Attractions of Kherson district

The Museum of Local Lore in Kherson arose on the basis of a collection of antiquities, which began to be collected in 1890 by archaeologist Viktor Рoshkevych, and the entomological office of botanist and ecologist Yosyp Pachosky. In 1963, the exhibitions were merged into a single museum, which since 1978 is housed in the former building of the Kherson District Court (1893).

Before the large-scale Russian invasion, the museum's holdings included about 144,000 museum exhibits. The exposition included natural, archeological and historical departments, as well as the Suvorov Hall.

During the Russian occupation of Kherson in 2022, the invaders looted the Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore. In particular, the occupiers took away collections of coins, weapons, Sarmatian jewelry of the Soviet era and the Russian Empire, antique furniture of the 18th-19th centuries, a collection of icons, paintings, as well as valuable materials from archaeological excavations at the late Scythian settlement of the Chervonyi Mayak.

The facade of the museum was damaged as a result of Russian shelling of Kherson. Now the building is preserved and awaiting restoration.

The building of the Second Mariyinsko-Oleksandrivska Women's Zemska Gymnasium in Kherson was built in 1896 in the style of eclecticism with the use of Moorish architectural traditions.

In Soviet times, the building housed a pedagogical institute.

Currently, it is an educational building of the Faculty of Technologies and Service Areas of Kherson State University.

Nearby is the church of Saint Oleksandra.

The obelisk with a sundial and a bas-relief is erected in honor of the English reformer lawyer, doctor and philanthropist Dzhon Hovard.

In Europe, he built hospitals and homes for the elderly, fought for the rights of convicts. In 1789, an enthusiastic doctor came to Kherson to fight the typhus epidemic that broke out here. Having become infected himself, he died a year later and was buried there.

The "Frigate" memorial sign on the embankment of Kherson is the most famous symbol of the city.

The monument in the form of a sailboat on a high pedestal was erected in 1972 in honor of the first ships of the Black Sea Fleet: the 66-gun battleship "Glory to Kateryna" and the 50-gun frigate "George the Victorious". They were launched from the docks of the Kherson admiralty shipyard in 1783.

The monument is made of sheet copper, concrete and granite. Sculptors Ivan Bilokur, Volodymyr Potrebenko, Vasyl Shkuropad, architect Yuriy Tarasov.

The monument to Prince Hrihory Potemkin-Tavriyskyi was erected at the behest of Empress Catherine II in Kherson - the city that Potemkin built and where he was buried in 1791.

However, the construction of the monument began only under Oleksandr I, Catherine's grandson. The sculpture by Ivan Martos was installed in Potemkin Square in 1836. During the Soviet rule, the monument was removed from the pedestal (a monument to Karl Marx was erected in its place), and then it disappeared.

Restored in 2003 to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the founding of the city.

In 2022, during the occupation of Kherson by Russian troops during the Russian-Ukrainian war, on the eve of the retreat from the city as a result of a successful counteroffensive operation by the Ukrainian army, the Russian occupiers dismantled the monument and took it out of the city.

The Oleshky Museum of Local Lore was opened in 1962 in the house of the secretary of the Oleshky city administration, Tsyurupa, where his son Oleksandr was born in 1870, a future Soviet party figure, head of State Planning and People's Commissar of Trade.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the memorial museum named after Tsyurupa was repurposed as a museum of local history.

It is a museum complex of historical, local history and ethnographic directions.

The Oleshky sands are the largest sand massif in Europe, which is sometimes incorrectly called the largest European desert.

The sand arena, about 15 kilometers in diameter (161,000 hectares), consists of barkhans (kuchuguri) about 5 meters high, covered with rare vegetation. The name Oleshky sands comes from the nearby town of Oleshky.

Semi-deserts were formed in the lower reaches of the Dnipro in the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of massive uncontrolled livestock grazing, which destroyed the vegetation that bound the sands, and also as a result of almost complete deforestation. All this time, sand consolidation works were carried out. Currently, the spread of the desert has been stopped with the help of large areas of pine forest around the entire perimeter.

In Soviet times, the Oleshky sands were used as a military airfield for bombing. Due to the fact that many unexploded ammunition remained in the sands, formally the access of civilians to the territory was prohibited, but practically there were no obstacles to visiting until recently. In 2010, the Oleshky Sands National Park was created here.

Near the village of Proletarka, there is a convenient viewing platform, the coordinates of which are given below.

Since 2016, the Oleshky sands have again been used as a military training ground, access to the territory is closed.

The original monument in the form of a wooden bell was installed in Oleshky next to the place where the Oleshky Zaporizhzhia Sich existed in 1711-1728.

