Attractions of Chernivtsi region

Khotyn Fortress is a remarkable example of medieval defense architecture of Ukraine, one of the most significant architectural monuments of Bukovyna.

It was built in the 13th century by order of Prince Danylo Halytsky on the site of early Slavic fortifications. The castle (citadel) consists of four defensive towers, the commandant's palace, officers' barracks, a church with fragments of a 16th century painting.

For a long time Khotyn Fortress was an outpost of the Galicia-Volyn principality, an important defensive point of Transnistria. In the 16th century it was strengthened by the Moldavian King Stefan III.

In 1621, near Khotyn, united Polish-Ukrainian troops under the command of Hetman Yan Karol Khodkevych defeated a 150,000-strong Turkish army that was considered invincible. The decisive role in the Battle of Khotyn was played by the 40,000-strong Cossack army of Hetman Petro Sahaydachnyi.

However, Khotyn remained under the rule of the Turks, who in the 18th century, with the help of French engineers, built a new fortress near the castle with earthen ditches, bastions and four gates. Inside could accommodate a 20,000-strong garrison.

After the annexation of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire in the 19th century, the fortress was rebuilt, the castle mosque was transformed into the garrison church of Oleksandr Nevsky, and the mosque on the territory of the New Fortress became the Church of Saint Nicholas.

After the Crimean War, the Khotyn Fortress lost its significance as a military facility, but it survived well. Its powerful walls served as scenery in such famous films as "Zahar Berkut", "The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe", "D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers", "Robin Hood's Arrows", "Taras Bulba".

Restoration was carried out to the 1000th anniversary of Khotyn Fortress. Museum expositions have been opened in the barracks: the history of artillery, siege weapons, numismatics, art gallery.

There is a souvenir shop on site. Parking is paid.

Khotyn Historical Museum is a department of the Chernivtsi Regional Museum of Local Lore.

It is located in the former house of the priest of the Holy Intercession Cathedral.

In five halls there are expositions that cover the history of the region: "Khotyn region - Slavic land", "Khotyn region in the period X-XVII centuries.", "Russian-Turkish war", ethnography of Khotyn region of the late XIX - early XX centuries. and other.

Of particular interest is the model of Khotyn fortress and Cossack jewels.

The city hall building in Kitsman was built in 1890, as evidenced by the date on the weather vane.

The Kitsman town hall is distinguished by its small size and a balcony on a small tower. The city coat of arms is placed on the facade.

The building of the town hall is still used for its intended purpose - it houses the Kitsman City Council.

The Kobolchyn Pottery Museum was opened in 2008. Its founder was the honored worker of culture Ivan Honchar.

The museum is designed in the form of a pottery estate.

The museum presents about a thousand ceramic products, as well as exhibits that tell about the history of the village of Kobolchyn. A large arsenal of Ukrainian household items of the last century is presented: a large pottery oven, old carpets, pillows, old windows and doors, shutters and benches, as well as the invariable attributes of those times - towels and embroidered cloths.

In the pottery museum, you can get acquainted with the secrets of the pottery craft in practice.

The massive three-story building of the Main Synagogue is one of the architectural landmarks of the central square of Vyzhnytsia.

It was one of the 11 Jewish sanctuaries that existed in the city during the Austrian rule.

During the First World War, the temple burned down. In the 1960s, the building was reconstructed as a district cultural center. It was here that the artistic career of the famous singer Nazariy Yaremchuk, whose childhood and youth were spent in Vyzhnytsia, began.

Today, the turquoise building of the former synagogue is a city house of folk creativity and leisure.

The Malanka Museum was opened in the city of Vashkivtsi on December 19, 2016 at the city library. In two rooms with a total area of 50 square meters, a wide variety of costumes, in which Bukovyna residents were dressed 50 years ago, are presented.

The museum's exposition includes about 30 costumes of the traditional Vashkivtsi Malanka. Both traditional masks (grandfather, grandmother, gypsy, bear) and modern ones are presented. In particular, the masks of the characters who manage Malanka - "Cossack", "Vulan", "Buk-shandar", as well as masks of the main characters - Malanka and Ukrainian women, are exhibited. In addition, the museum exhibits an exclusive costume-mask with a height of 3 meters - the so-called "Vashkivtsi Bahachka".

In addition, about 200 photographs from the end of the 19th century to the present time, 100 original traditional masks, which are made only in Vashkivtsi, are on display for visitors to view. They were presented by mask masters Vasyl Stolyar, Oleh Voloshchuk and Mykola Marchuk.

All the exhibits of the Malanka museum were provided by the residents of Vashkivtsi, who for many years support the tradition of malanka and are active participants of Pereberiya.

The Malanka museum is most proud of the cymbals and postols that Ivan Mykolaychuk held in his hands and walked in during the filming of the film "White Bird with Black Mark".

Memorial Museum of the outstanding Ukrainian composer Volodymyr Ivasyuk, the founder of Ukrainian pop music, the author of the popular songs "Chervona Ruta" and "Vodohray".

The museum was opened in Chernivtsi in 1995 to mark the 25th anniversary of the song "Chervona Ruta" in the house of the composer's parents, where he lived in 1971-1972. The interiors of the office of Volodymyr Ivasyuk and his father, the writer Mykhaylo Ivasyuk, and the parents' room have been preserved.

