Attractions of Lviv region

The Museum of Folk Architecture and Life named after Klymentiy Sheptytskyi in Lviv is also known as "Shevchenko Grove", Lviv Skansen or open-air museum. It is located on the wooded hills of the "Znesinnia" Regional Landscape Park in the eastern part of Lviv, behind the Vysoky Zamok.

The open-air museum in Lviv was founded in 1971, although the exhibition began to take shape in the interwar period at the initiative of Lviv art critic Mykhailo Dragan and Archimandrite Klymentii Sheptytskyi. The first exhibit was the wooden church of St. Nicholas of 1761, which was transported from the village of Kryvka.

Currently, the exposition of the open-air museum includes more than 110 architectural monuments from all western regions of Ukraine: 6 churches, residential buildings, a forge, a school, a sawmill, a cloth mill, a water mill and a windmill. The museum has the largest collection of sacred buildings in Europe.

The exposition is divided into six ethnographic zones, representing the daily life of residents of various Western Ukrainian regions: Boikivshchyna, Lemkivshchyna, Hutsulshchyna, Bukovyna, Pokuttia, Podillia, Zakarpattia, Lviv region. Each zone is a mini village with religious, residential and economic buildings. The interiors of most houses are available for viewing, and household items are exhibited in them.

In particular, the central exhibit of the "Hutsulshchyna" zone is a traditional Hutsul grazhda from the village of Kryvorivnia. And the oldest exhibit is a peasant hut from 1749.

Traditional Christmas and Easter celebrations take place in the Museum every year, attracting the attention of a large number of Lviv residents and guests of the city. At individual facilities, you can get acquainted with ancient crafts, including straw weaving, pysankarstvo, and playing folk instruments. Workshops for children and adults are constantly held in the open-air museum.

6 forts of the Austro-Hungarian fortress "Peremyshl" have been preserved on the territory of Ukraine near the Polish border on the outskirts of Popovychi.

The construction of the Peremyshl fortress began in the middle of the 19th century to protect the strategic direction to Krakow and Vienna during the period of deterioration of Austrian-Russian relations.

At that time it was one of the three largest fortresses in Europe. The outer defensive ring consisted of 15 main artillery forts, 27 smaller infantry forts and 25 separate positions for heavy artillery.

In 1914-1915, the Peremyshl fortress withstood 3 sieges by the Russian army. During the first siege of the fort, the Russians managed to capture the 1/1 (Bykiv) fort, but thanks to the fierce resistance of the 1/5 (Popovychi) fort, the Austrians then managed to avoid disaster. The third siege lasted 173 days and ended with the surrender of the fortress.

The concrete structures of the fortress have been preserved to this day and are available for inspection.

The Franciscan church was built in Lviv in 1708-1178. as the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Capuchin Monastery, founded in 1707 by Elzhbeta Sofiya Senyavska. The temple is made in baroque style.

After the liquidation of the Capuchin order in 1785, the monastery complex was occupied by the Franciscans.

In Soviet times, a boarding school was located here.

Today, the church belongs to the Church of Seventh-day Adventist Christians.

The boyar court in Zolochiv, also known as the Zolochiv Arsenal, is a former fortified residence of the town's owners, built in the 15th century by representatives of the Shchechy boyar family.

This is the oldest architectural monument of Zolochiv. After the Zolochiv castle was built, the building began to be used as a city arsenal, then it was handed over to the parish church for the care of the poor.

Until recently, the building of the Boyar Court was in a state of disrepair. In 2012, it was transferred to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church of the Exaltation of the Life-giving Cross, which carried out reconstruction and opened there the Holy Cross Monastery of Saint Damian Friars Minor (Franciscans) and the Chapel of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of the Lord.

The Lviv Ivan Franko National Literary and Memorial Museum (Franko House) was opened in 1940 on the initiative of the writer's youngest son, Petro.

The museum is located in a small two-story villa in the Swiss style, where Ivan Franko and his family spent the last 14 years of his life.

The exhibition was based on a collection of autographs, letters, documents, photographs, books and personal belongings from the writer's office, collected by the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society.

In Franko House, the atmosphere of the life of the writer and his family is recreated in detail: a study, a library, a dining room, Ivan Franko's bedroom, a women's room, Olha Franko's room, Taras and Petro Franko's room. In 2018, the exhibition "Kitchen of the Franko House" was created.