It was founded at the confluence of the Kinka River with the Lazniuk River by the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks, who moved from under the oppression of the Russian Tsar to the protectorate of the Crimean Khanate. Here the chieftain of Kost Hordiyenko and the son of Hetman Pylyp Orlyk Hryhoriy, whom his father sent to the Zaporizhzhians on a secret mission, discussed plans for the liberation of Ukraine. In 1728, dissatisfied with the oppression of the Tatars, the Zaporizhzhians left Oleshky Sich and returned to Zaporizhzhia.

The age-old oak in Shevchenkivskyi Park is one of the symbols of Kherson. The oldest park in the city was laid out by order of Prince Potomkin Tavriysky in 1785, but in the 19th century the trees were cut down, turning this place into a parade ground, where horse races were held.

In 1869, the park was revived on the initiative of the vice-governor Denys Karnovych. Before the revolution, the park was called Denysovsky in his honor.

The compositional center of the park is a huge petioled oak, according to legend, planted by Emperor Oleksandr II, although the tree was planted by Karnovych. The rays of eight shady alleys diverge from the tree in different directions, one of which leads to the church of Saint Fedir Ushakov.

The house-museum of the self-taught artist Polina Rayko was opened in her native Oleshky in 2004, after her death.

Polina Rayko, a master of naïve art, a poorly educated village woman, began to create at the age of 69 after a series of life tragedies - the loss of her husband and daughter, the imprisonment of her son. In order not to feel alone in an empty house, she began to paint the walls with murals. By the end of her life, she managed to paint all five rooms: the walls, ceilings, doors of the house, as well as the porch and gate of her yard. In her works secular, Christian and pagan symbols are intertwined.

The house-museum of Polina Rayko is cared for by the Polina Rayko Charitable Foundation.

On the night of June 6, 2023, during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian troops blew up the dam of the Kakhovka HPP, which caused a catastrophic flooding of the lower Dnipro. As a result, the house-museum of Polina Rayko was completely flooded by the waters of the Dnipro.

The building of the Central RAGS was erected in 1896 for the Kherson Public Library. The construction was carried out on donations from the people of Kherson, part of the funds was allocated by the city administration.

The building was designed in the neoclassical style by the architect Mykola Tolvinsky. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Kherson public library was often visited by Borys Serhyeyev, the future writer Lavrenyev.

The first exhibition of the Kherson Museum of Antiquities was located here. The library served its purpose until 1987, when it was decided to house the city registry office in the building.

The Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was founded on the initiative of Prince Hrihory Potemkin to attract foreigners to Kherson.

The first Catholic church in the name of the Savior, built in 1787, was adobe. A stone church was built on this site in the 1820s, later a spire was built above the bell tower. A Roman Catholic church school and a society for helping poor Catholics operated here.

In 1918, the first service was held in Ukrainian. In 1931, the church was closed, workshops were placed in it, then a children's cinema was opened.

In 1994, the temple was returned to believers and reconstructed. Today it is the Roman Catholic church of the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Saint Catherine Cathedral in Kherson - a landmark of the 18th century. The style of early classicism with the use of motifs of the Balkan medieval architecture.

The cathedral with a monumental bell tower was built in 1782-1787 on the site of the wooden Saint Michael's Church on the territory of the former Kherson fortress. Named after Saint Catherine and Empress Catherine II, who visited the temple in 1786. A chair made especially for the empress has been preserved. In the interior, there are paintings attributed to Volodymyr Borovykovskyi and Dmytro Levytskyi.

In 1791, Prince Hryhoriy Potemkin-Tavriyskyi was buried in the crypt under the cathedral.

The "Pantheon of the Kherson Fortress" is located on the territory of Catherine's Cathedral - the burial place of officers who died in the Russian-Turkish war.

The Saint Nicholas Maritime Cathedral in Kherson was built in 1842 at the expense of a descendant of the Doroshenko hetman family, a collegian assessor Yakiv Doroshenko. It is located in the Zabalkivskyi suburb, which is separated from the city by a deep ravine.

The first wooden church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker appeared here at the beginning of the 19th century, but it quickly fell into disrepair, and then there was a need to build a new church. The stone temple in the style of classicism has a spherical dome and a two-tier bell tower.

During the Crimean War, the defenders of Sevastopol who died in Kherson hospitals were mourned in the Saint Nicholas Church.

In 2007, the Saint Nicholas Church was granted the status of a maritime cathedral.

The sculpture of the Mother of God was opened in Pokrovsky Square in 2009. It is located on the site of the Church of the Holy Virgin, destroyed in the 1940s.

The figure, 2.5 meters high, made of white artificial stone, looks at the sunrise. The territory of the square, located near the city RAGS, which until recently was neglected and unattractive, has now been put in order: benches have been installed along the paths paved with pavement tiles, and flowers and conifers have been planted in the flowerbeds. And in the evening, lanterns burn here.