Attractions of Zvenyhorodka district

The estate in Budyshche was built in 1828 by Baron Pavlo Enhelhardt (son of Senator Vasyl Enhelhardt, hero of the Second Turkish War) as his summer home (the Engelhardts' main residence was in Vilshana).

A park with a cascade of ponds and ancient oak trees was laid out nearby. According to legend, the young Taras Shevchenko, who served Enhelhardt as a Cossack in 1828-1829, hid his children's drawings in the hollow of one of the oak trees. This oak is preserved in the territory of the landscape park, it is called Shevchenko`s.

During Soviet times, the manor housed an eight-year school, which occupies the premises even now.

The park was reconstructed, arches, benches, and fountains were built to reproduce the atmosphere of Shevchenko times.

Remains of manor buildings and a large 18th-century park near the former estate of Princess Varvara Holitsyna, wife of Prince Serhiy Holitsyn.

The princely couple settled in Kozatske in 1797. The personal secretary and teacher of the prince's children was the biker Ivan Krylov for 4 years. Here he wrote the play "Triumph or Pinch", the comedy "Pie", the fable "The Pig under the Oak".

In the center of the estate was a palace in the pseudo-Gothic style - with towers, galleries and halls. The luxurious landscaped park had a pond with a mounded island, waterfalls, gazebos and a family mausoleum. Only the Governor's House, in which Krylov's "Pydshchypa" was placed, the ruins of the wing, as well as several buildings of the end of the 19th century, which were erected by the next owners of the manor - Kyiv Governor Ivan Fundukley, Baroness Vranhel, and Princes Kurakin, have survived.

Currently, these premises are occupied by Vocational Training School No. 37, the building is in a state of disrepair. One of the buildings houses the church of Saint Barbara.

The wooden church of Saint Demetrius in the village of Zalizniachka near Yerky was built in 1773 and has survived to this day with some reconstructions.

The church is cruciform in plan, single-headed, with an octagonal central log, made of hewn oak beams. The composition of the building is dominated by the central volume, completed by a flat tent top on a drum. All facades are topped with triangular pediments. In the interior, the side branches are subordinate to the height-opened central volume and are connected to it by arches-cutouts.

The Saint Demetrius Church is considered a unique work of folk wooden architecture of the Right Bank, but the last reconstruction deprived it of its authentic appearance - the church was plastered with a cement "fur coat", dismantling part of the wooden frame.

The Church of Saint George (Yuriy) in Myzynivka was built in 1906-1908 on the site of another church known from the 19th century. When it became too small for the growing parish, the parishioners appealed to the church authorities for permission to build a much larger church.

The new church was consecrated as Saint George's. It had good proportions and a variety of decorative carvings, was quite compact and fit well into the landscape.

During Soviet times, the church was closed, crosses and bells were removed from it. The premises of the temple were turned into a warehouse. During the battle of Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, the Germans used the bell tower of the church as an observation post. Soviet planes dropped five bombs on the church, but none hit. In the post-war period, grain was again kept in the Mizynov temple. It gradually collapsed.

In 1984, the "Ukrprojekrestavratsiya" institute conducted an examination of the church as an architectural monument, but restoration work began only 20 years later. Currently, Saint George's Church is in good condition. The grave of priest Lysyansky, dated 1897, has been preserved on the church perimeter.

Saint Michael's Orthodox Church was founded in Lysianka in 1723 and rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century.

In Soviet times, the large stone temple was closed, and in the late 1970s it was completely destroyed. In 2000, a new five-domed Saint Michael's Church was built in its place. Next to the church stands the priest's house, decorated with a huge painting.

The ancient Lebedyn Monastery of Saint Nicholas is located east of the village of Lebedyn in a picturesque and secluded location surrounded by forests and lakes.

It was founded by the nuns Mahdalyna and Tryfiliyeya in 1779 on the lands of Prince Frantsysk Ksaveriy Lubomyrskyi. The healing spring discovered by Saint Opanas has been preserved. The people call the Spring Mahdalynskyi" in memory of the first abbess of the monastery.

Initially, all the monastery buildings were wooden, but in the 19th century most of them were replaced by stone ones. Among them are the Saint Nicolas Church (1800) and the Barbarian Church (1839), which was destroyed during the Soviet era, but was rebuilt again in the 1990s. In 1837, a new 34-meter-high brick bell tower was built in place of the wooden one, through which the main entrance to the monastery was arranged (only a third of it has survived).

In 1929, the monastery was closed, the "Red October" commune was established on its territory, then a boarding school for homeless children, and later for children of the repressed. During the Second World War, the German authorities revived the monastery, but in 1961 it was closed again. Valuables were taken away, the bells were handed over to the museum of the city of Cherkasy. A tuberculosis hospital was placed on the territory, and then a boarding school.

The revival of the Lebedyn Monastery began in 1992. Today, two churches, a chapel, cell buildings are located within the walls of the monastery, and a little further away - a complex of farm buildings. All buildings, except the northern wall, are in excellent condition. The monastery belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Church of Saint Oleksandra in Yablunivka in the Lysyanka region was built in 1838 on the site of the old church of Joseph the Betrothed, founded in 1814.

