Attractions of Poltava district

The Triumphal Arch in Dykanka is the village's business card, the only surviving civil structure of the Kochubey family estate.

The ceremonial entrance to the estate was decorated with a classic triumphal arch in honor of the arrival in Dykanka of Emperor Oleksandr I, whose close associate was Prince Viktor Kochubey.

Triumphal Arch was built by the architect Luyidzhi Ruska to commemorate the victory over Napoleon in 1812, it was decorated with copper bas-reliefs with battle scenes.

Abazivka Village Museum of Local Lore has been located in the waiting room of Abazivka Railway Station since 2012. The exposition is decorated in the form of wide-format banners.

Its sections are devoted to prominent natives of the village, the Soviet period of the regional seed station, as well as the fate of the Abazivka people who took part in the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.

The walls of the station are also decorated with paintings donated by Poltava artist of the sixties Oleksandr Hlushachenko.

The State Museum-Reserve of the outstanding pedagogue and writer Anton Makarenko is located in the village of Kovalivka, Poltava district, on the territory of the former estate of the Trepke family.

It was here from January 1921 to May 1926 that the colony for juvenile offenders and the homeless established by Makarenko was located.

The Makarenko Museum-Reserve was opened by UNESCO on February 25, 1988, on the eve of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the teacher's birth.

The Red and White houses, the outbuilding, and a number of small memorials have been preserved - the entrance arch, gazebo, well, cellar, stairs to the river, pier.

The main hall of the Red House houses the main exposition, which tells about the life of Anton Makarenko and his educational teams, the creative activity of the teacher, the fate of his pupils, the implementation of Makarenko's pedagogical ideas today.

In the White House - a memorial part. Classrooms, a girls' bedroom, a club, workshops, and Anton Makarenko's study, where he wrote the first pages of the Pedagogical Poem, were restored here.

The ancient buildings of the Trepke estate have preserved the decorative stucco of the XIX century.

The Art gallery named after Mariya Bashkyrtseva is the art department of the Dykanka Historical and Local Lore Museum.

The gallery is located in the premises of the former Zemstvo school, built in 1904.

The fund collection of the gallery includes more than 1,000 works. These are mainly the works of amateur local artists, professionals of the second half of the 20th century, and contemporary artists whose creative path is connected with this region.

The greatest interest of visitors is the memorial room of the artist and writer Mariya Bashkyrtseva, where life-size copies of her canvases are presented.

Also on display is a collection of works of art related to the work of the writer Mykola Hohol. In particular, a smooth-embroidered portrait of Hohol by Reshetylivka masters is presented.

The Poltava Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics is dedicated to outstanding events in aerospace science and technology in Ukraine and the world.

The Museum of Aviation and Space Rocketry was founded in Poltava in 1987 on the initiative of the creator of rocket engines, Academician Valentyn Hlushko.

The exhibition is housed in the former building of the first Poltava fire brigade (1810). Personal belongings of cosmonauts, models of spaceships and real units of space vehicles are exhibited in 6 halls.

A significant place in the exposition is given to natives of Poltava region. In particular, the scientific heritage of Yuriy Kondratyuk from Poltava is highlighted.

The funds include about 4,000 exhibits.

A private ethno-museum of beer and moonshine opened in 2018 on the territory of the hotel and restaurant complex "Almaz-Plus" in the village of Abazivka near Poltava.

The exhibition presents original equipment and tools used for brewing and moonshine at different times and in different countries.

The collection of more than 600 exhibits was collected over 7 years by the owner of the complex Vasyl Kozhan. In addition to vats, cauldrons, bottles, mugs, there are also scales, control equipment, players, telephones, old books on the technology of brewing beer and other beverages.

The museum conducts tours and drinks tastings. The complex also includes the Beer House brewery. 

The Bilsk Museum of Local Lore is located in the village house of culture.

The main exposition is dedicated to the Scythian period in the history of the region on the basis of archeological materials of the Bilsk settlement - the largest settlement of the Scythian epoch in Eastern Europe.

Also in the museum you can get information about the development of the region during the Cossacks. Under the current name the village was founded in the XV century. Prince of Bilskym. Later it grew and became the hundredth town, which was part of the rank of Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

The museum has data on the number and composition of the rural population at different times, tells about the crafts that were engaged in by the inhabitants of Bilsk.

The exposition of the department of the Second World War is very rich.

The Bilsk Settlement near Kotelva is the largest Scythian settlement in Europe (4 thousand hectares).

Scientists identify the Bilsk settlement with the legendary city of Helon - the "Scythian capital" described by Herodotus.

The system of defensive ramparts and ditches that surrounded the city, with a total length of about 34 kilometers, is located on the banks of the Vorskla River around the present village of Bilsk. First, the Western and Eastern fortifications were built, then they were connected by a common oval-shaped rampart, which was called the Great Fortification.

According to one of the versions, it is this Scythian settlement described by the "father of history" Herodotus in the "History of the Greco-Persian Wars" (5th century BC) as the northernmost Greek city of Helon, founded in the Scythian lands by Hellenes who moved from the Black Sea.

