Attractions of Sumy region

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 school museum of ethnography "Belfry of Revelation of Eternity" operates at the Romny Secondary School №5.

He has five expositions: "Towels of his native land", "Heritage through the eyes of children", "Bread is the head of everything", "Holodomor of 1932-1933", "Easter pysanka".

The exposition of the local lore museum "Petro Chaykovsky and Ukraine" is located in the village of Nyzy in the manor house of the landowner Mykola Kondratyev, who was a guest of the outstanding composer Petro Chaykovsky every summer in 1871-1879.

Kondratyev was introduced to Chaykovsky by his friend Oleksiy Holitsyn from nearby Trostianets (there is also a Chaykovsky museum there). In Nysy, the composer worked on the operas "Cherevychky", "Oprychnyk", the Second and Third symphonies, created several piano pieces and romances. He dedicated the cycle of plays "Evening Dreams" to Kondratyev, "Salon Waltz" to his wife, "Little Waltz" to his daughter, and "Sentimental Waltz" to his governess.

The next owner of the manor, Dmytro Sukhanov, a sugar factory, demolished the wing where Chaykovsky lived during the reconstruction, but the main building was preserved.

In Soviet times, a sugar factory club was located here, then a high school. Since 1990, a part of the premises has housed a permanent exhibition-museum of Chaykovsky, recreating the atmosphere of the 19th century. The exposition dedicated to the composer is made up of the exhibits of the Sumy Regional Museum of Local Lore.

The building is in dire need of repair. Due to the lack of heating, the museum is open only in the summer.

Museum of History of Sumy State Pedagogical University named Anton Makarenko was founded in 1962 and is a subdivision of the department of social and cultural work of the SumSPU.

The museum has collected more than 8,000 exhibits that tell about the founding of the school in 1924, the periods of World War II, postwar reconstruction and development of education in the region to this day.

A separate exposition is dedicated to the creative heritage of the outstanding teacher, one of the founders of the system of child and adolescent education Anton Makarenko, who was a native of Sumy region.

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.

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 museum exposition 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 church of Mykola Kozatskyi in the Ukrainian Baroque style was built in the 18th century at the expense of the residents of Putyvl - Ukrainian Cossacks.

It has an unusual silhouette with two towers of equal height. Initially, the temple was built in three parts and with one roof, but later a multi-tiered belfry was added to it from the western side. On the first floor of the two-story church is a "warm church" with low vaults. On the second floor is a "cold church" with a high central top.

The restoration was recently completed, and the museum exhibition "The Tale of Ihor's Campaign" is planned to be opened in the church.

The Church of the Nativity of Christ, which is part of the ensemble of the Intercession Cathedral in Okhtyrka, is called the "Count's Church" because it was built at the expense of Countess Anna Chernyshova.

According to legend, her mother, Baroness fon Vedel (Veydel), fell fatally ill in Okhtyrka on the way to St. Petersburg. Before her death in the Intercession Church, she had an apparition of the Mother of God, who ordered her to give away her wealth to beggars, and promised to take her two young daughters under her care. Soon after the death of the baroness, her orphaned daughters ended up at court and successfully married, and since then they made large donations to the Intercession Temple. In particular, they financed the construction of the Nativity of Christ Church.

The temple is original in terms of its volume-spatial and decorative solution, and is more like a palace building than a religious one. Indeed, living rooms were provided in the side rooms, in which the pious countess often lived for months, spending time in prayers.

The Church of the Nativity of Christ is the oldest building in Shostka. The construction of the city began in 1779 with its establishment. The construction lasted 6 years.

The Church of the Nativity of Christ was built on the private donations of workers and employees of the powder factory. In 1809, a bell tower was added.

All solemn events in Shostka were held on the Church Square near the Church of the Nativity of Christ: processions, military parades, solemn religious services.

The Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin in Yunakivka is an outstanding monument of classicism architecture.

The beautiful five-headed two-story church in the style of classicism, designed by the architect Oleksandr Palytsyn, resembles the works of the late 18th-early 19th century architect Dzhakomo Kvarenhi. Construction began in 1793 on the site of the old wooden church and lasted 13 years at the expense of Prince Mykhaylo Holitsyn. The stone temple had three thrones: in the name of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Michael the Archstrategist and the main one - in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

In 1874, the warm church of the Three Saints was also arranged in the lower basement floor of the temple. There was a church-parochial school.

The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin remained active for a long time even under Soviet power, but was closed in the 1960s, and has reached our days in a half-ruined state.

