Attractions of Kyiv region

The museum-workshop of famous Ukrainian sculptors Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnichenko is located in the very center of Kyiv, in the blocks between Volodymyrska Street and Nezavisimosti Square. It works with the support of the ARVM fund, which takes care of the preservation of the cultural heritage of artists.

The creative tandem of Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnichenko is known for the design of the Palace of Children's Creativity in Pechersk, the Central Bus Station in Demiivka, and the Wall of Memory at Baikove Cemetery, which was barbarically destroyed by the Soviet authorities. The workshop on Malopodvalnaya was founded by them back in 1972. According to the artists' plan, it should always be open to visitors and at the same time serve as a museum of their work.

The museum presents numerous works by Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnichenko, created from 1957 to 2000, during almost the entire period of their creativity, including unfinished works. Some of the sculptures are exhibited in the open air yard. The building is decorated with mosaics.

The majestic complex of the Ascension Monastery was built in 1700 in the center of Pereyaslav at the expense of Hetman Ivan Mazepa. It is a part of the National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve "Pereyaslav".

The monumental Ascension Cathedral is considered a model of Ukrainian national architecture due to its complex construction and rich Baroque stucco.

On the territory of the monastery there is a two-storey building of the former monastery school and the dormitory of bursaks. In 1776, a three-tiered bell tower in the Ukrainian Baroque style, 48 meters high, was built, which served as the second entrance to the monastery.

In Soviet times, a museum-diorama "Battle for the Dnipro and the creation of the Bukrin bridgehead in the autumn of 1943" (canvas length 28 meters, height 7 meters) was opened in the cathedral, which recreates the events of September 21-22, 1943, when Soviet troops Dnipro on the Bukrin bridgehead near Pereyaslav.

The Mausoleum of Eternal Glory is located in the basement, where the names of Pereyaslav residents who died in the Second World War are immortalized on the walls.

Ascension Florivsky Convent (sometimes called Frolivsky) is the oldest active monastery in Kyiv.

It is mentioned in documents from the 16th century as the monastery of Saints Florus and Lavr. In 1712, the complex was transferred to the nuns of the closed Ascension Monastery in Pechersk, and since then it has had the double name Florivsky-Ascension (sometimes it is mistakenly called Frolivsky).

In 1722-1732, the Ascension Cathedral with a southern aisle was built on the territory of the monastery in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. The belfry, the hegumen's house and the Ascension Church at the monastery hospital were built in the 19th century by the architect Andriy Melenskyi. The wall of the refectory is decorated with a painting. Later, other temples appeared.

In 1929, the Florivsky Monastery was closed, the Holy Trinity Church was destroyed. During the Second World War, it was reopened and was no longer closed, but part of the premises was taken from the nuns. Currently, all churches (except the destroyed Holy Trinity) have been returned to the monastery belonging to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Kazan temple is being restored. The Florivsky Monastery was famous for its school of artistic sewing.

An active source of holy water has been preserved.

The Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Lukyanivka is a wooden church with one spherical dome and a bell tower above the vestibule.

Founded in 1758, rebuilt in its present form in 1879. According to church documents, the first rector of the church was priest Hryhoriy Favorskyi.

From 1930 to 1941, the Ascension Church was closed by the Soviet authorities. During the German occupation, Archpriest Ihnatiy Tune, who died in 1946 and was buried near the church, served in the Lukyanivka church. Since then, the Church of the Ascension remained active.

Russian-Ukrainian war

On March 25, 2022, at 4 o'clock in the morning, after the liberation of the village by the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the Russian invaders, the latter completely destroyed the church - a Russian tank fired four shots at the Church of the Ascension.

The dome and icons of the Ascension Church became exhibits of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.

The wooden Church of the Assumption in Vilkhovets was built in the 19th century on the site of the old Saint Michael's Church, known since 1700.

The church is nine-rubble five-headed, with a complex composition of volumes, which is rare for the Kyiv region. The top is made in the pseudo-Byzantine style, which makes the church similar to the temples of the princely period. Ancient paintings in the interior have been partially preserved.

On the territory is the grave of Kolotnovska, the wife of a local priest.

