Attractions of Lviv

Museum-Reserve "Rusalka Dnistrova" is a branch of the Lviv National Art Gallery. Dedicated to the first Ukrainian folklore and literary almanac "Ruskalka of Dniester", which had a great influence on the Ukrainian national revival and the development of Ukrainian literature in Galicia.

It is located in the architectural monument of the 18th century - the bell tower of the Church of the Holy Spirit. In 1939, the church itself was destroyed by a German bomb, leaving only the bell tower with a baroque finish, on which there is a unique clock, donated in the 17th century by Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky to the Manyavsky hermitage and later transported and installed on the Holy Spirit bell tower.

The museum's exhibits highlight the social, research, literary and publishing activities of the founders of the "Ruthenian Triad" (Ruska Triytsia) society, Markiian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych and Yakiv Holovatsky, who published the Western Ukrainian literary almanac "Rusalka Dnistrova" in the Ukrainian vernacular since 1873.

The Mykhaylo Hrushevsky Memorial Museum in Lviv was founded in 1998 in the mansion where he and his family lived in 1902-1914.

At that time, Hrushevskyi was a professor at Lviv University, and immediately became the initiator of the creation of the Ukrainian National Democratic Party.

The museum's main exposition is devoted to the Lviv period in Hrushevsky's life. The originals of his publications, photographs, letters of the scientist, personal belongings of the Hrushevsky family are presented.

The activities of Mykhaylo Hrushevsky at the head of the Central Council of the Ukrainian People's Republic are also highlighted.

The monument to Mykhaylo Hrushevskyi was erected in Lviv in 1994.

The outstanding Ukrainian historian taught at Lviv University in 1894-1914. It was in Galicia that the political activity of the future leader of the Ukrainian state, the head of the Central Council of the Ukrainian People's Republic, began.

The bronze sculpture, made by sculptors Dmytro Krvavych, Mykola Posikira, Lyubomyr Yaremchuk, is installed on a granite pedestal (architect Vasyl Kamenshchyk).

A monument to the Ukrainian composer Mykhaylo Verbytskyi, the author of the music for the national anthem of Ukraine, was opened in Lviv in 2015.

The height of the bronze sculpture is 2.9 meters. The notes of the melody of the Ukrainian national anthem are carved on the granite ceiling and a map of Ukraine is placed.

The authors of the monument are Volodymyr and Andriy Sukhorski.

The National Memorial Museum of Victims of Occupation Regimes "Prison at Lontskoho" was opened in Lviv in a building that for 85 years was occupied by the punitive bodies of various authorities.

The complex at the intersection of modern Bandery and Kopernika streets was built at the end of the 19th century for the Austrian gendarmerie. Then the prisons of the Polish, German and Soviet authorities were located in the building. In 1941, the largest number of political prisoners in Western Ukraine was destroyed here - 1,645. During the German occupation, the Gestapo prison was housed in the building. After the Second World War, it was used by the Soviet punitive and repressive authorities to hold captured rebels. After the declaration of Ukraine's independence, the detention center of the SBU was located here.

The museum complex "Prison at Lontskoho" was opened by the Liberation Movement Research Center and the Security Service of Ukraine. An authentic prison setting has been recreated. The complex includes a solitary confinement cell, a death row cell, and an investigator's office. Declassified "shooting lists" are presented, as well as the archive file of one of the most famous prisoners - Father Mykola Khmilevskyi, head of the underground Greek Catholic Church and member of the Ukrainian Main Liberation Council.

Excursions are conducted by appointment.

The Oleksa Novakivsky Art Memorial Museum is located in the house where the famous Ukrainian painter has lived since 1913.

The exquisite red-brick villa, built in the late 19th century in the neo-Romanesque style by the famous Lviv architect Yulian Zakharevych, was once known as the palace of the Polish artist Yan Styka.

In 1907 it was bought by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky for the needs of the church museum. With the assistance of the Metropolitan in 1923-1935, the Oleksa Novakivsky Art School operated here - the first art school for young people in Western Ukraine, which became the leading center of artistic life in Lviv.

The artist's creative studio was located on the second floor of the house, and his family lived next door in five rooms. Since 1972, an art-memorial museum has been set up in these premises, covering the main stages of the artist's creative path.

The Oleksa Novakivsky Museum is a branch of the National Museum named after Andrey Sheptytsky in Lviv.

The Olena Kulchytska Art Memorial Museum was opened in 1971 in the artist's former apartment in Lviv, on the third floor of a residential building of the late 19th century.

According to the artist's will, all her creative heritage, apartments and personal belongings were donated to the Ukrainian people.

The exposition in four rooms reveals the artist's work in various genres and types of fine and applied arts. And also presents her as an innovator and creator of modern expression in Ukrainian art culture.

The best-preserved interior of the apartment reproduces the artist’s aesthetic preferences for the decoration of urban housing in the context of Ukrainian folk tradition and its creative interpretation.

The Olena Kulchytska Museum is a branch of the Lviv National Museum named after Andrey Sheptytsky.

The three-storey townhouse at the corner of Rynok Square and Stavropihiyska Street is one of the oldest buildings in the central part of Lviv.

Built in the style of the late Renaissance in 1593. It was in this house that the wealthy Florentine merchant Roberto Bandinelli in 1629 opened the first post office in Lviv. Later the owners were local Armenians, Austrians and Poles.

Now "Palazzo Bandinelli" is a department of the Lviv Historical Museum, which recreates the residential interiors typical of the life of wealthy Lviv residents of the XVII-XVIII centuries.

