Attractions of Nizhyn district

The palace of the last hetman of Ukraine, Kyrylo Rozumovsky, rises impressively on a cliff above the Seim River in the town of Baturyn, which served as the hetman's capital in the 17th and 18th centuries.

It is an outstanding architectural monument of the era of classicism of national significance, the only preserved Hetman's palace and the only architectural structure in Ukraine, built according to the project of architect Charles Cameron. It is part of the National Historical and Cultural Reserve "Hetman's Capital".

The construction of the palace and park complex lasted from 1799 to 1803, already after the hetmanship together with the remnants of Ukrainian independence was liquidated by the government of the Russian Empire. In fact, Rozumovsky did not have time to live in his new palace, as he died the year construction was completed. His descendants did not use the palace for its intended purpose, it was badly damaged by a fire, was in a dilapidated state for a long time, and was partially restored several times.

The revival began at the initiative of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko at the expense of patrons. On August 22, 2009, the restored palace of Kyrylo Rozumovsky with the exposition of the Museum of the Hetmanship was solemnly opened for visitors.

On the first floor of the palace, you can familiarize yourself with the historical past of Hetman Baturyn through the prism of Kyrylo Rozumovsky statesmanship, as well as with the history of the construction and restoration of the palace and park ensemble. The interiors of the second floor have been restored according to the analogues of the preserved works of Charles Cameron and are luxuriously decorated with paintings of scenes from ancient Greek mythology, plant ornaments and Hetmanian kleinods.

Furniture and interior items, paintings, icons of the 18th and 19th centuries are exhibited in the halls. The Hetman's Hall, where the "Stone" table with a marble board inlaid with semi-precious Ural stones is exhibited, is particularly magnificent. Among the things that personally belonged to Kyrylo Rozumovsky and his family, you can see the hetman's life company sword, the seal of Rozumovsky's cloth factory, the hetman's station wagon and fragments of Rozumovsky's tombstone.

A regular French park is laid out around the palace, restored according to the scheme of the master plan of the palace-park ensemble. The original palace outbuildings have not survived, their reconstruction is frozen.

Historical and cultural center-museum "Maclay's Sails" (Vitryla Maklaya) was opened in Baturyn in 2014 for the 168th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding scientist-traveler Mykola Mykluho-Maklay.

This is the third museum created by the descendants of the scientist Oleksandr and Nadiya Mykluho-Maklay.

Mykola Mykluho-Maklay himself was not directly related to Baturyn, but he was a descendant of the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks, and his patron was Count Oleksiy Tolstoy, the great-grandson of Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky, who spent his best years in Baturyn.

In the second half of the 19th century, Mykluho-Maklay studied the indigenous population of Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania, wrote many works on zoology, zoogeography and physical geography.

The museum presents a gallery of portraits of Maklay and members of his family, a family coat of arms, materials from ethnographic expeditions, models of ships, statuettes of island natives, maps, and more.

In one of the rooms of the museum, there is a corner where you can try on 19th century costumes and take a picture near the ship's helm.

The Maklay Sails Museum in Baturyn is part of the hotel and restaurant complex of the same name.

The All Saints Cathedral is the main church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Nizhyn, the spiritual center of the city's Greek community. Located in the territory of the "Greek Quarter" next to the Greek Church of Saint Michael.

The All Saints Church was built in 1782 by the Nizhyn Greek brotherhood on the site of an earlier wooden Greek church. It was originally made in the archaic Balkan style. At the end of the 19th century, it was partially rebuilt, the facades were supplemented with classical porticos, which gave the church features of classicism.

The Church of All Saints stands on a basement, the vault of which rests on a central pillar. In the interior, you can see a carved linden iconostasis, made by modern Nizhyn masters based on sketches by the artist Oleksandr Koshel.

The Art Department of the Nizhyn Museum of Local Lore named after Ivan Spassky was opened in 1991, and since 2021 it has been located in the former estate of the Makarov landowners of the 19th century.

A memorial plaque on the facade testifies that it was to this house in 1827 that Mykola Hohol read his first works. Taras Shevchenko, Yevhen Hrebinka, Marko Vovchok, and Mariya Zankovetska were also connected with the Makarov family. That is why the exposition of the museum demonstrates the transformation of the noble estate, its way of life in the period from the end of the XVIII to the beginning of the XX century.

There are plans to build a literary room, an exhibition of outstanding historical figures of Nizhyn.

The museum's art collection includes works by the outstanding Ukrainian artist Serhiy Shyshko, as well as Oleksandr Yakymchenko, Mykola Stratilat, Vadym Dobrolizh and others. Now the museum has an exhibition hall, which hosts exhibitions of contemporary Nizhyn artists.

