Attractions of Odesa district

The Museum of Clean Drinking Water is located in the picturesque park of the city of Biliaivka in the premises of the House of Culture. The museum opened in 1985 thanks to the efforts of local enthusiasts - Hryhoriy Lyakhivsky, Albert Ulyanovsky and Fedir Kratofil.

It is in Biliaivka that the Dniester water treatment plant is located, which is the heart of the Odesa water supply system and supplies drinking water to Odesa and other regions of Southern Ukraine.

The exposition of the Museum of Clean Water is located in several halls. The first hall “History of the Dniester Station and the Odesa Water Supply System” tells the story of the construction of the Odesa Water Supply System, to which the Dniester Station supplies water. It contains unique materials from the entire history of the station, which are recorded in numerous photos, magazines and documentation. Visitors can view a mini-replica of the Dniester station, the “slow filter” chambers used here at the beginning of the 19th century, a 100-year-old water receipt, and a model of a steam engine from the legendary “Cuckoo”.

The “Ukrainian Svitlytsya” hall recreates the appearance of a traditional Biliaivka dwelling of past centuries - a reed roof, a stove, and authentic household items.

Among the exhibits in the “Boats of Biliaivka and the World” hall are a prominent Cossack seagull and a local 100-year-old boat on which Biliaivka residents went out onto the river in search of fish. The pride of the exposition is a world map, to which mini-replicas of all the famous national boats of the world are gradually being added (Italian gondola, Indian canoe, Chinese junk, etc.).

The “Gallery of Works of Local Masters” exhibition hall presents an exhibition and sale of works by local artists and sculptors. Here you can see the works of the world-famous artist Valeriy Syrov, who has lived and worked in Biliaivka for many years, sculptor Oleksandr Kovalenko, artists Lyudmila Shumlyanska, Oleksandra Bohachenko, Alla Koshovenko, Yevheniya Dombrova (Chorna), Oksana Serhiyenko. Some works can be purchased.

The "Time Capsule" exhibition hall houses a large collection of watches (over 200 exhibits).

The collection of the Museum of Clean Water in Biliaivka is constantly being expanded with new halls and exhibits. In 2022, a new exhibition “Water in Nature” was opened - an educational and scientific overview of the Dniester ecosystem and the ecological aspects of water.

The country's first Contraband museum was opened in Odesa by businessman and former military man Oleksandr Otdyelnov.

The museum is located in the basement of an old house on Evropeyskaya Street. The museum's exposition contains more than 150 items of confiscated contraband and illustrations of the methods of their illegal import.

In particular, you can see porcelain services with heroin inside, cocaine caches in various objects, car doors stuffed with cigarette packs, a model of an underground passage dug under the state border near Uzhhorod.

Visitors are also introduced to how smugglers used the Odessa catacombs.

ATTENTION! The Contraband Museum ceased operations in 2021.

Derybasivska is a pedestrian street in the center of Odesa, celebrated by writers and poets. It was named after the first Odesa mayor Osip Derbas (Khose de Ribas).

At the very beginning of the street, there is a monument to Deribas, popularly nicknamed "the grasshopper". The street is built with low-rise buildings of the 19th century, the first floors of which are occupied by numerous shops, restaurants and cafes with outdoor summer areas.

Traditionally, major city events take place on Derybasivska Street, in particular the Humor Parade during the annual "Humorina" celebration on April 1. On other days, the street is open for walking, and there is a brisk trade in paintings and souvenirs. The fair town "Odesa Fair" with wooden houses selling street food and drinks is constantly operating.

There are several interesting sculptures in the park zone of the City Garden: a monument to Leonid Utyosov, a monument to Serhiy Utochnik, sculptures "Lion" and "Lioness", a monument to the "Twelfth Chair".

Odesa cultural and health complex "Nemo" is located in the center of the city, on the beach "Lanzheron ".

Includes a dolphinarium, an oceanarium and a hotel. Opened in 2005 for International Children's Day.

The complex meets international standards, keeping marine mammals meets all conventions and requirements. The large demonstration hall is open in the warm season and can accommodate up to 900 spectators (closed in winter, it can accommodate 600 spectators). Visitors are offered swimming with dolphins, dolphin therapy sessions.

The exposition of the oceanarium consists of two departments. The aquarium features inhabitants of fresh and sea water, more than 100 species of fish and more than 50 species of invertebrates.

The basis of the exotarium was Serhiy Duz's long-term collection, which includes more than 40 species of amphibians and reptiles and more than 60 species of terrestrial invertebrates, as well as one of the best collections of tropical butterflies in Ukraine, which includes more than 1,000 specimens.