For the attention of visitors - a hall for ceremonial receptions, and also enfilades of rooms: a drawing room, a gallery of a front portrait, an office, a dining room, etc. The rooms exhibit samples of handmade furniture, porcelain and earthenware from Europe, China and Japan, a collection of silverware, paintings.

The decoration of the collection is woven wallpaper, made to order by King Louis XVI of France. Of great interest is the interior of the kitchen, where samples of antique metal utensils are collected.

Earlier, the Palazzo Bandinelli housed the Royal Mail Museum, which told about the development of the postal service in Galicia, the construction of postal tracts, the opening of post offices with hotels, the emergence of stagecoaches and postmen.

The oldest pharmacy in Lviv has been operating on Rynok Square for almost 300 years.

The pharmacy in the townhouse "Under the Black Eagle" was opened in 1735 by a military pharmacist Frants Vilhelm Natorp, as evidenced by a wrought-iron sign with the emblem of medicine above the entrance. On both sides of the neat portal there are relief portraits of the god of healing Aesculapius and his daughter - the goddess of health Hygiene.

The old interior of the trade hall, paintings by Viennese masters on the ceiling, antique scales and cash registers have been preserved.

In 1966, the Museum of the History of Pharmacy opened here, with an exposition of more than 3,000 exhibits. In the exhibition halls you can see a variety of pharmaceutical devices, reconstruction of the pharmacist's home, an underground alchemical laboratory.

The courtyard recreates the view of the house of a rich burgher of the XVI-XVII centuries.

Pharmacy "Under the Black Eagle" continues to serve people today, becoming a state pharmacy № 15. In addition to drugs, you can buy the world-famous "Iron Wine" (aqueous solution of iron sugar used in iron deficiency anemia) and the popular Lviv tincture "Vihor", which is considered a means of increasing potency. Memorable souvenirs are also sold here.

The most luxurious palace in Lviv was created for the influential Polish magnates Potocki according to the project of the union of Lviv architects Ludwik Baldwin-Ramult, Juliusz Cybulski, Piotr Harasimowicz and Leonard Marconi.

The customer was Count Alfred II YJózef Potocki, his son Roman Potocki was completing the construction. The historicist-style palace is modeled on the entre cour et jardin residences of King Louis XIV of the Baroque Classicist era, when clear planning combined with rich exterior design.

Interiors in the style of King Louis XVI have been preserved. In particular, on the ground floor there are ceremonial halls for the reception of guests, in the design of which stucco, gilding, colored marble, painting are widely used. In Soviet times, the Palace of Marriages was located here.

In 2007, the Potocki Palace opened the Museum of European Art of the XIV-XVIII centuries - a department of the Lviv National Gallery of Arts. Borys Voznytskyi. On the second floor there is one of the richest collections of European art in Ukraine, including "Catching Corals and Pearls" by Jacopo Zucchi, "Payment" by Georges de La Tour, "Portrait of a Young Patrician" by Sofonisba Anguissola, "Allegory of Divine Mercy" by an unknown German artist, "The Visit of Mary Elizabeth" by Jan van Scorel, sketches of monumental paintings by Paul Troger, Joseph Winterhalter, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and others.

The Park of Castles and Defense Structures of Ancient Ukraine has been opened in the courtyard of the Potocki Palace. Architect Ihor Kachor created 1:50 scale models of 18 fortifications that exist now or existed earlier on the historical territory of Ukraine-Russia. Entrance to the territory is free.

The Royal Arsenal of Lviv was built in the Baroque style by the architect Pavlo Grodzytskyi by order of the Polish King Vladyslav IV.

As a strategically important city, Lviv had two arsenals. The city arsenal was formed by the citizens of the city, and the royal was maintained at the expense of the monarch. Since 1939, the Royal Arsenal has housed the Lviv Regional State Archive.

In 1977, a monument to the first printer Ivan Fedoriv was erected in front of the arsenal building, opened for the 400th anniversary of printing in Ukrainian lands. Near the monument is a second-hand market, popular with foreign tourists. Traders of old books and antiques gather here.

The Monastery of the Sacraments (Benedictine nuns of continuous worship of the Holy Mysteries) with the Church of the Engagement of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph was built in Lviv in 1744-1780 on the site of a half-timbered church founded in 1718.

The neo-baroque tower was built during reconstruction in 1884-1887 according to the project of Adolf Minasevych.

In 1995, the church was consecrated as the Church of the Holy Trinity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The Museum of Sacred Art of the Lviv Archdiocese named after Father Anton Petrushevych Curia of the Lviv Archdiocese of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was opened in 2008 in the restored church of Saint Klymentiy Sheptytsky.

An exposition of monuments of iconographic art collected by Studite monks after the legalization of the UGCC is presented.

Saint Anna's School was founded in Lviv at the Church of Saint Anna in 1791.

The current building in the English neo-Gothic style was built in 1884 according to the project of the architect Yuliush Hokhberger.

Since 2009, the Lviv Law School has been located here.

The Church of Saint Anna was founded in Lviv as a Catholic church in 1507 on the spot where apprentice tailors who fled the city were killed and buried by the city guard.

The first wooden temple burned down several times. In its current form, the church of Saint Anna was rebuilt in 1730 by the Augustinian order. The transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque is noticeable in the architecture. The bell tower was added in 1927 by the architect Bronislav Viktor, the dome is made in the Art Deco style.

Today it is the church of Saint Anna of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.