Attractions of Chernivtsi region

The ancient building of the customs house is the oldest stone building preserved in the city of Khotyn after the Khotyn fortress.

It was built in the 17th-18th centuries, when Khotyn was owned by the Turks. The walls are made of natural stone and decorated with red brick ornaments. The main facade is plastered.

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 Kitsman Historical and Local Lore Museum was established on a non-profit basis in 1969. Since 1982 it has been a department of the Chernivtsi Regional Museum of Local Lore.

The museum collection has almost three thousand exhibits, presented in four departments. The exposition "Life and Culture of the Kitsman Region from Ancient Times to the Present" presents archaeological monuments of many cultures discovered on the territory of the region, some of the materials tell about the victorious struggle of the local population for Ukrainian statehood.

In the hall "Ethnography of the Region" a collection of embroidered shirts, which the residents wore more than a hundred years ago, attracts attention.

A separate hall is dedicated to the outstanding composer Volodymyr Ivasyuk, a native of the region. Here you can see his personal belongings, stage costume, awards, workbooks, report cards, diaries, self-portraits and portraits of his father Mykhaylo, scripts written by himself, photographs, many exhibits tell about the composer's school years. Part of the exposition became the basis of the Volodymyr Ivasyuk Memorial Museum in Chernivtsi.

The last hall introduces the literary and artistic life of the region. Here is a collection dedicated to outstanding personalities - natives of Bukovyna: writer, composer, conductor, folklorist, teacher and public figure Sydir Vorobkevych; corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences physicist Korniy Tovtyuk; Hero of Ukraine, singer Dmytro Hnatyuk; People's Artist of Ukraine Mariya Mykolaychuk; writer Mykhaylo Ivasyuk, etc.

The museum also has a separate exhibition hall, where works by local craftsmen are periodically exhibited.

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".

The Mamalyha Village History Museum was opened in 1979 in the village House of Culture on the initiative and with the assistance of local historian, history teacher Serhiy Kordunyan. In the 1990s, the village history museum temporarily ceased its activities and resumed its work in 2013 in the premises of a secondary school.

Chronologically, the museum covers the entire history of the region - from ancient times to the present. The museum's exposition consists of the following sections: "Ethnographic", "Local History", "Our Region in Antiquity", "From the History of the Village of Mamalyha", "The Tsarist Period in the History of the Region", "The Village of Mamalyha of the Romanian Period", "They Defended the Motherland", "From the Ashes of Oblivion", "Numismatic Collection. Bonistics", "They are from our village" and others.

The museum has a large collection of archaeological finds, documents, photographs, household items, ethnographic monuments. Also presented are objects of material and spiritual culture, tools of labor, household items, sets of women's and men's clothing, photographs of participants in the First and Second World Wars, a memorial sign to fellow village soldiers, and the formation and development of education, culture, and health care in the village are also shown. A valuable exhibit is a wooden icon from the late 18th century. The decoration of the museum is a model of an ordinary peasant hut covered with reeds.

A small but very attractive one-story palace with a three-tiered tower in Chortoryia is one of the most mysterious sights of Bukovyna. Neither the date of construction nor the name of the first owner is known.

In the official registers, the object is listed as "Manesku Palace" and dates back to the 19th century. According to other sources, the manor was founded in the 18th century by the landowner Dzhurzhuvan, and the last owner was the landowner Rutkivskyi.

Since 1941, the Chortoryia men's psychoneurological boarding house has been housed in the palace.

A two-hundred-year-old tulip tree grows in the manor park.

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.

The Literary and Memorial Museum of the Romanian poet, classic of world literature Mikhay Eminesku was founded in Chernivtsi in 1992 as a branch of the Chernivtsi Regional Museum of Local Lore.

Mikhay Eminesku lived in Chernivtsi with breaks for more than eight years (1858-1866). While studying at the Chernivtsi Higher Gymnasium, Eminescu lived in the house of his literature teacher Aron Pumnul - a Romanian philologist, teacher, writer, cultural figure, one of the founders of the spiritual life of the Romanians of Bukovina.

During the existence of the museum, more than 2,000 original exhibits have been collected: editions of Mikhay Eminesku's works (during his lifetime and contemporary), illustrations to the poet's works made by famous artists of Ukraine and Romania, facsimiles of manuscripts of all his works.

In 2021, the regional state administration, in cooperation with the Consulate General of Romania in Chernivtsi, initiated the reconstruction of the house of the director of the first Chernivtsi gymnasium, Aron Pumnul, which houses the Mikhay Eminesku Literary and Memorial Museum. The exterior of the house, which the residents had previously redeveloped, is intended to be restored based on historical photos.

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.