Attractions of Sumy region

The Holy Intercession Cathedral is the main temple of Okhtyrka, a visiting card of the city.

The place where the priest Danylo Polyansky found the miraculous icon of the Okhtyrka Mother of God in 1739 was chosen for its construction.

The project of the Intercession Cathedral in the Ukrainian Baroque style was developed in 1753 by the famous architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Part of the funds was allocated by Empress Elizabeth, who visited the city in 1744. Construction lasted 15 years and was completed in 1768. The famous Russian architect Stepan Dudynskyi took part in the construction. The interior is decorated with pilasters with capitals of the Ionic order, sculpting of plant and rocaille motifs, painting on sails.

The building was damaged during the Second World War, restored in 1970-1972.

The icon of the Okhtyrka Mother of God was stolen in 1903 during restoration in St. Petersburg, the cathedral keeps a list. Other lists are in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Kharkiv and many other cities.

The ensemble of the cathedral also includes the Introduction Church-Bell Tower (1784) and the Nativity of Christ Church (1825).

The High Transfiguration Cathedral is the main building of the Holy Spirit Convent founded in Putyvl in the 16th century.

The monastery complex includes the Church of the Ascension of the Cross with a bell tower (XVII century) and stone walls with a gate. In the interiors of the cathedral there is a wonderful iconostasis and works of painting.

The temple was restored in 2006. It is part of the Putyvl State Historical and Cultural Reserve.

The Holy Trinity Cathedral in Sumy is one of the most beautiful churches in the city. It was built in 1901-1914 in the style of classicism with baroque elements according to the project of the architect Karl Sholts at the expense of the industrialist and philanthropist Pavlo Kharytonenko.

The interiors of the Holy Trinity Cathedral were decorated by the artist Mykhaylo Nesterov (the marble iconostasis has not been preserved). The project of the mosaic floor and the church fence was executed by the famous architect Oleksiy Shchusev. artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin worked on the Trinity stained glass window.

Until recently, the Holy Trinity Cathedral was used as a house of organ music. In 1996, it was returned to the believers, now it belongs to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The wooden Holy Trinity Church in Pustoviitivka was founded in 1773 at the expense of the last basket chieftain of Zaporizhzhia Sich, Petro Kalnyshevskyi.

After the Second World War, the temple premises were used as a warehouse.

In 2007, the Trinity Church in Pustoviitivka was reconstructed according to traditional technologies of folk wooden architecture as part of the creation of a memorial to Petro Kalnyshevskyi.

The Ethnographic Museum of Horiun Culture in the village of Nova Sloboda opened in 2017 as a branch of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve in Putyvl.

The museum presents a unique culture of Horiuns - a small ethnic group living in Putyvl region. According to researchers, it is an autochthonous ancient Slavic population that has preserved its original culture, language and archaic features in everyday life.

The open-air museum exhibition (skansen) recreates the estate of the Horiuns of the late XIX - early XX centuries. The interior of the house presents furniture, various household items, clothes, etc. Here and ancient icons, and embroidered towels, and a cradle, and a loom. In farm buildings - barns, barns, windmills - exhibited tools, other agricultural equipment.

In addition, in the Horiun courtyard you can see a crane well and a rare kind of cellar – a neck pit.

The ancient Rus settlement on the hill above the Seym is located in the very center of modern Putyvl. It is part of the Putyvl State Historical and Cultural Reserve.

The construction of the border fortress city "on the way" began on the order of Prince of Kyiv Volodymyr Svyatoslavovych to protect Rus from nomads. Being a capital city, in the 10th-12th centuries Putyvl had powerful defensive structures. During excavations, fragments of defensive walls and the foundation of the Church of the Ascension were found, from where Prince Ihor Svyatoslavych attacked the Polovtsy in 1185 (the remains are preserved underground). According to the "The Tale of Ihor's Campaign", Princess Yaroslavna, who was waiting for her husband from the Polovtsian captivity, was crying on the walls of Putyvl.

After the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the fortress was restored, until the 17th century it consisted of 9 hewn oak towers. The West tower was 27 meters high. By the end of the 18th century, the fortress lost its strategic importance and was dismantled. A ditch and a low rampart have been preserved.

A park with a viewing area has been laid out on the territory, and a monument to Yaroslavna has been erected.

The one-bath stone church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin was built on the western outskirts of Lebedyn in the 18th century.

The exact date of construction is unknown, but archival documents show that in 1777 it was already under repair.

In 1875, the Intercession Church was rebuilt according to the project of architect Fedir Danylov.

During the Soviet era, the temple was closed and abandoned. Restoration is currently underway.

The three-tiered Introduction Church-Bell Tower is part of the complex of the Holy Intercession Cathedral in Okhtyrka.

It was built according to the project of the Kharkiv architect Petro Yaroslavskyi, a native of the city of Okhtyrka. Made in baroque style with elements of classicism. It has a centric pyramidal composition and consists of three tiers installed on a low plinth. The church is located on the first floor, the two upper ones are intended for bells. The building has good proportions and a clear silhouette.

The Introduction Church-Bell Tower is located near the main entrance to the Intercession Cathedral and is its bell tower.