To protect the archeological monument, the historical and cultural reserve "Bilsk" was created with the administration in the town of Kotelva (Pokrovska Street, 13), whose employees conduct tours of the ramparts, the Scythian necropolis of Skorobor, Barvinkova Mountain, the Skovoroda Oak and other archaeological and archaeological sites weekends - by prior authorization).

The wooden palisade and the watchtower at the entrance to the settlement are the buildings of the conserved open-air museum "Skifland", which planned to create the charitable foundation "Helon".

The most beautiful building in Poltava, which currently houses the regional office of the SBU, was built at the beginning of the 20th century for the Peasant and Noble Land Bank, which issued long-term loans to peasants for the purchase of noble lands.

Architect Oleksandr Kobelev designed the building, which is now considered one of the best examples of Ukrainian modernism. And the decorations are widely used details of Rus architecture. Multicolored mosaics give a special picturesqueness. The central entrance at the truncated corner of the building is decorated with a decorative mosaic panel with firebirds and siren sculptures.

The building was damaged during the Second World War, restored in 1948.

The municipal institution of culture "Chutove Museum of Local Lore" covers the history of Chutove region from ancient times to the end of the XX century, as well as tells about the famous inhabitants of the region.

The museum was founded in 1968 and is located on the territory of the Chutove Vocational School № 55.

The museum has 5,700 exhibits. After the reconstruction, the ethnographic exposition "Ukrainian Room" again conducts lectures on ethnography, in particular on Ukrainian folk customs and rites.

Ecopark "Kovalivka" near Poltava is one of the largest contact zoos in Ukraine. On an area of 120 hectares, more than 5,000 animals of 530 species are kept here, which can be observed, and some can also be fed and petted.

Many species of predators are represented in the ecopark, including tigers, lynxes, panthers, red wolves, servals, caracals, ocelots and others. Lemurs, monkeys, a family of tapirs, tree porcupines, iguanas, and turtles live in the enclosures. Among the ungulates in the contact part of the zoo, llamas and alpacas receive the most attention from visitors. You can also feed raccoons with special feed purchased on the territory of the park.

The pride of the ecopark "Kovalivka" is the residence of birds, the area of which is about 900 square meters. Here you can see flamingos, cockatoos, cranes and many other birds.

A steam locomotive runs through the territory of the ecopark. There are cozy gazebos where you can have lunch.

The Poltava Educational House named after Mykola Hohol was built in 1901 according to the project of academician Oleksiy Trambytskyi, the St. Petersburg architect of the Directorate of Imperial Theaters.

The theater building is made in the Neo-Renaissance style. Rectangular in plan, the audience hall for 1,100 seats with balconies and boxes, an orchestra pit and a compact stage box resembled in miniature the stage of the famous Milanese theater La Scala.

During the Second World War, the theater was destroyed, in the post-war years it was restored to its original architectural form and adapted to the "Wizoria Kolos" cinema (now a 3D cinema).

The Museum of Pottery of Mali Budyshcha "Ethnoselo Рonchariya" has been operating since 2021 as a separate structural unit of the National Museum-Reserve of Ukrainian Pottery in Opishnia.

It is located on the territory of one of the largest pottery centers of the Opishnia pottery district - in the village of Mali Budyshcha, located on the northern outskirts of Opishnia.

In one of the two buildings will be presented local pottery, sketches of pottery paintings, epistolary heritage, photographic documents, photos, wood products and more.

In the second - the interior of the potter's house of the late XIX - early XX centuries is recreated.

The Exaltation of the Cross Monastery in Poltava was founded in 1650 on the banks of the Vorskla River at the expense of Colonel Martyn Pushkar, a Poltava elder and burghers.

The Cathedral of the Ascension of the Cross (1699-1709) is the only seven-headed baroque church in Ukraine that has survived to this day. The four-story belfry (1786) in the late Baroque style is 43 meters high. The complex also includes the single-domed Trinity Church (1750) and the Simeon Church (1887).

During the war with the Swedes, there was a pond of Karl XII.

In the first half of the 20th century, the monastery was closed and ransacked, the premises were used by the NKVD as a prison for minors, then as a boarding school.

The complex of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery was returned to the church in 1991.

One of the first museums in Poltava was established in 1909 on the battle field of Poltava near the Mass grave of Russian soldiers to mark the 200th anniversary of the victory of the Russian army over the Swedes.

The collection includes more than eight thousand exhibits: works of art, weapons, awards, flags, uniforms and equipment of the Russian and Swedish armies, personal belongings of Petro I and his associates. The sounded diorama of the Poltava battle is established.

Nearby - a monument to Peter I, Samson's Church (1895) and the mass grave of Russian soldiers, a cross on the grave of Swedish soldiers and a monument to the Swedes from the Russians.

Two redoubts (field fortifications of the Russian army) were restored, one of which is located on the opposite side of the road, and the other - near the museum building.