The healing spring is located on a meadow in a forest grove on the eastern outskirts of the village of Rizhky.

According to legend, the spring was discovered at the end of the 19th century. They began to regard him as a saint after one of the local residents saw the phenomenon of the Virgin bathing as the source.

Before the Bolshevik coup of 1917, the source of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a place of mass pilgrimage, as the fame of the healing properties of its water spread. Eyewitnesses said that after praying and drinking this water, people regained their sight, "revived" their legs, etc. During Soviet times, the source was repeatedly tried to be destroyed, but local residents restored it each time.

The water from the spring is extremely clean and saturated with silver, as it breaks through rare siliceous-silver rocks.

On holidays and Sundays, religious services are held near the Rizhky spring.

The Church of the Assumption of Saint Anna in the center of the village of Sloboda was built in 1852 by Major General Andriy Troshchynskyi, the heir of the Minister of Justice Dmytro Troshchynskyi.

The temple in the style of late classicism is cruciform in plan, crowned with a hemispherical dome on a cylindrical drum. There are large semicircular windows on the western, northern and southern facades. The facades are finished with triangular gables.

Remains of the thematic paintings of the 19th century have been preserved in the interior.

The Astronomical Museum in Kyiv operates at one of the oldest university astronomical observatories of Ukraine, founded in 1845, shortly after the university was founded in Kyiv.

The first director of the astronomical observatory was the outstanding astronomer Vasyl Fedorov.

Over a century and a half, many scientific discoveries have been made here in the field of astrometry, solar physics and forecasting of solar activity, meteor astronomy, and observations of artificial Earth satellites. The observatory has several ancient instruments in its arsenal: a meridian circle, 8" and 10" Repsold refractors, a Zeiss astrograph, and a library with rare editions of the 16th-18th centuries.

The building of the astronomical observatory, designed by the architect Vikentiy Beretti, is an architectural monument of the 19th century.

The Astronomical Observatory of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University is one of the oldest university observatories in Ukraine, which has existed since 1845.

At different times, outstanding scientists worked in the observatory, who made a number of astronomical discoveries. In particular, in 1969, the Churyumov-Herasymenko comet was discovered, which in 2014 became the first in history to be landed on by a spacecraft.

The observatory's main building is built in a simplified style of late classicism, has the shape of an octagonal tower. The observatory complex also includes a meridian circle pavilion, a horizontal solar telescope pavilion, three brick pavilions, laboratories and living quarters.

The Astronomical Museum has been operating since 1990, and its collection includes 20,000 objects. The exposition presents devices and instruments, photographs and personal belongings of employees, manuscripts, documents, drawings, star charts, observation journals and old publications. In particular, you can see a portable telescope from 1838, an astograph from 1895, a meridian circle from 1870 and other astronomical instruments of the past.

During the excursions, you can participate in astronomical observations on the operating telescopes of the observatory. Excursions are conducted by appointment.

Babyn Yar in Kyiv is known throughout the world as a symbol of the genocide of the Jewish people. During the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, more than 100,000 civilians, prisoners of war, underground fighters, partisans, hostages, members of the OUN, mentally ill and other people were shot here. Now it is one of the most famous memorial sites associated with the Holocaust.

Deep between Syrets and Kurenivka in Kyiv, along the current Olena Teliha Street, has been known since the 15th century as the "Shalena Baba" tract. According to one version, this nickname was given to a local butcher who later sold these lands to a Dominican monastery.

A ramified 3.5-kilometer-long ravine stretches from the present Dorohozhytska metro station to the Kyrilivska Church. In the upper part of the ravine, since the end of the 19th century, the construction of the Lukyaniv Jewish cemetery began (the office building has been preserved).

During the Second World War, the natural topography of the ravine was supplemented with anti-tank ditches. They became the place of mass shootings and burials of Kyiv residents during 1941-1943. Only on September 29-30, 1941, the Nazis executed 33 thousand Jews here.

In 1976, a monument to shot citizens and prisoners of war was erected near Babyn Yar, which for a long time remained the only monumental embodiment of the tragedy. In 1991, a memorial sign "Menorah" in the form of a Jewish ritual seven-century candlestick was installed directly at the burial site. In 2001, a monument to the dead children was opened.