The literary exposition is located in the neighboring two-story house of the Polish entrepreneur Antony Uvyera, built in 1923-1925 in the neoclassical style according to the project of the Lviv architect Ivan Bahenskyi.

Upon request, the museum staff conducts theatrical, thematic, author's, interactive excursions, walking tours through the streets of Lviv, themed quests, and master classes. Literary evenings, theater performances, concerts of classical and modern music, various exhibitions and performances are also periodically held in the museum.

Since the 19th century, the estate in the village of Vyshnia belonged to the Polish comedian Aleksander Fredro, the grandfather of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, one of the most respected heads of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The Neo-Renaissance palace, built in 1835, a wing with a tower, a park with a pond, and farm buildings have survived to this day. Today, an agricultural college is located here.

The magnificent stucco in the exterior and interior decoration, ancient stairs, several tiled stoves, and bookcases from the writer's library have been preserved in the palace.

The room-museum of Aleksander Fredro and Andrey Sheptytsky was opened. The exposition presents original furniture, as well as a model of the palace, made by students of the Warsaw Polytechnic.

The gallery of sacred art in Drohobych was opened in 1996 in a building that was built at the beginning of the 20th century by Vice-Burgomaster Yakub Fayyershteyn.

The facade of a small building in the art nouveau style has been completely preserved.

Particularly valuable exhibits are ancient Boykiv icons of the 16th-20th centuries. Also in the exposition: sacred sculpture, decorative carvings, forged crosses, handwritten church books and old prints, priest's clothing, etc.

The Garrison Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (the former Church of Peter and Paul of the Jesuit Order) is one of the largest religious buildings in the city, the first vivid example of mannerism (early baroque) in Lviv.

Construction began in 1610 by the Jesuit monk Sebastyan Lyankhius, who was the author of the original project. The Italian architect Dzhakomo Briano, взявши maintained the pure style of the Italian Baroque during the completion of the church in 1618-1621, taking as a model the facade of the Il Gesu church in Rome. In 1630, the construction was completed, the temple was consecrated, but the finishing works continued for another 30 years.

Trinefny temple. The main facade dominates, decorated with pilasters, niches with statues and a strong cornice. Inside - lush baroque decoration. Paintings were made by artists Francysk and Sebastyan Ekshteyn from Brno. In one of the side altars there is a highly artistic wooden crucifix by Yan Pfister.

Next to the church is a three-story building of the former Jesuit college.

In 2011, the church was consecrated as the Garrison Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul of the UGCC.

In the underground crypts of the church there is a museum "Dungeon of the Garrison Holy Apostles Peter and Paul Church", where you can order a tour of the church.

The legendary George Hotel in Lviv is the oldest hotel in Ukraine, an elegant architectural monument of the times of Austria-Hungary.

Founded in 1793 as the restaurant "Under the Three Hooks", on the basis of which the De La Rus Inn opened three years later. In 1816, the hotel became the property of the Bavarian merchant Georg (George) Hoffmann, who arranged the garden, built a theater hall and an entrance gate.

The current building in the Viennese Neo-Renaissance style was built in 1901 according to the project of the famous Viennese architects Hermann Helmer and Ferdinand Fellner, the authors of the Odessa Opera. The "Saint George" relief was moved from the old building to the pediment of the new one. In the niches of the side facades are allegorical statues symbolizing Europe, Asia, America, Africa. The hall with a wide spread staircase impresses with grandeur.

Many celebrities stayed at the Georges Hotel: Honore de Balzac, Ferenc Liszt, Ethel.-Lilian Voynich and others.

The Museum of Glass in Lviv was established on the initiative of a famous Ukrainian glazier, chairman of the organizing committee of the International Symposiums of Tempered Glass in Lviv, former rector of the Lviv National Academy of Arts, Professor Andriy Bokotey.

Since 2006, the museum has been operating in the basement of the Bandinelli Palace in the Rynok Square. Since then, the museum's collection has been systematically replenished with works created as part of the International Symposium of Tempered Glass. Part of it was transferred to the funds of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.

Among the oldest exhibits are glassware and beads made in the I-II centuries AD in the Roman colonies in southern Ukraine, beads and utensils from the XI-XII centuries, as well as bracelets and fragments of bracelets found during archaeological excavations.