The brick one-bath church of the Nativity of John the Baptist with a bell tower is located on the northeastern outskirts of Sumy, which has the historical name of the settlement of Luka.

The church is the main architectural landmark of Luka, it is well visible from the railway, from the Lypen hillfort and from the banks of the Psel River. The territory of the church is surrounded by a wall with two forged ornamental gates of the end of the 19th century.

In 1687, the Sumy colonel Herasym Kondratyev founded the John the Baptist monastery for girls in Luka, in which a wooden temple of the same name was built in 1691. The monastery was closed in 1787.

In its place, in 1837, a stone three-part church with a bell tower was built at the expense of the family of local nobles Lyntvarov as a parish church for Luka and the neighboring village of Baranivka. In 1907, two side altars were added to the church - the Holy Trinity and Saint John.

The defensive Molchensky monastery-fortress on the banks of the Seim in Putyvl was built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries on the basis of a fortress from Lithuanian times, which was called the Kremlin.

The monastery was founded in 1570 by monks who moved to the fortress from the Molchensky desert, located 20 kilometers from Putyvl. In 1604, the impostor tsar False Dmitry I was hiding behind the walls of the monastery, coming from here to Moscow after the death of Borys Hodunov.

The complex of the Molchensky Monastery is dominated by the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, built in 1575-1585 and rebuilt several times in the 17th-18th centuries. The tower over the gate of the fortress serves as a belfry, and a fragment of the wall with a corner tower has also been preserved.

The complex also includes the 19th-century church of John the Baptist, the abbot's and cell buildings, a refectory and utility buildings.

Park-monument of horticultural art "Trostianetsky" is located on the slopes of the hills of the picturesque tract "Neskuchne", where there are three lakes in the middle of a mixed pine-deciduous forest.

The landscape park was established at the beginning of the 19th century, when Trostianets belonged to Oleksandra Nadarzhynska, the granddaughter of the city's founder Timofiy Nadarzhynskyi. Formed on the basis of ancient timber and using the natural landscape, Neskuchne Park occupies an area of 256 hectares (400-year-old oaks have been preserved).

Near the back entrance to the park in 1911, a two-story art nouveau manager's house with a tower was built, which now houses a forest research station.

On the shore of the third lake in the depths of the park is the "Grote Nymph" (1809), built of large flat stones for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. According to legend, the grotto was the entrance to the dungeons located under the city. Under Prince Vasyl Holitsyn, the grotto was used for theatrical performances on the theme of ancient Greek myths, hence the name.

The House of Civil Meetings for Nobles in Sumy was built at the end of the 19th century.

On the first floor there was a music salon, a theater hall, and a restaurant. On the second floor there are smoking rooms and rooms for gambling.

After the Soviet-Ukrainian war, the House of Nobles' Assembly was turned into a philharmonic hall. The Sumy Regional Philharmonic Hall is famous for its acoustics. In 2008, major repairs were carried out and an organ was installed.

The manor house of the Ohiyevsky landowners in Krolevets is famous for the fact that the poet Taras Shevchenko stayed there.

In 1859, he returned from Kyiv to St. Petersburg for the last time. After visiting his friends the Lazarevsky in the village of Hyrivka (now Shevchenko) in the Konotop district, he drove with them to Krolevets, where the Lazarevsky sister Hlafira Ohiyevska lived. Shevchenko spent the night here, then went to Hlukhiv.

The house of the Ohiyevsky was preserved in its original form. In 1964, a cast-iron memorial plaque was installed.

Currently, the Ohiyevsky manor houses the Museum of Krolevets Weaving, which exhibits traditional Krolevets towels, embroidered cloths, and looms.

Okhtyrka City Museum of Local Lore is located in a former private mansion of the late nineteenth - early twentieth century, located in the center of Okhtyrka.

The museum was founded in 1920. There are three permanent exhibitions: "Fauna of the native land", "History of Okhtyrka", "Okhtyrka in the occupation period" and an exhibition hall.

The most interesting exhibits of the museum: personal belongings of the writer-countryman Ivan Bahryany, antiques, photographs, books on historical themes, index "Kharkiv Provincial Assembly of 1786-1919", books on the liberation of Ukraine from fascist invaders, theatrical costumes.

During the large-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the museum building was damaged by an explosion and is now in need of restoration. Part of the exposition was damaged. But the most valuable exhibits were saved.

Employees of the museum conduct tours of the city of Okhtyrka and its surroundings.