The Borzna Memorial Art Museum "Manor of the People's Artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Sayenko" was opened in 1996 in the house of the Sayenko family in the town of Borzna, Chernihiv Region.

The exposition highlights the life and work of the famous Ukrainian decorator, whose name is included in the UNESCO list of outstanding figures of world culture.

Oleksandr Sayenko was born in Borzna in 1899. Due to an illness, he lost his hearing and speech as a child, but thanks to the patronage of the Sayenko neighbor, the writer Hanna Barvinok (wife of Panteleymon Kulish), he entered the St. Petersburg Imperial School for the Deaf and Dumb. He became most famous for his works in the field of monumental and monumental-decorative art in the straw inlay technique.

The exposition of the museum presents such famous works as "Kozak Mamay", "Semen Paliy" and others. Also on display are carpets, tapestries, scraps of Sayenko's work, a collection of Ichnya tiles collected by him, and family memorabilia.

The Bakhmach Historical Museum named after Mykola Hnatovych Yaremenko offers to get acquainted with the history of one of the oldest Slavic cities.

The exposition covers all epochs: Ancient Rus, the Liberation War, the hetmanship of Ivan Mazepa, the construction of the Kursk-Kyiv railway.

The Baturyn Archeology Museum was opened in the reconstructed premises of the Resurrection parish school (1904), which is located next to the Resurrection Church, not far from the Citadel of the Baturyn Fortress.

The Baturyn Archeology Museum  is part of the "Hetman's Capital" National Reserve.

The exposition is unfolded in three halls according to the chronological and thematic principle. The Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age periods are represented by fragments of ceramics and silicon products. Ancient Rus material: dishes, glass bracelets, jewelry made of non-ferrous metals, iron and bone products. The date of construction of the Polish fortifications is indicated by a silver thaler minted in Basel in 1622.

Rebel weapons tell the story of the liberation movement of the Ukrainian people: battle axes, pitchforks, etc. Baturyn's hetman period is characterized by Cossack derivatives and household objects, copies of documents and maps, craftsman's products, in particular, original tiles with images of the coats of arms of Ukrainian hetmans Ivan Bryukhovetskyi, Ivan Mazepa, and Pylyp Orlyk.

Relics of the heroic defense of the city in 1708 found during the excavations deserve special attention - body icons and crosses of massacre victims, fragments of a cannon and a bell. The symbol of the tragedy was the burnt icon of the Mother of God with the Child on a copper plate with traces of gilding by the masters of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra at the end of the 17th century, found by archaeologists in the grave of an elderly woman with a crushed skull.

The Baturyn Krupytsky Saint Nicholas Monastery was probably founded before the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

It is believed that the first temple was built at the place of the appearance of the icon of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker (the present territory of the hermitage).

According to legend, it was called Krupytsky after the monks were saved from starvation during the Mongol-Tatar siege thanks to the cereal that fell from the sky.

In the 17th century, the monastery was revived as a men's monastery, was under the patronage of Ukrainian hetmans and Russian tsars. It was burned by the Russians during the Baturyn massacre in 1708, but was soon revived.

In 1922, the Krupytsky Monastery was closed, all buildings were dismantled.

In 1999, a new stage of revival began, the accidentally found miraculous icon of Saint Nicholas was returned to the church. It is part of the National Historical and Cultural Reserve "Hetman's Capital".

The Bobrovytsia Historical and Local Lore Museum is located in the very center of the city of Bobrovytsia.

Founded in 1986 at the expense of doctor Mykhaylo Zamchynsky. The basis of the exhibition was a collection of exhibits collected by local schoolchildren from a group of young trackers.

In 6 exhibition halls, ancient tableware, ceramics, objects made of metal, bronze and copper, ancient icons, towels, folk clothes and household items are presented.

Documents about the life and activities of the Decembrists Volkonsky and Podzhio, who are buried near Bobrovytsia, are also presented.

The two-level church of John the Theologian in Nizhyn was built in the 18th century on the site of a wooden church (1619).

Its architectural style is characterized as a transition from baroque to early classicism, where experts see the hand of the famous Kyiv architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi. There was a warm church on the first floor, and a cold one on the second.

Saint John of Kronstadt blessed the city and its inhabitants from the balcony of the Saint John the Theologian Church when he visited Nizhyn in 1893 on his way to Kyiv.

The church was restored in 1954-1955, since then its premises have been used as an archive.

Ancient frescoes, interesting openwork stairs and fences have been preserved. Negotiations are underway regarding the return of the Orthodox Church.

Nearby is a monument to the navigator Yuriy Lysyanskyi, whose father served in this church.

