on the banks of the Dnipro, an elite country village within Kyiv.

Covers the forest park area between the Stolychny Shose and the Dnipro to the village of Kozyn. The name comes from the Koncha tract and Zaspa farm, which were located here. Before the revolution, it belonged to the Vydubychsky and Introduction monasteries.

After the transfer of the capital of Ukraine from Kharkiv to Kyiv, Koncha-Zaspa was turned into a closed reserve, a departmental sanatorium and a town of government dachas were built. Now it is the most prestigious suburb of Kyiv, where representatives of the top political and business elite live.

The Kyiv Municipal Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet for Children and Youth "Kyiv Opera" on Podil in Kyiv is better known as the Music Theater.

It is this name that is still preserved on the facade of the building, erected in 1933 in the style of Soviet constructivism according to the project of the famous architect Mykola Shekhonin as the "Kharchovyk" workers' club of the trade union of workers of the meat-canning industry.

For some time, the building was called "Slavutych" Palace of Culture.

Today, the auditorium of the Kyiv Opera has 436 seats, including the balcony. In 2016, a chamber stage was opened in the Round Hall for performances and concerts.

Currently, the repertoire of the theater includes about 60 plays. The most popular children's show is the musical "The Adventures of Buratino" by Oleksandr Bilash. The comic opera "Les mamelles de Tirésias" by Francis Poulenc and the modern production of Giuseppe Verdi's opera "La Traviata" received high marks from the audience and critics.

Availability information:
- the entrance to the theater is equipped with a ramp, the width of the doorway at the entrance allows unobstructed access for people in wheelchairs
- men's and women's restrooms located on the first floor of the theater, equipped with cabins for people with disabilities
- the ground floor of the theater is accessible to people in wheelchairs: the entrance to the hall has no stairs, wide aisles between the rows.

Kyiv City Art Gallery "Lavra" is one of the leading exhibition venues in the capital of Ukraine.

The gallery opened in 1996 in the historical building of the provision store of the Kyiv-Pechersk fortress, built in 1843-1844, next to the preserved fragment of the fortress rampart.

The exhibition space with an area of 650 square meters is used for presentations of Ukrainian artists, photo exhibitions, musical evenings, fashion shows, educational lectures and meetings with famous creative personalities.

Festivals, fairs and open-air concerts take place in the courtyard of the gallery.

The monument to actor Leonid Bykov on the slopes of the Dnipro in Kyiv is dedicated to military pilots of the Second World War who died during the liberation of Ukraine.

The famous Ukrainian actor, theater and film director, People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR Leonid Bykov starred in many popular films, but the most memorable for the audience was his portrayal of the squadron commander Captain Oleksiy Tytarenko nicknamed "Maestro" from the movie "Only Old Men Go to Battle". In this stage image, he is depicted in the sculpture, which is installed in Slavy Park near the Eternal Glory Memorial on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (between Slavy Square and Askold's Grave).

The sculptors are Volodymyr Shchur and Vitaliy Sivko.

A monument to Les Kurbas in Kyiv was erected in 2002 on Prorizna Street - near the building of the "Young Theater" founded by him.

The outstanding Ukrainian actor and theater director Les Kurbas devoted his whole life to reforming the Ukrainian theater. In 1922, he founded the "Berezil" theater in Kyiv, where he focused on finding new stage means and avant-garde forms of representation of revolutionary ideas, which was accepted by the authorities. Kurbas was accused of bourgeois nationalism and mischief, repressed, and only in 1953 was he rehabilitated.

The authors of the monument to Les Kurbas are sculptor Mykola Rapay and architect Vyacheslav Dormydontov.

The Luhansk Regional Museum of Local Lore is one of the oldest museums in Donbas.

In March 2015, the museum was moved from Luhansk to the Ukrainian-controlled territory of the city of Starobilsk. The museum is located in the premises of the former craft school, built in 1895 at the expense of the noblewoman Domna Demenkova, and is an architectural monument of the 19th century.

With the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Luhansk Regional Museum of Local Lore found shelter in Lviv and operated for two years on the basis of the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes "Territory of Terror". Now the museum has moved to Kyiv to the "My Luhansk Region" Humanitarian Hub, where it will be working for the near future. Unfortunately, the museum does not have its own premises and exhibition spaces for the full restoration of museum activities.

The Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is located on the territory of the Holosiyivsky forest, on the southern outskirts of Kyiv.

It was built in 1944-1948 on the initiative of the outstanding Ukrainian astronomer Oleksandr Orlov, who became the first director of the observatory. The construction was carried out according to the project of the famous architect Oleksiy Shchusev.

The first telescopes were Wanschaff's vertical circle and Tepfer-Steingel's double long-focus astrograph. Now the observatory also has a station for laser observation of artificial satellites of the Earth, a horizontal solar telescope АТСУ-5, a reflector AZT-2, a double wide-angle Zeiss astrograph, a meridian axial circle and other instruments.

The Museum of the History of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences is located in the tower of the double long-focus Tepfer-Steingel astrograph. Visitors are greeted by a poster announcing that minor planet No. 15675 was named Goloseevo in honor of this institution.

On the four floors of the tower, numerous photographic materials about the history of the institution, personal belongings of prominent astronomers, the first astrometric instruments and measuring devices are presented. A collection of antique clocks is presented in the time room.

Excursions with amateur astronomical observations are held by prior appointment for organized groups.

The Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Maksym Rylsky was opened in 1966 in the building next to the Holosiyivsky Park in Kyiv, where the outstanding Ukrainian poet lived the last 13 years of his life, from 1951 to 1964.

It was here that he wrote his most famous poetry collections "Roses and Grapes", "Winter Notes", "Evening Conversations".

The living room, office and library of Maksym Rylsky have been preserved in the building. In three more halls, there is a biographical exposition that illuminates the life and creative path of the poet.

In total, the museum's funds include more than 10,000 items. It is possible to listen to recordings of the poet's voice.

The house is surrounded by a garden and flower beds, created by the hands of Maksym Rylsky. A monument to the poet has been installed in front of the house.

The MIA of Ukraine Museum opened in 2004 in the premises of the National Academy of Internal Affairs in Kyiv. The exposition tells about the activities of law enforcement agencies of Ukraine from the times of Kyivan Rus to the present day.

In particular, in the museum you can learn about the work of the General Secretariat of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian People's Republic during the time of the Central Council, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian State under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, law enforcement agencies of the Soviet period and the modern Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

Photographs, documents and personal belongings of famous law enforcement officers are presented; the most important legal acts related to the creation, organization and activity of law enforcement agencies; awards of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; samples of weapons and uniforms of different historical periods.

Collections of cold and firearms seized from criminals, counterfeit money and documents, as well as the tools used to make them, materials of high-profile criminal cases, physical evidence, etc. are exhibited.

There is a separate hall dedicated to the participation of units of the MIA of Ukraine in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Miniland Railway Miniature Museum is the largest railway model in Ukraine, which opened in 2022 in the Blockbuster shopping center in Kyiv.

On an area of 87 square meters, exact moving copies of dozens of trains, hundreds of real buildings and natural objects of Ukraine, as well as about 1,500 figurines of people are presented. All objects on the model are made as realistic as possible on a scale of 1:87. In particular, you can see models of Olesko Castle, Ivano-Frankivsk Railway Station, Buky Canyon, Trypillia TPP, etc. The model has a system of automatic regulation of train movement and dynamic lighting that simulates day and night conditions.

The Miniland Museum is constantly replenished with new exhibits, which are mini-copies of real objects from all over Ukraine.