Attractions of Kyiv

One of the largest art museums of Ukraine and a treasury of Ukrainian cultural heritage is the Ukraine National Decorative Art Museum  in Kyiv (used to be called the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art).

It is located on the territory of the National Historical and Cultural Reserve "Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" in the premises of the former metropolitan chambers and the Annunciation Church adjacent to them, which are architectural monuments of the 18th - early 20th centuries.

The museum collection was founded in 1899 as one of the components of the collection of the newly created City Museum of Antiquities and Arts, renamed in 1904 to the Kyiv Art, Industrial and Scientific Museum.

Now the museum collection consists of more than 78,000 works of traditional folk and professional decorative art of Ukraine from the 15th century to the present day. The main rarities of the museum: a wooden carved cross in a silver frame of 1576, clay tiles of the XV-XVII centuries, items of church sewing of the XVIII century, products of the leading porcelain and earthenware enterprises of Ukraine of the XVII-XIX centuries.

The pride and decoration of the collection are complexes of Ukrainian folk costumes of the 19th and early 20th centuries from all regions of Ukraine, where the art of cutting, weaving, embroidery, appliqué, punching, weaving, leather and metal processing are combined in a single artistic ensemble. Traditional women's jewelry attracts attention: dukachi, coral, Venetian necklace, beadwork.

Also, the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art has the largest collection of paintings by prominent Ukrainian folk artists Kateryna Bilokur and Mariya Prymachenko.

Ukrainian Culture and Art Center in Kyiv was established in 2005 with the aim of reviving national customs and traditions.

Here children are taught the technique and culture of embroidery, weaving, painting and other types of decorative and applied art, as well as being introduced to ancient customs and rituals.

Since 2011, the Center of Ukrainian Culture and Art has had its own building in Podil, where a gallery of traditional Ukrainian art is housed, exhibitions and various events are held.

The Ukrainian Gram Records Museum opened in 2023 on the territory of the "Singing Field" cultural and artistic complex. The original exhibition was created by the Kyiv City Center of Folk Art at the initiative of Ukrainian musician Ivan Moskalenko (DJ Derbastler), one of the pioneers of the Ukrainian electronic scene.

The museum's collection contains treasures of Ukrainian music on various soundcarriers. More than 400 exhibits tell about the history of gramophone records and various aspects of the musical culture of Ukraine.

The National Public Radio Company of Ukraine is located in a legendary building in the very center of Kyiv, whose address "Khreshchatyk 26" was once the name of all Ukrainian television and radio.

The four-story building in the heart of the block was built in 1913-1914 as a telephone exchange on the site of the post office. After the transfer of the capital of Ukraine from Kharkiv to Kyiv in 1934, the radio committee was located here.

In 1941, the building was blown up by the retreating Red Army. In 1949-1951, reconstruction was carried out according to the project of architect Victor Yelizarov (the author of the Motherland Motherland monument, Khreshchatyk metro building, Zhulyany airport, Kyiv and Dnipro hotels), and a radio and television complex was built. The first TV tower was located on a nearby mountain.

After the new TV center was commissioned in the early 1990s, state television moved to Syrets in several stages, while state radio remained on Khreshchatyk. Currently, NPRC broadcasts on four channels: UR-1, "Promin", "Kultura", VSRU.

Enthusiasts have opened a museum room where archival documents and photographs, old sound recording equipment, and work equipment of radio journalists are presented. Visiting the Museum of Ukrainian Radio is possible only with the agreement of the NPRC management.

Ukrainian Sixtiers Dissident Movement Museum in Kyiv opened in 2012 in the building that houses the party "People's Movement of Ukraine".

The Art Nouveau mansion with a lion sculpture on the facade was built in 1907-1908 by architect Ihnatiy Ledokhovsky. Before the Bolshevik coup of 1917, housed the surgical hospital of Dr. Ihnatiy Makovsky. In 1911, the Prime Minister of the Russian Empire, Petro Stolypin, died in the Makovsky clinic, mortally wounded by a terrorist during a performance at the Opera House.

Since 1999, the central office of the People's Movement of Ukraine, one of the oldest political parties in Ukraine, whose founders were the famous Ukrainian sixties Vyacheslav Chornovil, Ivan Drach, Mykhaylo Horyn and others, moved to the building. Their political and human rights activities began during the "Khrushchev thaw" in the USSR in the 1960s, but later some of the sixties were repressed.

The Sixtiers Museum was opened on the basis of the collection collected by the activists of the sixties public organization. The exposition includes about 20,000 exhibits.

The Ukrainian Sixtiers Dissident Movement Museum is a branch of the Kyiv History Museum.

The bright building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is one of the best architectural buildings of the Soviet period in Kyiv.

The interiors of the lobby and the main lobby are decorated with stucco, inlays and monumental painting in the style of socialist realism with elements of Ukrainian folk decorative art. In the central part of the building there is an octagonal session hall covered by a glass hemispherical dome.

In 1991, the state independence of Ukraine was proclaimed here. Currently, the Verkhovna Rada is the main political center of the country. On session days, rallies and pickets often take place on the square.

The information department conducts tours about the history of parliamentarism for organized groups of enterprises, educational institutions, and public organizations.

Victoria Museum of Costume and Style in Kyiv was founded in 2017 by private collector Victoria Lysenko.

The exposition is located in a restored eclectic style profit house, which was built at the end of the 19th century by Lazar Chornoyarov, a merchant of the first guild.