In 2007, the complex of monuments in the Babyn Yar tract was declared a national historical and memorial reserve.

Since 2016, the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center has been building a large museum-memorial complex on the territory of the reserve. In particular, in 2020, the installation "Mirror field" was opened, in 2020 - the symbolic synagogue "A place for reflection", as well as the installation "Looking into the past" dedicated to the Kurenivka tragedy.

Every year on September 29, mourning events take place in Babyn Yar.

Baikove cemetery is one of the oldest and most beautiful in Kyiv.

It was opened in 1834 on Baikova Hill, named after General Serhiy Baikov, a participant in the Franco-Russian War of 1812 and the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829, who lived here after his retirement.

On the territory of the cemetery there are about 20 old crypts of various architecture, some of them designed by famous architects Vladyslav Horodetsky, Volodymyr Nikolaev and others.

The Baikovo cemetery is actually a Ukrainian pantheon, many prominent people are buried there: Mykhaylo Hrushevsky, Lesya Ukrayinka, Vyacheslav Chornovil, Mariya Zankovetska, Amvrosiy Buchma, Mykhaylo Stelmakh, Pavlo Zahrebelny, Vasyl Stus, Yevhen Paton, Mykola Amosov, Oleksandr Shalimov, Valeriy Lobanovsky, Roman Ratushny and many others.

The Baker Synagogue in Vasylkiv was built at the beginning of the 20th century on the site of a wooden Jewish prayer house.

The two-story brick building of the synagogue has characteristic features of a Jewish religious building, richly decorated using elements of medieval architecture.

In 1927, the "Baker" synagogue was closed, the building was handed over to the South-Western Railway and rebuilt under the "Vasylkiv-2" railway station.

Currently, the building is in communal ownership, until recently several families lived in it.

A small one-story house on Oleksandrivska Street (now Petra Sahaydachnoho Street) belonged to the Balabukh merchant family from a long time ago.

Balabukh became famous thanks to the production of candies from the signature "Kyiv dry jam" (candy), which were called "balabukhs" or "balabushkas". These delicacies were supplied even to the imperial court.

Judging by the location in relation to the streets, the Balabukh house was built before the fire of 1811. In 1839, a new two-story building in the style of late classicism with features of the Ukrainian Baroque, built according to the project of the architect Lyudvik Stanzani, appeared nearby, in which a pastry shop worked.

In Soviet times, the restaurant "Zaporizhzhia" (now - restaurant "Khachapuri and Wine") was opened there. In a beautiful square between the houses, there are sculptures of a Cossack and a kobzar.

The monument to the Baptism of Rus on the Dnipro embankment is the first monument in Kyiv.

It was installed in 1802 over a spring that once existed in Khreshchaty Yar at the foot of Volodymyr Hill, where, according to legend, Prince Volodymyr baptized his children. Since the reason for its construction was the confirmation by Tsar Alexander I of the Magdeburg Law of Kyiv-Podil, the monument is also called the "Column of the Magdeburg Law".

According to the plan of the architect Andrit Melenskyi, the monument was originally a two-story chapel with a golden dome. An octagonal pool with a fountain was located in the arched pedestal. During Soviet times, the dome was demolished, leaving only arched passages, but by the millennium of the Baptism of Rus, which was celebrated in 1988, the column with the dome and the cross was restored.

The monument is connected to the upper part of the Volodymyrsky Descent by steep stairs.

The beautiful building with many spiers belonged to the Baltic baron Volodymyr Ikskull-Hildenband (his coat of arms is preserved above the double arch of the front entrance and entrance).

It was built in 1901 according to the project of civil engineer Mykola Vyshnevsky as a profit house, designed in the Gothic style. During the Second World War, the wooden parts burned down, and the Gothic spiers were lost. After the war, the building was renovated, changing the layout. The main details of the facade and a beautiful stylish lobby (it can be seen in one of the episodes of the film "His Excellency's Adjutant") have survived.

In recent years, the building was reconstructed again, according to the author's drawings that have survived, the spiers were restored, and an extension was added to the yard.