The wooden Cossack fortress in Baturyn on the Seim River was reconstructed in 2009 on the same site where from 1669 to 1708 the fortified residence of three Ukrainian hetmans was located: Demyan Mnohohrishny, Ivan Samoylovych, Ivan Mazepa.

The life and activity of Pylyp Orlyk and Kyrylo Rozumovsky are also connected with the hetman's capital in Baturyn (a monument "Hetmans. Prayer for Ukraine" has been erected).

Baturyn Fortress was founded in 1625 on the ancient Russian settlement by Polish magnate Oleksandr Pyasochynsky. In 1664, when Baturyn was already a hundredth Cossack town, the fortress could not be captured by the troops of Polish King Yan Kazymyr.

Baturyn fortress consisted of external urban earthen fortifications with a fence and a citadel (castle), where the residence of the hetmans was located. There was a stone hetman's house and a wooden Resurrection Church, an entrance gate and three towers.

In 1708, all the buildings of the Baturyn Fortress were completely destroyed during a punitive operation by Russian troops under the command of Oleksandr Menshikov on the orders of Tsar Peter I of Moscow in revenge for Hetman Ivan Mazepa for siding with Swedish King Charles II during the Moscow-Swedish War. In memory of the Baturyn tragedy, during which almost the entire population of the city was destroyed (5-6.5 thousand soldiers, 6-7.5 thousand civilians), in 2004 a memorial was erected on the site of the north-eastern tower of the citadel. cross.

By 2009, the reconstruction of three defensive towers, wooden fortress walls, a stone hetman's house, a treasury and the castle Resurrection Church, which were included in the exposition "Citadel of Baturyn Fortress" of the Hetmanate History Department of the National Historical and Cultural Reserve, was completed Hetman's capital ".

An exhibition of three-dimensional figures "Light Hetmans. Life for Ukraine" has been opened in the Hetman's house.

From the observation deck of the gate tower of the Citadel of the Baturyn Fortress, the best panorama of the Seim Valley opens.

The Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Maherka (former suburb of Nizhyn) was built in 1775 on the site of an old wooden church as a burial place for Colonel Petro Razumovskyi at the expense of his wife.

The church is tetraconch with four apses.

In 1860, a warm church with a two-story bell tower was completed from the west, connected to the main volume by a long hall, according to the project of the Falovych county surveyor.

In Soviet times, the temple premises were used as a cinema hall and film storage. In 1991, the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross was handed over to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The complex of religious and civil buildings of the Greek community of Nizhyn is located to the left of the Saint Nicholas Cathedral.

The Greek churches of All Saints (1782), Saint Michael (1719-1729) and Trinity (1733) are located next to each other here. All three churches have been restored, services are held.

Next to them are the buildings of the former Greek Magistrate (1785), the Oleksandrivskyi College (1817) and the Women's Gymnasium (19th century). Opposite the bazaar is the oldest pharmacy in the city, founded in 1777 by a retired doctor of the Izyum hussar regiment, a Greek from Nizhyn Mykhaylo Lihda (active).

Many other public and residential buildings of the community have been preserved, on some of them you can still see inscriptions in Greek.

The historical and memorial museum-reserve of Panteleymon Kulish was founded in 1999 in the Motronivtsi hamlet, on the outskirts of the Olenivka village.

Ukrainian writer Panteleymon Kulish spent the last years of his life here, in the "Hannyna Pustyn" manor. He settled in Motronivtsi after the "Em decree" of 1876, according to which it was forbidden to publish any texts in the "Little Russian dialect", with the exception of artistic works and historical documents. Kulish's collection "Khutirska philosophy and poetry distant from the light" prepared here was banned by the censorship on the basis of this very decree.

On the territory of the farm, the manor of Kulish himself, as well as his wife and colleague Hanna Barvinok, was restored, monuments were erected, graves were arranged, a garden was planted and a pond was dug. The complex quite faithfully reflects village life.

The Holy Annunciation Monastery in Nizhyn was founded in 1702 by Metropolitan Stefan Yavorskyi, whose brother served at that time as abbot of the Saint Nicholas Cathedral.

The Annunciation Cathedral was built in 1716 according to the project of the Moscow architect Hrigory Ustinov in the Baroque style. Had a second name - Nazareth the Virgin. Fragments of paintings of the XVIII-XIX centuries have been preserved inside.

The complex also includes the Peter and Paul Church with a bell tower (1803), the abbot's house with a refectory and cells (1808), as well as 12 monastery shops.

In 1999, the complex was handed over to the UOC community of the Moscow Patriarchate, the men's monastery is in operation, but the restoration of the buildings is being carried out very slowly. Church shops are used as shops, hairdressers, etc.