Attractions of Donetsk region

The Museum of Folk Architecture, Life and Children's Creativity in the village of Prelesne is the only skansen (open-air museum) in Donetsk region. It was founded in 1983 on the initiative of a local teacher, local historian, and artist Oleksandr Shevchenko.

The complex of wooden buildings reproduces a peasant yard of the 19th century in the Slobozhanschyna region: a typical residential house under a reed roof, a windmill with wooden mechanisms, a storeroom and a forge with tools, a well, beehives.

All these exhibits are authentic, collected in the villages of Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. In the whitewashed wooden house, you can see a stove, furniture, ceramic dishes, icons, towels, and embroidery.

The most interesting is the windmill, in which the working mechanism, millstone and various utensils have been preserved. The exhibition hall presents samples of folk art of Slobozhanshchyna and children's art.

There is a restaurant on the territory that offers visitors traditional Ukrainian cuisine.

The Museum of Folk Architecture in Prelesne is a department of the Donetsk Regional Art Museum.

The Museum of Folk Life in Mariupol has been operating as a branch of the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore since 1989.

The exposition tells about the ethnic culture and traditional life of the inhabitants of the Azov region.

The Museum of Folk Life in Mariupol was destroyed by Russian occupiers during a large-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

Mykilske Museum of Local Lore occupies a separate one-story building in the center of Mykilske village.

It has a large exposition about the history of the resettlement of Greeks in these regions, and about what happened during the entire 180-year history of this settlement.

The collection includes more than 8,000 items. The decoration of the nature hall is a diorama of the "Stone Graves" reserve.

On the territory of the museum, open-air expositions have been arranged for the demonstration of large-sized stone tools of agricultural work and monuments of the Polovtsian tribes - the so-called "Polovtsian women".

The People`s Museum of the History of the village of Nekremenne was founded in 1982.

Today the museum has nine exhibition halls and an agricultural exhibition.

Ancient weapons, tools, household items are presented.

The Saint Nicholas Church was built in Druzhkivka in 1900 by the French-Belgian Joint Stock Company, which was the owner of the Druzhkivka Machine-Building Plant. The construction of the church was one of the conditions on which the tsarist government granted foreigners land for use.

The church was designed and built by French specialists. White silicate bricks for the temple were made in France, and the interior was decorated with local red bricks. The temple is built in the shape of a cross. The author of the project of the Saint Nicholas Church is unknown.

During the Soviet rule, the church was closed and converted into a club and cinema, the priest was arrested and shot.

During the Second World War, a shell hit the building of the Saint Nicholas Church, as a result of which a breach was formed in the western wall of the church. During the occupation of the city by German-fascist troops, services were resumed in the church building and renewed cross on the dome. Paintings and the iconostasis were redone, the hole in the wall was closed with a board shield. In 1962, the temple was closed again and a cinema was placed in its building. In 1984, the city art museum was opened in the church building.

In 1988, the temple was returned to the religious community. In 1993, the Saint Nicholas Church became a Cathedral. Active revival of the temple took place in the 2000s.

The People's Museum of History of PRJSC "Novokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant" (NKMZ) is located on the third floor of the left wing of the Palace of Culture and Technology of NKMZ on the central square of Kramatorsk.

The majestic five-story building of the Palace of Culture, erected in 1956-1965 in the style of Soviet classicism, is the only architectural monument in the city.

The exposition of the museum in eight halls tells the history of the development of the largest enterprise in Europe for the production of equipment for the mining and metallurgical industry, which has been operating since 1934.

The central exhibit of the first hall is a diorama of the construction of the giant plant. Working tools and contemporary office equipment, models of Donbas mines with NKMZ equipment, samples of metal structures manufactured at the factory for the construction of famous objects are presented. The models of rotary excavators, the "Sterkh" gantry crane, the line for the production of large-diameter pipes and other large-sized equipment manufactured by NKMZ are most impressive.

A separate exhibition tells about the creation of special equipment for space and combat missile systems, anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense systems, engineering troops.

In the hall of the museum, there are models of early factory equipment, including walking dragline excavators.

The communal cultural and educational institution "People's Museum of the Novomykhailivka Village History" is located in the former premises of the Zemstvo school.

The museum funds include more than 3,000 exhibits. The exposition presents ancient tools, household items, money of different times. The most notable exhibits are an old carriage and a retro car "Moskvich-401".

During the large-scale Russian aggression in 2022, the museum was destroyed, a large part of the exposition was destroyed.

The Novopetrivsky Rapid on the Krynka River is considered the largest threshold of the steppe region of Eastern Ukraine.