The exposition presents the composer's piano, many of his personal belongings, photographs, documents.

A small waterfall on the Vyzhenka River and a pool formed by rock washing are a place of Hasidic pilgrimage.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the founder of Hasidism, Izrael Baal Shem Tov, who lived at the foot of Nimchych, built a Jewish mikvah here - a place for ritual ablutions. Every Friday he took baths here.

According to legend, mikveh water has healing properties.

The state enterprise "Putyla Forestry" includes 9 forestry enterprises, including the Seliatyn Forestry, where an Environmental Education Center with a mini-zoo has been created.

The mini-zoo is home to wild animals of the Bukovyna Carpathians - seven deer, three bears, three roe deer, three wild boars, 6 hares, two badgers, a she-wolf, a fox, four peacocks, and a marten.

Next to the enclosures are two ponds with carp, catfish, and walleye.

A monument to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Frants Yosyf I in Chernivtsi was erected in the square between Myrona Korduby, Bakhrushyna and Dmytra Zahuly streets in 2009 at the initiative of a native of the city, the famous politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

During the reign of Frants Yosyf (1848-1916), when Bukovyna was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Chernivtsi flourished. The city experienced rapid economic growth and a construction boom - the most outstanding architectural monuments were created. In addition, Chernivtsi became the Ukrainian national cultural center - a university was opened, Ukrainian schools appeared, Ukrainian newspapers began to be published, Ukrainian public organizations were active.

The initiators call the installation of a monument to Emperor Frants Yosyf in Chernivtsi a restoration of historical justice.

The sculpture was created by Honored Artist of Ukraine Serhiy Ivanov and sculptor Volodymyr Tsisaryk based on a model of the monument that existed before, delivered from Vienna.

Mount Tsetsyno on the western outskirts of Chernivtsi is the highest point of the Chernivtsi highlands (378 meters).

In the Middle Ages, the Moldavian fortress of Tsetsyno stood on the top of the mountain, probably founded by the Halician princes, and then fortified by Peter I Mushat, the master of the Moldavian principality. It was mentioned in the Old Rus chronicles of 1388-1394 as the Wallachian city of Chechun.

In the second half of the 15th century, the Tsetsyno fortress was destroyed. The ruins of the castle, which survived until the middle of the 20th century, were destroyed in 1961 during the construction of a television tower.

A beech reserve with an area of 430 hectares is located on the slopes of Tsetsyno. The Tsetsynsky landscape park was created here in 1974. There are oaks, sharp-leaved maples, sycamores, hornbeams and other rare plants, as well as "red book" animals: roe deer, wild boars, foxes, martens, squirrels, weasels, ermines.

The Local Lore museum complex named after Ivan Topalo in Staryi Vovchynets is the largest peoples local history museum in the region.

The village museum was founded in 1957 by Ivan Topalo, a resident of Staryi Vovchynets, a local school history teacher.

For more than half a century of existence, the museum has collected a rich collection - more than 8,000 exhibits reflecting the nature and history of the village. In particular, the reconstruction of a Bukovyna hut of the first half of the 20th century, peasant tools, earthenware, samples of Bukovyna embroidery are presented.

Of particular interest is the rich collection of Bukovyna Easter eggs - more than 3,000 copies.

The Museum of Nature of the Vyzhnytsky National Nature Park in the village of Zeleniv has been housed since 1986 in an old building built in the early 20th century for a local priest.

The museum has nine departments that tell about the geography, climate, geology and nature of Zeleniv and other neighboring villages of the right bank of the Prypruttya. In particular, a geographical map of the relief is exhibited: the terrain is hilly, some parts of the territory are located at an altitude of up to 400 meters above sea level and are densely cut by a network of ravines, valleys and swamps.

Most of the natural exhibits are stuffed animals, fish and birds that are found in the region.

In the yard in front of the house grow both ordinary bushes and flowers, and exotic - ball-shaped thuja, juniper, Pissardii plum, evergreen myrtle, tulip tree, sycamore, etc.

The beautiful building of the Chernivtsi Academic Regional Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater named after Olha Kobylyanska was built according to the project of Viennese architects Ferdynand Felner and Herman Helmer.

The facade is decorated with sculptural compositions based on ancient Greek mythology, and marble busts of outstanding figures of world and Ukrainian culture are installed in the side niches. Above is a statue of Melpomene. The interiors are made in a neobaric style.

The grand opening of the theater took place on October 3, 1905 with a performance of Frants Shontan's play "Mariya Tereziya". Since then, operas, operettas, dramatic and comedic performances of Ukrainian and Western European classics have been demonstrated on the stage. Great masters of the European opera and drama scene performed here: Enriko Karuzo, Fedir Shalyapin, Solomiya Krushelnytska, Oleksandr Moissi and many others.

National Nature Park "Khotynskyi" was created in 2011 with the aim of preserving natural and historical-cultural complexes and objects in the Dniester River basin on the territory of the Dnistrovskyi district of the Chernivtsi region.

The park covers an area of ​​9,432 hectares. Its relief is mainly formed by the Dniester canyon. There are 520 species of plants in the park. Among the rare animals and birds are the forest cat, the black stork.

Near the village of Hryniachka is the highest waterfall in Bukovyna (30 meters), which originates from a powerful karst spring.