All the demonstration halls on two floors present more than 1,500 authentic exhibits of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including clothes, shoes, accessories, valuables and ordinary household items used by the inhabitants of the cities of Ukraine and Europe at that time.

In the first hall, costumes from 1900-1920 are presented, reflecting the pre-revolutionary style of Kyiv residents. The second hall is used for temporary exhibitions. In the third hall, clothes from the end of the 19th century are exhibited, a characteristic feature of which was mandatory women's corsets. The exhibits of the fourth hall reflect the fashion of the first half of the 19th century, which was characterized by women's dresses with crinolines. In the fifth hall there is a rest area and photo locations. The sixth hall gives an opportunity to see some exhibits in detail almost up close. In the seventh hall, there is a cinema hall and another photo area.

Among the unique exhibits of the Victoria Museum is the only dress in Ukraine from the Charles Worth Fashion House of the beginning of the 20th century. A collection of fans of the XVIII-XX centuries is also presented.

The memorial museum-apartment of the composer Viktor Kosenko was founded in 1938 by his widow Anhelina Kanep-Kosenko.

The museum recreates the interiors of Kosenko's living room and office as they were during his lifetime. Among the personal belongings of the composer presented in the exposition, the oldest is the name silver spoon from Kosenko's parental home. An album made of crocodile skin with sheet music of themes from Kosenko's symphonic works attracts attention. Books from Kosenko's personal library are presented with the authors' gift inscriptions.

Now the Museum-apartment of Viktor Kosenko is a branch of the Museum of Theater, Music and Film Arts of Ukraine.

A monument to the leader of the People's Movement of Ukraine, Vyacheslav Chornovil, was erected in Kyiv in 2006 at the corner of Mykhaylo Hrushevskyi Street and Muzeyniy Lane, near the building that housed the headquarters of the People's Movement of Ukraine in 1989.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chornovil was an ideologue of national revival and independence of Ukraine, and later the leader of the most influential national democratic party. Died in a car accident under dubious circumstances in 1999.

The author of the sculptural composition is the sculptor Bohdan Mazur. The figure of Chornovil in a billowing cloak, as if breaking through a stone wall, symbolizing Ukraine's totalitarian past. Above him hovers a muse with a viburnum wreath - symbols of glory and recognition.

"Vysotsky" Gallery is the first museum of the poet, singer and actor Volodymyr Vysotskyi in Ukraine.

It is located on Vozdvyzhenka in Kyiv, next to Andriyivskyi Uzviz. Valuable exhibits, as well as unique memories of Vysotsky's contemporaries are collected here. In particular, rare photos of Arkadiy Hershman's work, books with poems by and about Vysotsky, discs with films in which Vysotsky starred are presented.

There is a cafe "Tahanka", where recordings of Vysotsky's songs are constantly played. In memory, you can buy souvenir products - t-shirts, mugs, etc.

WARNING! Since the beginning of 2020 due to quarantine, and since 2022 due to martial law, the museum exposition has been temporarily closed.

The Water Information Center "Water Museum" was organized in 2003 in the premises of ancient water towers and reservoirs on a hill in the City Garden (formerly the Tsar's Garden) in Kyiv.

The exposition of the Water Museum acquaints visitors with the nature of the water cycle, water intake technology, water supply and sewerage. You can take a trip along the sewer to the treatment facilities of the Bortnychy aeration station, observe the melting of glaciers, the formation of rain and the eruption of the geyser.

For children there is an opportunity to change the course of the river, play with soap bubbles, check the power on the water pump, as well as touch live fish.

The writer's building of the "Worker of Literature" cooperative (Rolit) at the intersection of Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street and Mykhaylo Kotsyubynskoho Street is the "most memorable" building in Kyiv. 29 memorial plaques have been installed on its facade - a kind of record.

The building in the style of constructivism and classicism, designed by Vasyl Krychevskyi, was built in 1934 by the housing cooperative of the Union of Writers. At different times, about 130 writers and other artists lived here, including Oles Honchar, Pavlo Tychyna, Maksym Rylskyi, Volodymyr Sosyura, Mykola Bazhan, Oleksandr Korniychuk, Andriy Malyshko, Ostap Vyshnya and others. Oles Honchar's "Cathedral" was created here and Andriy Malyshko's "Song about a Towel" was written.

The writer's house is also mentioned in several literary works and memoirs of writers.

In 1970, the Rolit building was declared a historical monument.

Archangel Michael Zvirynets cave monastery is an ancient Rus underground abode founded in the 10th-11th centuries on the territory of Zvirynets - the country hunting grounds of Prince Vsevolod of Kyiv.

The monastery was destroyed by the Polovtsy in 1096-1097. The caves were opened in 1888 by the Ukrainian artist Dmytro Zaychenko.

The internal arrangement of the complex is similar to the caves of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. A small cell was discovered near the entrance to the caves, to the left of it - a straight underground corridor with 40 burial niches. A cave church was also discovered. In the caves, cypress boards from tombs, slate slabs and plinths, remains of felt and leather shoes, ceramics and other things were found. Old Rus drawings and inscriptions have been preserved on the walls, including the famous Zvirynets Cross, which became the most popular Orthodox symbol of the Moscow Patriarchate in Kyiv.

At the end of the 19th century, the monastery was partially restored as a hermitage of the Saint Jonas Monastery with the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin. Today it is an independent Archangel Michael monastery in Zvirynets.