Attractions of Sumy district

The Holy Resurrection Cathedral is the main Orthodox church of Sumy, the oldest stone building in the city, a wonderful example of Ukrainian Baroque.

The cathedral was built at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries at the expense of the city's founder Herasym Kondratyev and his son Andriy Kondratyev. According to legend, Kondratyev's sister Mariya, the leader of the band of robbers, was buried in the wall of the temple during its construction.

The architecture of the two-story stone cathedral repeats the traditional forms of Ukrainian wooden temple architecture - it is similar to three-log Cossack churches. Judging by the thickness of the walls (up to 1.5 meters), the characteristic shape of the loophole windows and the location on the line of the former. city fortifications, the Resurrection Cathedral was part of the defense system of Sumy. An underground passage led to the river, which is now filled in.

In Soviet times, the department of decorative and applied arts of the art museum was located here. After 1991, the Resurrection Church was returned to the faithful, and now it is the cathedral of the Sumy Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The Holy Trinity Cathedral in Sumy is one of the most beautiful churches in the city. It was built in 1901-1914 in the style of classicism with baroque elements according to the project of the architect Karl Sholts at the expense of the industrialist and philanthropist Pavlo Kharytonenko.

The interiors of the Holy Trinity Cathedral were decorated by the artist Mykhaylo Nesterov (the marble iconostasis has not been preserved). The project of the mosaic floor and the church fence was executed by the famous architect Oleksiy Shchusev. artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin worked on the Trinity stained glass window.

Until recently, the Holy Trinity Cathedral was used as a house of organ music. In 1996, it was returned to the believers, now it belongs to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate.

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.

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 first wooden temple was built in Nysy by the founder of the village Herasym Kondratyev back in 1678 in memory of his dead son Ivan.

The current brick church of John the Theologian was built by sugar factory Mykola Sukhanov in 1910.

During the Soviet rule, the church of John the Theologian building was used as a vegetable warehouse.

Now the temple is active.

The Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was founded in Basivka in 1906 in honor of those killed in the Russo-Japanese War. In 1912, the Kazan Church was consecrated.

The interior was decorated with frescoes dedicated to the memory of the residents of Basivka, who died at Port Arthur, in Manchuria, on ships of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Pacific squadrons. Also in the interior was an image of the Holy Trinity - a copy of the painting of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

Now the temple is in a dilapidated state.

The Kharytonenko estate in Sumy is located on the bank of the Psel River at the confluence of the Sumka River on the opposite bank from the city center.

The famous sugar factory and philanthropist Ivan Kharytonenko bought this plot in the 1860s. The estate built by him consisted of three buildings: a residential building (a little in the depth of the estate; Kharytonenko's house in Moscow, where the British embassy is now located, was built on the model of this mansion), and two service buildings. In addition, the estate included a fountain in front of the residential building and a park above the Psel. In 1912-1913, the office building of the trading house "Kharytonenko and Son" was built, which housed a polyclinic in Soviet times.

Currently, the Kharytonenka estate belongs to the Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine, which is going to build a Palace of creativity and leisure for students here.

The two-story building "Teremok" is the only surviving structure of the estate of the Kondratyev landowners in Stare Selo near Sumy. It is considered the oldest surviving civil building in Sumy Region.

The estate on the high bank of the Psel River was founded in the first half of the 18th century. The first one-story manor house was built in the Baroque style. In 1753, Colonel Stepan Kondratyev, a descendant of Herasym Kondratyev, the founder of Sumy, reconstructed the building. An extension was made to it and a second floor was added.

Later, "Teremok" was used as a granary. In Soviet times, it was residential. Now abandoned. Restoration is planned.

Nearby are the ruins of the Saint Nicolas Church (1741-1754).

The Krasnopillia History Museum was established in 1985 as a museum of the history of the district on a non-profit basis. In 1994, it received the status of a "People's Museum".

The museum's collections include about 4 thousand exhibits, some of which are available for viewing in four halls of the museum. A special place in the exposition is occupied by stands dedicated to famous natives of the region - Pavlo Hrabovsky, Petro Sokolenko, Leonid Zhabotinsky, etc. Separate expositions are dedicated to the events of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1922 and the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933.

