Attractions of Sumy district

The Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine occupies a complex of historical buildings in the center of the city of Sumy.

The first educational building is located in Taras Shevchenko Square (Soborna Street), in the former premises of the First Female Gymnasium. It belongs to a large group of Neo-Gothic buildings of the 19th-20th centuries in the city.

The main building of the academy was built only a few years ago on the central Petropavlivska Street, on the site of the former estates of the descendants of the founder of Sumy Hryhoriy Kondratiev. Until 1917, one of the city's fire brigades was located here, then various institutions. All the architectural nuances of the historical building have been carefully preserved in the reconstructed building. Instead of a fire station, a tower with a clock was built, which notifies the city about various celebrations at the academy.

The fountain-monument "Sumka" (Bag), installed in 2008 on one of the central pedestrian streets of Sumy, symbolizes the legend of the founding of the city.

According to legend, in the summer of 1655, the first Cossack settlers from the town of Pruda in the Kyiv region, led by Otaman Kondratyev, found three hunting sums with coins at the place where a small river flowed into the Psel. The river was named Sumka, and the city founded here was called Sumy.

Sculptor Oleksiy Shevchenko recreated the legend in stone: a bag with money hangs over a well with water, from which water also flows. A new urban tradition has appeared - to wet the face, bags and wallets with "magical" water from the well.

The Neo-Renaissance palace in Kyianytsia is considered one of the pearls of manor construction in Slobozhanshchyna.

It was built in 1890 by the Lishchynsky merchant family, who inherited Kiyanitsa from the rich sugar farmer Ivan Kharytonenko.

The two-story Kyianytsia Palace with an elegant tower, surrounded by an age-old park, looks especially romantic from the opposite bank of the pond. More than 70 species of trees and shrubs grow in Kyianytsia Park (56 hectares), among which you can find sycamores, ginkgos, silver firs, pines, lindens, maples and, of course, the main park-forming wood - oak. A small outhouse has also been preserved.

In Soviet times, the "Kyianytsia" recreation center was located on the territory of the Lishchynsky manor. Currently, the building is owned by Sumy National Agrarian University, partial restoration has been carried out.

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 "Petro Chaykovsky and Ukraine" is open only in the summer.

Only two outbuildings have survived from the once luxurious Strohanov Manor in Khotin, which a hundred years ago was called one of the most outstanding estates in the entire Russian Empire.

Since the 17th century, the Khotin estate belonged to the descendants of the founder of Sumy, Colonel Herasym Kondratyev. The palace complex was built in 1799-1810 by the colonel's granddaughter Hanna Kondratyeva, who married the secret adviser Mykhaylo Komburley. The couple invited the famous St. Petersburg architect of the heyday of Russian classicism, Giacomo Quarenghi.

The estate was built according to the axial system traditional at the time and surrounded by a large park. There were 87 rooms in the palace, all of them were decorated in a different color scheme. For a long time, the military historian Dmytro Buturlin lived and worked in the manor, then for more than half a century, Count Pavlo Strohanov owned the manor, at whose invitation the artists Ivan Kramskoy and Fedir Vasylyev visited.

At the beginning of the 20th century, when a lawsuit broke out over the Strohanov estate, the palace fell into disrepair. In 1918, the Khotin palace complex was destroyed by fire. Two side wings have been preserved from it, which housed a secondary school in Soviet times. Currently, the buildings are in poor condition.

There is a History Museum at the school.

The private antiquities museum "Odyssey Moorage" in Sumy was founded in 2015 by the Sumy photographer, local historian and collector Serhiy Hutsan. His collection began with a selection of old photos and cameras. Over time, personal archaeological finds from different eras, as well as antiquities purchased in antique shops in different countries of the world, were added to them.

In 2022, the official opening of the museum took place in the new premises – the former house of the famous Hryhorievy family from Sumy. The exposition is located in four rooms and in the attic. The first room presents a variety of unsystematic things that characterize the creative search of the collector. The second hall is dedicated to the history of Voskresenska street from Cossack times to the 20th century. In the third room, a typical interior of the beginning of the 20th century is reproduced and an exposition dedicated to the Hryhorievy family is presented. Artifacts transformed by artists into art objects are displayed in the fourth hall. The "Svitlytsya" exhibition space in the attic has a changing exhibition.

Visiting the museum "Odyssey Moorage" is possible by prior appointment accompanied by the author's tour of the owner (one-hour tour of the exposition or two-hour tour of the exposition and Voskresenska and Soborna streets).

The museum has a shop called "Herodotus-Shop", where you can purchase copies of historical jewelry from Sumy master Danylo Sorokin.

Anton Chekhov's Memorial house-museum was created in Sumy in the noble estate of the Lyntvarov family (XVIII-XIX centuries), located in the Luka district.