The majestic city synagogue in Busk was built in the 18th century thanks to the donation of Yakob Hlanzer.

It is located near Rynok Square, where the Jewish community of the city used to live, which owned most of the shops.

During the Soviet times, the synagogue operated as a gym, later it was turned into a building materials warehouse, and later part of the synagogue was turned into a residential building. The building was rapidly collapsing. In the early 2000s, in order to preserve the monument, the uninhabited part of the synagogue was transferred to the Evangelical Christian community, which partially restored the building.

A large defense-type choral synagogue was built in Brody in 1742 instead of a wooden temple that burned down. The large brick building of the synagogue is crowned with a two-story attic.

During the Second World War, the synagogue was badly damaged and was not restored during the Soviet era. It is currently in a dilapidated state. In March 2021, one of the columns fell and part of the roof collapsed.

The Gunpowder tower is a fully preserved fragment of Lviv's defensive structures. One of the 17 towers that were part of the ring of city fortifications. A monument of military defense architecture of the Renaissance era.

The Gunpowder tower was located on the defensive rampart behind the second line of fortifications and served to protect the approaches to the city from the eastern side. It was also used to store gunpowder and ammunition, and in peacetime - as a grain warehouse.

It is built of unhewn stone, semicircular in plan, three-story, covered with a gabled roof. The thickness of the walls reaches 2.5 meters. For more than four centuries, the rising ground level hid the lower part of the tower by one and a half to two meters.

Since 1959, the premises have been occupied by the Architect's House with an exhibition hall. Now the Center for Architecture, Design and Urbanism "Gunpowder Tower" is located here.

The Dobromyl castle of the Herburt family is located in the middle of a beech forest on the Blind Mountain (Slipa Hora, 566 meters), 3 kilometers south of Dobromyl.

Lviv castelian Stanislav Herburt began to build it from stone and brick in 1566 on the site of a wooden fortification founded in 1450 by Mykola Herburt, but soon burned by the Tatars. In 1614, Yan Shchasny Herburt thoroughly rebuilt the fortress. The oval shape of the Dobromyl castle in plan corresponded to the outline of the mountain.

The ruins of the northwestern part have been preserved, consisting of the remains of a massive multifaceted tower (internal diameter of about 17 meters) and fragments of walls diverging from it, 25-26 meters long. The tower is two-story with an entrance gate. In the first tier of the tower, loopholes with arched lintels are placed on two levels. The second tier is separated by a small ledge. Its walls are pierced with rectangular windows. The tower is completed by a high attic with a decorative blind arcade, similar to the attic of the castle in Stare Selo. The defensive walls are completed with the same attic, the top of which is at the level of the second tier of the tower. The Renaissance attic somewhat softens the harsh appearance of the powerful walls (thickness reaches 2 meters). The loopholes of the lower tier of the tower with large chambers (internal) and side holes in the cheeks were intended for conducting cross fire.

The castle has been abandoned since the 18th century. Unlike other castles of the palace type, it had exclusively defensive significance, and the living quarters were used only for temporary residence.

The first museum of Hetman Ivan Vyhovskyi in Ukraine was opened in 2004 in the village of Ruda near Zhydachiv, where he lived in 1660-1664 and was probably buried. The museum is a branch of the Lviv National Art Gallery.

Since 1660, this village belonged to the Vyhovsky family for more than a hundred years. The manager's house has been preserved from their estate, which houses an exposition reflecting the period of the struggle for Ukraine's independence from the times of Zaporizhzhian Sich to the end of the 1940s and 1950s.

Painting works by domestic and foreign artists of the XVII-XX centuries are widely presented here. In particular, a painting by an unknown artist (19th century) depicting Ivan Vyhovsky's wife Olena Stetkevych. Among the exhibits are works of sacred art of the XVII-XIX centuries. An icon of the Ascension (an unknown artist of the 2nd half of the 18th century) from the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the village of Yosypovychy in Stryi region is kept here - the family church of the Vyhovskys. The icon was restored in 2004 by the workers of the restoration department of the Lviv Art Gallery.

The museum exhibits objects of material culture found near the former hetman's castle in the village of Ruda. Among the rare ones is an oak door from the Vyhovsky family church with a gift inscription of the hetman's daughter-in-law Tereza Zavadska, wife of Ostap's son.