In addition, the museum presents a large ethnographic collection of the region.

The Lebedyn city art museum named after Borys Rudnev is located in an old building in the center of the city. This was the mansion of the surgeon and founder of the zemstvo hospital, Kostiantyn Zilbernyk, built at the beginning of the 20th century.

The beginning of the creation of the art museum in Lebedyn was laid in 1918 by Borys Rudnev, a technological engineer from Kharkiv. The exposition was created on the basis of the nationalized collections of local landowners, in particular from the Strohaniv estate in Khotin near Sumy.

Currently, there are about 2,000 rarities in the exposition. Among them are good collections of Ukrainian portraits of the 18th century, works of artists Dmytro Levytskyi, Vasyl Polenov, Serhiy Vasylkivskyi, Hryhoriy Myasoedov, Valentina Serova, the Krychevskyi family, etc.

The building of the city administration (town hall) with a tall clock tower was built in Lebedyn at the beginning of the 20th century.

Made in the forms of rationalist modernism as an architectural dominant of the city center.

In Soviet times, a fire brigade was placed in the building, and the tower was converted into a fire hydrant.

The museum-workshop was founded in Sumy in 2006 by the famous Ukrainian artist Leontiy Kostur. The artist works in a style that he called his own surname - "kosturism". His mainly clay works, kosturs, tell about the everyday life and traditions of Ukraine.

The workshop is located in a house that Leontiy Kostur inherited and converted into a museum-workshop. The museum exhibits more than 300 sculptures ("kosturs") and a significant number of paintings.

The Lesya Ukrayinka People's Museum was opened in Kosivshchyna in 1971 for the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth.

Lesya Ukrayinka's stay in Sumy region is connected with her treatment for tuberculosis. In 1889, the mother brought Lesya to the Kosivshchyna to the folk healer Paraska Boрush. Here the poetess wrote her "Spring Songs".

Lesya Ukrayinka's museum room is located in the local secondary school named after the poetess. Among the 600 exhibits are things that belonged to Paraska Boрush: a pot, a thick-walled pot for medicine, a trough, a towel. Lesya Ukrayinka's first collection "On the Wings of Songs" published in 1904, etc., is presented.

Excursions are conducted by young tour guides.

Maydan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Sumy is the historical and administrative center of the city.

The city began from this place in the middle of the 17th century, when its founders, Colonel Herasym Kondratyev of the Sumy Slobid Cossack Regiment and Voivode Kyrylo Arsenyev, began to implement their plans for the construction and arrangement of the Sumy Fortress and its post.

In 1694, a wooden Mykolaiv church was built, which has not survived to this day. Already after the death of Colonel Kondratyev in 1702, the construction of the Resurrection Cathedral was completed, which is now the main decoration of the square. Mykolayivska and Voskresenska squares, formed around the churches, later merged into one.

For a long time, the square was called Petrivska because Tsar Peter I visited it on the eve of the Battle of Poltava. After the Second World War, the square was reconstructed, at that time it was named after Lenin. In 1991, it was renamed Maydan Nezalezhnosti.

The buildings are dominated by high-rise buildings of the regional council and the Sumy hotel.

The Michael's Virgin Land Nature Reserve is a unique area of virgin meadow steppe with an area of 202 hectares, which has never been touched by a plow.

Since 1741, these lands belonged to the Kapnist Counts, who bred Oryol trotters at their stud farm in Mykhailivka. Large areas of the steppe were set aside for pastures and therefore were never plowed.

In 1928, "Michael's Virgin Land" was declared a reserve, until recently it was part of the Ukrainian Steppe Nature Reserve (in 2009, it was allocated to a separate protected area). The territory of the reserve, surrounded by a protective afforestation, is a low hill that gradually descends to the surrounding streams. The total area of the reserve is 882.9 hectares.

More than 500 types of herbs grow here, 38 of which are protected (11 are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine). Since they bloom at different times, the steppe changes color 10-12 times during the summer.

Brown hares, foxes and small rodents live in the reserve.

Excursions to the "Michael's Virgin Land" are organized by the Lebedyn city museum of local lore.