Attractions of Sumy region

The Okhtyrskyi Holy Trinity Monastery was founded in 1654 in a picturesque place on the top of Monastyrska Hill on the forested banks of the Vorskla.

The first builder of the monastery was hegumen Ioannikiy, who came to Okhtyrka with his brothers from the Lebedyn monastery beyond the Dnipro, destroyed by the Poles.

According to legend, the first wooden church was consecrated in the 17th century in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the monastery was originally called Annunciation. Later, a stone refectory church of the same name was built instead of a wooden one at the expense of the Okhtyrka colonel Fedir Osypov.

From 1720, according to the decree of Peter I, the abbot of the Okhtyrskyi monastery became the tsar's confessor Tymofiy Nadarzhynskyi. He died in 1729 and was buried in the Trinity Cathedral built by him. His son Yosyp Nadarzhynskyi built the stone Church of the Transfiguration with a fraternal refectory and bell tower at his own expense, and in 1741 – a hospital with the Church of Peter and Paul. The main shrine of the monastery was the miraculous Okhtyr icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Sorrowful Ones".

In 1917, the Okhtyrskyi monastery was closed, an asylum for orphans was placed in it, then a military unit. During the Second World War, the monastery buildings were badly damaged.

The revival of the Okhtyrskyi Holy Trinity Monastery began in 2002.

The Museum of the outstanding lyric poet of the 20th century, Oleksandr Oles (Oleksandr Kandyba), opened in the city of Bilopillia, the poet’s birthplace, in 1998 on the second floor of the Bilopillia Central District Library, which has been named after its famous compatriot since 1993.

A bust of Oleksandr Oles (the work of Sumy sculptor Yakiv Krasnozhon) is installed in the lobby of the library. In two spacious halls with a total area of ​​54 square meters, an exhibition is located, which includes 384 exhibits and tells about the life and work of the poet.

The first hall is dedicated to the Bilopillia period of Oleksandr Oles’s life. Thanks to the local bookseller Kostya Storozhenko, the museum has a photograph of the house where the poet was born in its then appearance. A photocopy of the entry in the church book of the Intercession Church indicates that little Oleksandr was baptized here.

The exhibition opens with a diorama of the central square of Bilopillia from the end of the 19th century. The museum's exposition is complemented by furniture from the end of the 19th century, which was kept in the apartments of Bilopillia's residents. The highlight of the museum is a samovar found in the Kandyba estate in the attic of a barn that has survived since those times.

The most valuable treasure of the museum is Oles's personal belongings transferred from the poet's archive by the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and lifetime editions of his works dated 1909, 1917, 1919, 1923, 1935.

A significant place in the exhibition is given to materials that highlight the life and work of the poet's son Oleh Olzhych (Oleh Kandyba), the stay in the Bilopillia region of Oleksandr Oles' grandson - Oleh Kandyba, who lives in Canada.

Oleksandrivska Male Gymnasium is the oldest educational institution in Sumy. An architectural monument of national importance.

Founded by philanthropist Pavlo Kharytonenko. The main building in the style of classicism was built in 1873. Later, a boarding house for 40 people was built for out-of-town students. Thanks to pointed towers, battlements, a pointed portal and the same windows, this building resembles a medieval castle. The hospital was built in the same style. Unusually beautiful stairs leading to the second floor of the main building and a two-light assembly hall.

Currently, it is the Sumy Classical Gymnasium, specializing in advanced study of the English language.

The People's Literary Memorial Museum of Ostap Vyshnya was opened in 1982 by his compatriots in the writer's homeland - in the village of Hrun in Sumy region.

The main exposition is dedicated to the life and work of the Ukrainian humorist, classic of satirical prose Ostap Vyshnya.

Several stands cover the history and ethnography of the village of Hrun.

Every autumn, the Vyshnya Smiles festival is held here, which is attended by humorous writers from Sumy and Ukraine, guests from near abroad.

The Paleontological Museum in Sumy opened in 2025 at the Center for Ecological and Naturalistic Creativity of Student Youth of the Sumy City Council. Its exposition presents authentic objects of natural history of the Sumy region and other regions of Ukraine and the world.

In particular, the museum presents the largest collection of fossil invertebrates of the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene in the region. Also presented is a mammoth femur, found by one of the co-founders of the museum during diving training on the Seim River.

Today, the total number of exhibits of the Paleontological Museum exceeds 700 units.

The Park of Culture and Recreation named after Ivan Kozhedub with an area of 58 hectares is located in the center of the city of Sumy.

There are many attractions in the park, exhibitions, festivals and other cultural events take place regularly.

The modern stadium "Yuvileyny" is located near the central entrance to the park. The city beach on the Psel River is located in the southeastern part of the park.

The Pavlo Hrabovsky Museum was founded in 1964 on a non-profit basis. In 1994, the museum received the status of "People's Museum".

In five halls of the museum with a total area of ​​over 90 square meters, an exhibition is located, telling about the life and work of the poet.

The main place in the exhibition is occupied by stands with collected photographs and materials telling about the poet's life in the village of Pushkarne (the former name of Hrabovske): childhood, youth, populist activities, exile to his native village, as well as sending to the army, arrest on the way, meeting with Nadiya Syhyda in Butyrka prison, correspondence with Ivan Franko, years of exile (Vilyuysk, Yakutsk, Tobolsk).

The most valuable exhibits of the museum are the personal belongings of Pavlo Hrabovsky, which were donated to the museum on the centenary of the poet's birth by the wife and daughter of his son Bohdan: a towel embroidered by his mother, a small bowl for his wife, and a toy mushroom for his son, all made by Hrabovsky.