The half-kilometer section of the river is full of rocky outcrops here, which are not easy to overcome. A three-meter drop in the height of the course in this section makes it possible to overcome obstacles of the 3-4 difficulty category in good water. Competitions in water tourism techniques take place here.

Novotroitske Village History Museum of the Olhynska Village Territorial Community in the Donetsk Region is located in the premises of the House of Culture named after Lesya Ukrayinka in the center of the village.

It is named after the public figure Paraska Sylka, through whose efforts the museum was organized in 1971.

The museum has about 3,500 items. The exposition in three halls tells about the ancient past of the region, as well as about the main events of the XX century.

The exposition "Ukrainian Room" recreates the interior of a traditional Slobozhanska house.

The observation deck with a view of the Sea of Azov is located in the Primorsky Park near the Square of the Liberation Warriors.

The site offers a classic industrial panorama of Mariupol. At the same time, one of the largest enterprises of the city of Azovstal and the Mariupol Sea Trade Port are visible.

The "Old Castle" in Manhushis a modern building stylized as medieval defensive Gothic architecture, uncharacteristic for this region.

The building was planned for a children's cafe, from it they were going to build a stone lift to the pond and open an entertainment complex for children. Due to financial difficulties, the project was frozen, but the "Old Castle" building has already become the main attraction of Manhush.

The ornithological reserve of local importance "Kryvokosky estuary" is located near the village of Sedove.

The status of the reserve was granted by the decision of the regional executive committee in 1988. The area is 468.7 hectares. It is a shallow estuary, which is a nesting place for wetland birds, including rare waders and others.

Interesting Kryvokosky estuary with extremely healing mud.

In 2010, the ornithological reserve "Kryvokosky estuary" became part of the "Meotida" National Nature Park.

The Pokrovsk Historical Museum, founded in 1967, is located on the ground floor of a high-rise building in the center of Pokrovsk.

The museum has 14,000 museum items. Among the archeological monuments there is a ritual vessel found at the excavations of the Novovasylivsky mound with an ornament-icon of a map of the starry sky with a weekly schedule of the summer sun in the middle of winter, as well as a stone depicting the starry sky from an ancient altar.

In the ethnographic exposition you can see collections of irons, samovars, Easter eggs, towels, postcards.

A separate exhibition tells about the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych, who at the beginning of the XX century worked for 4 years as a singing teacher at the railway school in Pokrovsk.

Polovtsian stone babas are installed in front of the entrance.

The Polovtsian Steppe Regional Landscape Park was created in 2000 to preserve areas of pristine steppes of the Northern Azov region.

The landscape park is located on the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions between the village of Starchenkove and the village of Zakharivka. Territorially, the park covers the backwaters of the middle course of the Berda River and its tributaries (Karatyuk and Temryuk rivers), pristine steppe areas.

This territory is a place of growth of medicinal, rare and listed in the Red Book of Ukraine species of plants, as well as a place of residence of various representatives of the fauna.

Over the centuries, a landscape cut by river valleys was formed with unique vegetation and animal life. The "Polovtsian Steppe" preserved rock-loving and drought-resistant vegetation. Currently, the territory of the park is a typical area of various grass-sedge-sedge steppe with artificial plantations of forest crops.

Reservoirs located on the territory of the park attract fishermen. The ichthyofauna is represented by such species as pike, crucian carp, crucian carp, bream, perch and others.

In 2010, the Polovtsian Steppe Regional Landscape Park became part of the Meotida National Nature Park.

Regional landscape park "Zuyivskyi" is located on an area of 1.2 thousand hectares in the area of the village of Zuivka, surrounded by rocky hills covered with steppe and forests.

The Zuyivskyi regional landscape park includes the Vilkhivske and Khanzhenkivske reservoirs, the Lypove tract, a stream near the village of Vedmezhe, the valley of the Krynka River, Zui-Hill, the valley of the Vilkhova River, outcrops of rock outcrops, and forest massifs of the Makiivka Forestry.

Along the Vilkhova River between the Vilkhivske and Khanzhenkivske reservoirs, there are vertical walls of rocks that are used as a natural climbing wall. A rock ridge with a height of 20 meters and a length of more than 300 meters drowns in the shade of trees, from the cliffs there is a wonderful view of the Donetsk steppe. The Zuivka skeledrome includes about twenty routes, from the simplest to the most difficult.

There is a museum of mollusk shells at the Zuyivskyi landscape park, where about one and a half thousand shells from all over the world are collected.