In 1888-1889, the writer lived in the western wing of the estate - a one-story white house with six columns and a porch. The Chekhov used his Sumy impressions in the stories "Birthday", "Sad History", plays "Forester" and "Seagull". He wrote about the Lyntvarov estate: "The abbey and the Adriatic Sea are wonderful, but Luka and Psel are better."

The Chekhov Museum was opened on the anniversary of the writer's birth in 1960. The memorial exposition tells about Chekhov's life in Luka, about his medical care for local residents, about his creative work and trips to Ukraine.

The interiors of the living room and dining room, the guest rooms and the "Antosha's room", which served as Chekhov's bedroom and study, were restored.

Museum staff conducts local history tours.

The large eastern wing of the Lyntvarov estate, where the writer's family lived when Chekhov traveled to Sakhalin in 1890, has also been preserved.

The Ascension Church in Lebedyn was built in 1858 on the site of the wooden church of the same name, known since 1692.

The new brick temple was made cubic, four-columned, with a semicircular altar apse. There is a bell tower above the entrance.

In the architecture of this building, classicism and baroque are well combined with the local flavor.

The white-stone Ascension Church in Velykyi Bobryk is one of the most successful religious buildings in the Sumy Region.

A majestic temple in the style of classicism with a three-tier bell tower was built in 1808 on the heights in the center of the village. It perfectly complemented the picturesque rural landscape with a pond and hills. The church comes into view immediately after the turn from the Sumy-Okhtyrka road, and then it does not disappear from view for the entire five kilometers of the road.

At first, the temple seems very small, which is natural for a small village. The real scale of the structure becomes apparent only when you start to descend to the pond. Compared to the surrounding rural structures, the Ascension Church looks simply huge.

The original architectural feature of the temple is an open three-lane arcade gallery topped by a belfry.

The interior of the church is decorated with columns and pilasters of the Corinthian order. Ancient frescoes have been preserved.

The large stone Cathedral of the Assumption is located on the terrace above the village of Mezhyrich, at the foot of the plateau of the high right bank of the Psel River.

Founded in 1759 by the order and at the expense of local native Luka Bilous, archimandrite of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, as the cathedral church of the hundred-year-old town of Mezhyrich. Assumption Cathedral in Okhtyrka (1728-1738, not preserved) served as a model.

Built in a rare temple style typical of Slobozhanshchyna, the Cathedral of the Assumption is a valuable monument of Ukrainian national architecture of the Baroque era.

The Holy Assumption Church in Verkhnia Syrovatka was built in 1805-1812 according to the project of the poet and educator Oleksandr Palitsyn, who lived in the nearby "Popivka" estate, at the expense and under the direction of a descendant of the elder family, lieutenant Mykola Vlasovskyi. The brick and iconostasis were purchased from the dismantled Sumy monastery.

In 1844, lightning struck the bell tower and, passing inside the church, burned the gilded iconostasis, but the Assumption Church survived. The Chenstokhova church icon of the Mother of God, which, according to tradition, was brought to the old wooden church by a Polish nobleman from Chenstokhova was especially revered.

Children's park "Kazka" is located in the central part of the city of Sumy.

On its territory, in addition to children's attractions, there are fairy-tale buildings and figures of fairy-tale characters.

In addition, a mobile zoo and a circus are regularly opened in Kazka Park, as well as city-wide entertainment events.

The Museum "Shadows of Unforgotten Ancestors" was founded in Bilopillia in 1998 as a historical and local lore museum. Since 2023, it has been located in the premises of the Center for Children's and Youth Creativity of the city.

The museum's exposition covers the period of the history of the city of Bilopillia from the beginning of the 10th century to the events of the Bolshevik coup of 1917. The central place is occupied by a model of the ancient fortress of Vyr, as an outpost of the Kievan Rus, which presents the structure of the city in the 10th century. The museum's exposition also includes artifacts from the times of the Kyivan state, as well as valuable items found during archaeological excavations in the city. An interesting exhibit is a trade seal from the times of Prince Iziaslav Davydovych (12th century).

The Museum of History of Sumy Regiment of the Slobidske Cossacks was created in 2003 at the initiative of the public organization "The Sumy Regiment of the Slobidske Cossacks named after Herasym Kondratyev".

Located in a small office on the 2nd floor of a corner building on Voskresenska. The exposition of the museum reveals the Cossack history of Sumy region of the 17th - early 20th centuries. In particular, a fragment of the wooden palisade of the Sumy fortress, found during the reconstruction of Voskresenska Street, is presented.

You can also see a fragment of forged window bars from the All Saints Church of the Sumy Dormition Monastery, fragments of equipment of the entrance gate of the Sumy Fortress, weapons and equipment of the Sumy Hussar Regiment.

The pride of the museum is a color portrait of the founder of Sumy, Colonel Herasym Kondratyev.

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.