Attractions of Kherson region

Kherson Regional Art Museum named after Oleksiy Shovkunenko was opened in 1977 in the former building of the City Duma.

His prototype was the pre-revolutionary Kherson Museum of Fine Arts, whose collection included works of painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied arts, donated by the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, the St. Petersburg Porcelain Factory and the Glass Factory. The reason for the creation of the current museum was the city's receipt of a private collection of paintings by collector Maria Kornilovska. 

Before the large-scale Russian invasion, the museum's collection consisted of works of art from the 17th-21st centuries, and its geography spanned several continents. The basis of the collection was more than 150 works of the outstanding Ukrainian painter Oleksiy Shovkunenko. The exhibition also featured canvases by Vasyl Polenov, Oleksiy Savrasov, Ivan Kramsky, Volodymyr Makovsky, Mykhaylo Vrubel, Mykola Pymonenko, Volodymyr Orlovsky and other artists, icon painting of the 17th-20th centuries.

During the Russian occupation of Kherson in 2022, the invaders looted the Kherson Art Museum. Of the nearly 14,000 works of art that the museum's collection contained before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 10,000 of the most valuable exhibits were stolen by the Russian occupiers. Most of the exhibits were taken to the territory of the occupied Crimea. In particular, the Russians stole paintings of the 18th-19th centuries, belonging to the brushes of Western European, Ukrainian and Russian artists, as well as paintings by Soviet artists.

Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, the Kherson Art Museum building, which is an architectural monument, has repeatedly come under fire from the Russian army.

The Museum of Local Lore in Kherson arose on the basis of a collection of antiquities, which began to be collected in 1890 by archaeologist Viktor Рoshkevych, and the entomological office of botanist and ecologist Yosyp Pachosky. In 1963, the exhibitions were merged into a single museum, which since 1978 is housed in the former building of the Kherson District Court (1893).

The museum has three branches: "Literary Museum", "Nature Museum" and "Kakhovka Historical Museum".

Before the large-scale Russian invasion, the Kherson Local Lore museum's holdings included about 144,000 museum exhibits. The exposition included natural, archeological and historical departments, as well as the Suvorov Hall.

During the Russian occupation of Kherson in 2022, the invaders looted the Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore. In particular, the occupiers took away collections of coins, weapons, Sarmatian jewelry of the Soviet era and the Russian Empire, antique furniture of the 18th-19th centuries, a collection of icons, paintings, as well as valuable materials from archaeological excavations at the late Scythian settlement of the Chervonyi Mayak.

The facade of the museum was damaged as a result of Russian shelling of Kherson. Now the building is preserved and awaiting restoration.

The Korsunka Monastery of the Mother of God near Kakhovka was founded in 1785 on the lands of Prince Potemkin Tavriyskyi as a co-religionist (Old Believer) monastery.

According to legend, children found an icon of the Mother of God at this place, and when they tried to take it away, the icon became heavy and did not budge, thus indicating the location of the future abode.

By 1848, when the monastery became Orthodox, the complex already included 5 stone churches, the first of which was consecrated in 1802, a refectory, a dormitory with cells.

Before the Bolshevik coup of 1917, the Korsunka Men's Monastery, along with the Byzyukiv Men's Monastery and the Annunciation Women's Monastery, was one of the three most respected monasteries of the Kherson Diocese. During Soviet times, the monastery was closed, the churches were destroyed. Parts of the walls, the western gate surmounted by a baroque pediment, and the round northeastern tower with a tented finish have survived. The monks returned here only in 1999. Work is underway to revive the monastery.

The People's Local Lore Museum of the village of Kozatska Sloboda was created in 1988 on the basis of the school museum by the former school director, history teacher Yakubov. It is located in the center of the village in the premises of the House of Culture.

The museum's exposition recreates the history of the development of the village, culture, and education in the village. Information about prominent people of the village is preserved, as well as archaeological finds dating back to the 2nd millennium BC and belonging to the catacomb culture (stone axes, flint arrowheads, etc.).

The Literary Museum opened in Kherson in 1992 as a department of the Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore. It is located in a historic building from the late 19th century in the city center.