A separate hall of the museum is dedicated to the ethnography of the region. It presents objects of ancient Ukrainian life: shirts, towels, embroidered shirts, jugs, pots, irons, combs, mortars, etc.

The Peoples Museum of the Chernecha Sloboda Village History is located in the center of the settlement, opposite the school. It was opened in 1991 at the initiative of the local community. The famous artist Mykola Bondarenko took part in the design.

The exposition was formed thanks to the caring residents of the village of Chernecha Sloboda, who shared many antiquities with the museum. In particular, samples of traditional clothing, embroidered towels, ceramics, etc. are presented.

Old documents and photographs on the stands tell about the period of the Ukrainian Revolution, the times of the Holodomor and World War II, in particular the immortalized memory of the four Moroz brothers and the five Shapoval brothers. Materials about the modern Russian-Ukrainian war are also presented.

The Peter and Paul Cemetery Church in the style of classicism is located in the oldest city cemetery in Sumy, where many famous Sumy residents are buried.

The temple was built in 1843-1851 at the expense of the merchant Fedior Sapozhnikov. The one-domed stone church. The bell tower is connected to the temple by a short passage. Original interior decorations and oil paintings have been preserved.

Nearby are the graves of members of the Kharytonenko family of sugar growers with marble tombstones by the Italian master Aristid Kruazi, as well as the graves of the Sukhanov merchants.

A monument to the composer Petro Chaykovsky is installed in the central park of Trostianets.

The composer spent three summer months in Trostianets in 1864 at the invitation of his friend and classmate Oleksiy Holitsyn. Here Chaykovsky wrote his first symphonic work - the overture to the drama "The Thunderstorm".

The monument of sculptor Mykola Sukhodolov is considered the only monument to Chaykovsky in Ukraine, where the composer is depicted in full height.

The first monument in Ukraine to Petro Kalnyshevskyi, the last kosh chieftain of Zaporizhzhia Sich, was erected in the village of Pustoviitivka, where he was born in 1691.

In fact, with the installation of this monument in 1991, the creation of the Kalnyshevsky memorial in Pustoviitivka began.

The chieftain is depicted with the hetman's mace in his hand. The authors of the monument are academician Vasyl Boroday and sculptor Rostyslav Synko.

The memorial complex of the last Kish Otaman of the Zaporizhzhia Sich Petro Kalnyshevsky in the village of Pustoviitivka in the Sumy region includes the Museum of Petro Kalnyshevsky, which is a department of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve "Posullya".

The museum was founded in 2005 on the basis of materials from the Romny Museum of Local Lore, which previously formed the exhibition "Legendary Koshovy ". It is located in the house of culture of the village of Pustoviitivka, in the homeland of Petro Kalnyshevsky.

The main exposition tells about the life of the Kish Otaman: childhood in his native village, dedication to the Sich, service in the Zaporozhzhian Lowland Army, election as Kish Otaman, participation in the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774, imprisonment by order of the tsarist government and exile on Solovki. Reconstruction of the interior of the Solovki cell, where Petro Kalnyshevsky spent 25 years, is presented.

Also on display are fragments of a wooden Trinity Church, built at the expense of the Otaman in Pustoviitivka (now reconstructed). You can also see a collection of Cossack weapons, coins, pipes, icons.

Two more exhibition halls present local archeological finds of Scythian times and materials about other prominent natives of Pustoviitivka.

A Pig Monument with the inscription on the pedestal "From grateful Ukrainians" was opened in the city park of Romny in 2000.

Here, on the site of an ancient Rus settlement, archaeologists found pig bones. They came to the conclusion that the pigs, which the Mongols could not eat because of their religion and therefore were not taken from local residents, saved the people from starvation.

The Romny concrete pig, sitting on its hind legs, became the fourth pig monument in the world.

The Popivka Village History Museum opened in 2016 on the basis of the Popivka Comprehensive School on the initiative of English teacher Marharyta Chepurna.

The exhibition on an area of ​​30 square meters tells about the history of the origin and development of the village. It presents old household items, as well as many old photographs and documents that tell the stories of the lives of prominent figures of Popivka of the past and present.

The manor house of the Putyvl princes Lvov in the village of Bochechky, Konotop district, is a unique monument of palace and park art of the high classicism era for the Sumy region, which has been well preserved to this day.

The estate was founded in 1745 (according to other sources - in 1783), when a landscape park was laid out on these lands that belonged to the Lvovs. Now it is a park-monument of local landscape art with an area of ​​almost 15 hectares. Linden, oak, maple, sedge and other plants grow in it.

The main element of the estate is a brick two-story palace in the style of classicism with elements of the neo-Renaissance. Most sources indicate the year 1866 as the time of its construction, although it is possible that an earlier building was reconstructed then. The estate was then owned by Lieutenant Colonel Oleksandr Lvov. Its last owner was Princess Anna Lvova.

The palace is rectangular in plan, with a massive semi-rotunda of the dance hall with a colonnade gallery, protruding on the park facade. The front facade is designed in classicist architectural forms. Initially, the layout of both floors was enfilade.

After the Bolshevik coup, the palace of Princess Lvova in Bochechky was confiscated, an agricultural technical school was placed in it, then a rural school. At the same time, the interior decor was completely lost, as well as the Corinthian capitals of the columns and pilasters of the park facade.

Now the palace houses the Bochechky secondary education institution of grades I-III. In 2010, the facade and roof of the estate were reconstructed. In 2012, the grand opening of the renovated landscape park took place: the alleys were illuminated, flowers were planted, and benches for relaxation were installed.