A monument to the entrepreneur Ivan Kharytonenko stands on one of the central squares of Sumy.

A successful sugar factory and philanthropist, one of the richest people of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, Ivan Kharytonenko had a significant impact on the development of the city of Sumy. He and his descendants built hospitals, educational institutions, and other infrastructure facilities in the city.

In 1899, a monument to Ivan Kharytonenko by the sculptor Oleksandr Opekushin was erected on Pokrovska Square. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, but was restored in 1996.

The first wooden temple was built in Nysy by the founder of the village Herasym Kondratyev back in 1678 in memory of his dead son Ivan.

The current brick church of John the Theologian was built by sugar factory Mykola Sukhanov in 1910.

During the Soviet rule, the church of John the Theologian building was used as a vegetable warehouse.

Now the temple is active.

The Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was founded in Basivka in 1906 in honor of those killed in the Russo-Japanese War. In 1912, the Kazan Church was consecrated.

The interior was decorated with frescoes dedicated to the memory of the residents of Basivka, who died at Port Arthur, in Manchuria, on ships of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Pacific squadrons. Also in the interior was an image of the Holy Trinity - a copy of the painting of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

Now the temple is in a dilapidated state.

Hamaliivka (Kharalampiivskyi) monastery is a monastery-prison, one of the most negative examples of the use of historical and architectural heritage in Ukraine.

Founded in 1702 as a hermitage at the wooden church of Saint Harlampius. In 1713, Hetman of Ukraine Ivan Skoropadskyi issued a charter and allocated funds for the construction of a women's monastery. He was buried right there in the ancestral crypt of the Harlampius church (white stone tombstones have been preserved), and the monastery actually became an ancestral tomb.

In 1735, the construction of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin was finished, the territory was surrounded by walls with towers and a belfry over the gate, stone cells and farm buildings appeared.

In the 18th century, the monastery burned twice and was rebuilt. It existed until 1924, when a nursing home and a children's shelter were opened here, and the cathedral was transformed into a cultural center.

In 1961, correctional and labor colony No. 66 of strict regime was established on the territory, the crypts of the Skoropadskyi were walled up, and the graves of the monks were dug up. It was only in 1994 that the restoration of the Harlampi church was carried out, and religious services for prisoners began to be held in it. The cathedral is still used as a workshop. The issue of returning the monastery to the Orthodox Church has not been resolved.

The Kharytonenko estate in Sumy is located on the bank of the Psel River at the confluence of the Sumka River on the opposite bank from the city center.

The famous sugar factory and philanthropist Ivan Kharytonenko bought this plot in the 1860s. The estate built by him consisted of three buildings: a residential building (a little in the depth of the estate; Kharytonenko's house in Moscow, where the British embassy is now located, was built on the model of this mansion), and two service buildings. In addition, the estate included a fountain in front of the residential building and a park above the Psel. In 1912-1913, the office building of the trading house "Kharytonenko and Son" was built, which housed a polyclinic in Soviet times.

Currently, the Kharytonenka estate belongs to the Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine, which is going to build a Palace of creativity and leisure for students here.

The estate house in Lyfyne was founded in the first half of the 19th century by the Khrushchov family of landowners. It is located in a park on a hill above a pond on the Vorozhba River. It is famous for the stay here of the outstanding Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.

Initially, the complex consisted of a wooden manor house and one outbuilding in the form of a typical Slobozhanshchyna hut in two halves. Nearby was a farmyard with wooden services, barns, stables, etc. An alley led through the garden to a wooden bridge over the pond.

In the summer of 1859, the then owner of the estate, Dmytro Khrushchov, hosted Taras Shevchenko for four days, whom he had met the day before in St. Petersburg. The poet lived in an outbuilding that has not survived to this day. Here he wrote the poem "Oh, the rose blooms on the mountain". The centuries-old Shevchenko pine tree also reminds of the poet's stay.

In 1880-1893, the estate was rebuilt and significantly expanded. The main house was bricked and decorated in the French Neo-Renaissance style. The wooden manor house was also bricked, and another outbuilding was built to the south of it. In the northwestern corner of the front yard on the edge of the hill, a wine warehouse was built, resembling a medieval castle.

Despite the fact that the Khrushchov estate is included in the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine in the category of local importance, the buildings are in poor condition and remain abandoned. In addition, in 2025, the main building was severely damaged by a Russian drone strike - a fire completely destroyed the roof and all wooden architectural elements.

The two-story building "Teremok" is the only surviving structure of the estate of the Kondratyev landowners in Stare Selo near Sumy. It is considered the oldest surviving civil building in Sumy Region.

The estate on the high bank of the Psel River was founded in the first half of the 18th century. The first one-story manor house was built in the Baroque style. In 1753, Colonel Stepan Kondratyev, a descendant of Herasym Kondratyev, the founder of Sumy, reconstructed the building. An extension was made to it and a second floor was added.

Later, "Teremok" was used as a granary. In Soviet times, it was residential. Now abandoned. Restoration is planned.

Nearby are the ruins of the Saint Nicolas Church (1741-1754).