The church-like stone Orthodox church in the name of Tsarina Oleksandra was built by Countess Sofiya Potoska with her mother's Oleksandra Branitska money. The architecture of the temple is very interesting and unusual for the Dnipro region. A characteristic feature is the two bell towers above the entrance.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a church and parish school operated at the church. In the 1930s, the church was closed, the premises were used as a warehouse.

In the 1990s, the church of Saint Oleksandra was restored and returned to believers.

The construction of a hydroelectric power station on the rapids of the Ros River in Steblev was launched in 1931 in accordance with the GOELRO plan, which provided for the creation of a whole network of small hydroelectric power stations throughout the country.

As a result of the construction of the dam and the rise of the water level in the river, the landscape changed significantly - two thirds of the picturesque rocks and rapids were under water.

The dam was damaged during World War II. In 1952, it was restored and brought to a capacity of 2.8 thousand kW. It is currently rented from a private company.

The waterfall formed by the station is called one of the most powerful lowland waterfalls in the country.

The estate of businessman and philanthropist Vasyl Symyrenko (uncle of gardener Levko Symyrenko) was built in Sydorivka at the end of the 19th century.

It was a neoclassical palace with wings and a ballroom worth about 10 million rubles. In Sydorivka, Symyrenko opened a sugar factory, where he installed machines of his own development and began producing pastille, which was extremely popular in the Russian Empire.

The entrepreneur gave a tenth of his profits to support Ukrainian culture. In his old age, he bequeathed all his fortune to cultural purposes, but the events of the First World War and the Bolshevik coup of 1917 prevented the implementation of his plans.

During Soviet times, the Vasyl Symyrenko Palace housed a school and a hospital. Now the building is in ruins. It is located in the middle of a heavily neglected park.

The national reserve "Batkivshchyna of Taras Shevchenko" unites three villages where the childhood years of the future writer passed: Shevchenkove, Moryntsi, Budyshche.

The reserve was created in 1992 on the basis of the literary and memorial museum of Taras Shevchenko in Shevchenkove. It was here that the manor of Taras' parents was located, in which he spent his childhood years, and which he repeatedly described in his works.

In 1914, the estate was bought by Kyiv cultural figures, and in 1939 a museum was opened here. The parents' house was restored according to Shevchenko's drawings, and the mother's grave was preserved in the garden.

The exposition in the main building of the museum reproduces Kobzar's life path. His personal belongings, first editions of books, documents, portraits and photographs are presented.

The Moryntsi museum complex is a reconstructed country manor in the village of Moryntsi, where the future Kobzar was born in 1814.

His parents, Hryhoriy Shevchenko and Kateryna Boyko, lived for several years in the empty hut of the exiled peasant Kopiy, next to the house of Yakym Boyko, the grandfather of the newborn Taras. Both houses were restored according to the drawings and detailed description of Shevchenko expert Oleksandr Konyskyi in 1989, with careful observance of technology and all the features of folk architecture characteristic of this area. An original wooden external storeroom was moved from the neighboring Kerelivka (Shevchenkove) to the manor.

The modest life of the Shevchenko family is recreated in the interiors of residential buildings. Behind the houses there is a wonderful view of a ravine planted with an orchard. A monument to Kateryna Boyko with little Taras in her arms was installed. A chapel was built.

The Museum of History of Village Vilshana is located in the premises of the House of Culture.

The museum exposition tells about the history of the village and famous personalities whose life path is connected with Vilshana - these are Maksym Kryvonos, Taras Shevchenko, and the Klitschko brothers, whose grandfather - Rodion Klitschko - hails from Vilshana.

In the museum, household items of ancient times are widely represented: rubles and rocking chairs, zhlyukto and bodnia, makitras and kopistiks, bowls on a bowl, a carved yoke and a whip, the first irons and calculators.

No less interesting are photographs of Vilshana from the end of the 19th century, portraits of residents of Vilshana in colorful Ukrainian costumes.

The Manor Museum of the Hero of Ukraine Vyacheslav Chornovil, an outstanding Ukrainian statesman, Soviet dissident, leader of the NRU party, was opened in Vilkhovets in the house where he spent his childhood and youth.

In 1946, at the age of nine, Vyacheslav and his family moved to Vilkhovets from their native Yerky. Here he graduated from high school, and in 1955 he went to Kyiv to enter the philological faculty of Kyiv University.

After his tragic death in 1999, his sister Valentyna Maksymivna donated the house to the Cherkasy Regional Museum of Local Lore. In 2007, in honor of the 70th anniversary of the birth of Chornovil, an exposition dedicated to him was opened in this building, and a bust of him was installed in the yard.

Visitors to the museum of Vyacheslav Chornovil have the opportunity to get acquainted with the original interiors of the rooms, unique photographs and documents, books, and personal belongings of the Chornovil family.