Before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the museum had three permanent exhibitions: "In the Labyrinth of Ancient Streets", "A Meeting Through Time" and "Futuristic Dreams".

The exhibition "In the Labyrinth of OLld Streets" introduces visitors to the most beloved street of Kherson residents - Yevropeyska Street. Vintage postcards, photographs, personal belongings of Kherson residents, schemes and plans of the old city recreate the unique flavor of the center of Kherson.

The exhibition "A Meeting Through Time" recreates the life of an aristocratic residence of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Memorial items, works of art, antique furniture – all this became the basis for recreating the interior of the study and living room of that era.

Visitors to the exhibition "Futuristic Dreams" will see the pioneers of the new artistic movement, Davyd Burlyuk, Oleksiy Kruchonykh, Volodymyr Mayakovskiy, Mykhaylo Semenko and others, whose youth and search for a creative style took place in Kherson. Their first collections and paintings, which shocked the townspeople 100 years ago, are presented to visitors to the Literary Museum.

The Chaplynka museum of local history is located in a park area in the center of the city.

Ivan Maksymov, the director of the Chervonopolyanska School, was the founder and first director. As the basis of the exposition, he put his own collection of rural equipment and household items, which students and other residents of the village helped to collect.

Currently, the exposition is housed in 8 halls, where nature and the distant past of the region, the times of the revolution and the Soviet-Ukrainian war, collectivization, World War II, as well as the interior of a village house with towels and antique objects are reproduced. There is a furnace, a spinning wheel, earthenware, a chest, a baby cradle, icons, and more.

WARNING! On the night of April 1, 2017, a fire broke out in the museum, which destroyed the museum exposition and part of the funds.

The Lutheran Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul was built in Zmiivka in 1884 by German immigrants on the high peninsula above the Dnipro.

During the Soviet rule, the kirkh was closed, German settlers were deported to Germany and camps in Siberia.

Today, the former German church of Saints Peter and Paul has been restored. 60 representatives of the German community live in Zmiivka, who conduct services and take care of the church. The service here is conducted mainly in German.

The building of the Second Mariyinsko-Oleksandrivska Women's Zemska Gymnasium in Kherson was built in 1896 in the style of eclecticism with the use of Moorish architectural traditions.

In Soviet times, the building housed a pedagogical institute.

Currently, it is an educational building of the Faculty of Technologies and Service Areas of Kherson State University.

Nearby is the church of Saint Oleksandra.

The Museum of House Vintage Cognacs "Tavriya" operates in Nova Kakhovka at the agro-industrial company "Tavriya" - one of the largest wine-making enterprises of Ukraine with a history of more than a century.

TThe enterprise was established in 1929 on the basis of nationalized wine farms of Swiss colonists with a central estate in the village of Osnova. Now the enterprise produces up to 7 million liters of ordinary, vintage and collectible cognacs per year, starting from the ordinary "Borysfen" and "Kakhovsky" and ending with the elite brands "Askania", "Kherson", "Imperial".

The exposition of the Museum of House Vintage Cognacs "Tavriya" is devoted to the history of winemaking in the region. The company organizes group and individual wine tours.

The city of Nova Kakhovka was under Russian occupation on the very first day of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, February 24, 2022. At the beginning of November of the same year, the mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Volodymyr Kovalenko, reported that the Russians had robbed the Tavriya cognac factory - they took away all the equipment, including with automatic bottling lines, and spirits for a unique collectible cognac.

The museum of local lore in the village of Velyka Lepetykha is named after the public figure Olena Tsipko, on whose initiative the museum was founded in 1975.

The museum fund has about 18,700 exhibits, including archeological finds of Trypillya culture, artifacts from the Cimmerian royal mound, Polovtsian stone sculptures.

A model of a Cossack winter camp, a Cossack sword and a bandura are presented.

In the hall "Ukrainian House" are exhibited household items and tools of the peasants of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Diorama "Velyka Lepetykha" is a view of the village in the late XIX - early XX century. The interior of the bourgeois room of that period was recreated in the "Living Room" hall.

The exposition on the Holodomor presents documents testifying to the crimes of the Bolshevik government that led to the mass famine of 1932-1933.

The "Hall of the Modern Period" covers the events of World War II, post-war reconstruction, the war in Afghanistan, and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin began to be built in 1905 at the men's monastery, which was founded in Henichesk by the old beggar Sozontiy, who was considered blessed.

The church was built in the Rus-Byzantine style.

During Soviet times, the temple was preserved, although it was used as a gymnasium and granary.

In 1989, the church was opened again, restoration was carried out.

The building of the Museum of Nature is a historical and architectural monument, erected in Kherson at the beginning of the 20th century at the expense of the Kherson provincial zemstvo and charitable contributions of the townspeople. The museum opened in 1906 and was the only building in Ukraine built specifically for the museum exposition.

The founder and first director of the museum was Yosyp Pachosky - an outstanding scientist, naturalist, who made significant discoveries in natural science. He devoted 26 years of tireless work to the formation of the first unique collection of flora and fauna of Southern Ukraine. The specimens he collected still adorn the museum exposition. Currently, the museum's natural history collection has over 49 thousand storage units.

Pachosky's memorial belongings, which were stored in the museum, allowed us to recreate a fragment of the scientist's study. Here you can see his photographs, manuscripts, and numerous scientific works. In the showcases are entomological boxes, stuffed mammals and birds, alcohol preparations, herbariums made by the scientist's hands.

The exposition "History of the Creation of the Kherson Museum of Nature" presents documents that tell about the activities of the provincial entomological office and the creation of the natural history museum. The showcases house the very first exhibits of the museum.

One of the most interesting expositions of the museum of nature "Kherson Safari" allows you to travel to different corners of the planet's wildlife. Here you can see the inhabitants of dense forests - bears, tigers; animals that live on mountain peaks and steppe expanses - snow leopards and wolves. Most of the exhibits involved in the exhibition represent rare and endangered species and were made by the best taxidermists of the late 19th - early 20th centuries.

The exposition "Inhabitants of the World Ocean" recreates shallow water areas and deep-water areas of the Lower Dnieper, Azov and Black Seas with the help of modern museum equipment. Here you can see birds typical of these places, typical species of commercial fish and bottom landscapes with various invertebrates.

The real highlight of the museum is the central exhibit - the largest museum item - a 26-meter skeleton of a giant fin whale, obtained by Ukrainian whalers off the coast of Antarctica.

The Museum of Nature is a department of the Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore.

The Albin Havdzynsky Nova Kakhovka Art Gallery was founded in 1967.

It bears the name of the People's Artist of Ukraine Albin Havdzynsky, a landscape painter, a master of genre painting and portraiture. In the 1950s, he created a cycle of 237 works about the construction of the Kakhovka HPP, which he gave to the city to create a gallery, for which he received the title of honorary citizen of Nova Kakhovka.

In addition to the works of Havdzynsky, the exposition of the Nova Kakhovka art gallery presents etchings by the People's Artist of Ukraine Vasyl Myronenko, illustrations by the People's Artist of Ukraine Valentyn Lytvynenko and others.

During the large-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the city of Nova Kakhovka was under Russian occupation. On November 1, the Russian invaders robbed the Nova Kakhovka Art Gallery and took away all the art collections: works of painting, graphics, sculptures (more than 1,000 works of art).

Novovorontsovka Local Lore Museum was founded in 1963 on a non-profit basis. In 1968, it received the status of "People's Museum". It is located in the former house of the estate manager of Count Vorontsov, built in the 19th century.

The museum's exposition is presented in seven exhibition halls with a total area of ​​almost 200 square meters. The museum's funds include about 3 thousand exhibits that illustrate the history of Novovorontsovka from ancient times to the present. Among the unique exhibits are artifacts discovered during the excavations of the Mikhaylivka hillfort, as well as items from the Cossack era, household items from the late 19th - early 20th centuries.

The Oleshky Museum of Local Lore was opened in 1962 in the house of the secretary of the Oleshky city administration, Tsyurupa, where his son Oleksandr was born in 1870, a future Soviet party figure, head of State Planning and People's Commissar of Trade.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the memorial museum named after Tsyurupa was repurposed as a museum of local history.

It is a museum complex of historical, local history and ethnographic directions.