The ruins of the once luxurious palace of the Dubecky-Pankeyevs on the shore of the pond on the Baraboy River attract the attention of everyone who drives along the Chisinau highway through Vasylivka. This manor house is called the "Wolf's Lair" because of the extraordinary figure of one of its former residents.

The estate in Vasylivka was founded in 1845 by Major General Vasyl Dubetsky. According to some sources, the construction of the palace was completed in 1854. It is possible that the architect was the author of the Potomkin Stairs, Odesa architect Frants Boffo. In terms of beauty, the manor house, as they say, was not inferior to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. It was surrounded by a park with fountains and exotic trees.

At the end of the 19th century, the manor was bought from the descendants of Dubetsky by the Tavry merchant Kostyantyn Pankeyev, who moved to Odesa from Kakhovka. His son Serhiy also lived here, who went down in history as the "Wolf Man", one of the most famous patients of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

The Dubecky-Pankeyevs palace building did not survive the revolution and the Soviet-Ukrainian war, but the ruins are well preserved.

School Ethnographic Museum "Ukrainian House" is located on the territory of Nerubaiske Academic Lyceum No. 1.

In the open air, an authentic Ukrainian mud house is presented here, which corresponds to the life of Ukrainian peasants of the 19th century. The center of the old house is a Ukrainian stove with a traditional painting of the Tree of Life at that time.

The exposition presents embroidered Ukrainian towels, various ceramic products and tableware brought from the east and west of the Odesa region.

Walking through the rooms of the museum, you can see how Ukrainians lived and what they did in the old days, how they spun on manual spinning wheels, how carpets, paths and other household items were made by hand.

The Experimentarium is the first branch of the Odesa Museum of Interesting Science. It opened at the end of January 2024 in the Atrium shopping center after the destruction of the main space of the Museum of Interesting Science on Shevchenko Avenue in the summer of 2023 by a Russian missile strike.

The museum team managed to save almost all of its exhibits, with the exception of special rooms, and after only 7 months, the Museum moved part of its exposition to a new location and continued its work as an Experimentarium with 23 exhibits of the collection. Now everyone who wants to can visit this space in the Atrium shopping center, which helps children to distract themselves from the war for 1.5-2 hours with scientific experiments.

If in other museums you can't even touch the valuable exhibits, then in the Experimentarium you can not only touch, check, feel and see everything in action. Both children and adults can conduct interesting experiments and unusual experiments.

The main task of the Experimentarium is to show schoolchildren and students that even the most difficult tasks and the longest formulas can be exciting, if you just look at them from a different angle.

The Experimentarium aims to teach subjects of the natural cycle: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, mathematics and many other fields of knowledge.

On April 12, 2024, the Museum of Interesting Science resumed its work at a new location in the Primorsky district of Odesa.

The Odesa Football Museum is located in the Chornomorets Stadium complex. Opened in 2012 after the reconstruction of the stadium.

The exposition tells about the history of Odesa football and FC "Chornomorets" since the founding of the club in 1936. Photos of all football players who played for the club, coaches, the first matches with the participation of the Chornomorets team are presented.

The form of players of different periods, boots, goalkeeper gloves, balls, etc. is of the greatest interest.

During the tour you can visit the bowl of the stadium, locker rooms, technical areas, conference hall.

A branch of the Greek Cultural Foundation (Athens) was opened in Odesa in 1994 in a historic building, where in 1814 a secret revolutionary-patriotic organization "Filiki Eteria" was established, which was engaged in preparing the national liberation movement in Greece. 

The museum was founded in 1979 as a department of the Odesa Historical and Local Lore Museum. The completion of construction work and the transfer of the Museum to its historical site were made possible thanks to the contribution of Greek organizations in Odesa.

The museum's exposition demonstrates the activities and life of the Greek colony in Odesa in the pre-revolutionary period.

Later, a new local history department was opened with objects that recreate the interior of the house of the former mayor of Odesa and a famous public figure, Hrihoriy Marazli, in the premises of which the museum is now located.

The Fine Arts Museum named after Oleksandr Biliy is located in the center of the city of Chornomorsk opposite the central entrance to the Primorsky Park.

The museum was opened in 1978 as an exhibition of fine arts and porcelain. It is named after the outstanding Ukrainian collector Oleksandr Biliy, on the basis of whose private collection the museum was created.

The museum funds include over three thousand exhibits, each of which is a masterpiece in the field of applied art. The porcelain collection contains exhibits that come from over 30 porcelain factories around the world and covers the period from the 18th century to the present day.

The museum lobby houses three panels by the famous Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas, who was born in Chornomorsk. The concert and exhibition hall of the Oleksandr Biliy Museum of Fine Arts hosts exhibitions by famous foreign and Ukrainian artists.

The "Free Roses Country" farm was created in 1995 by amateur florist Mykola Hromlyuk.

The farmer breeds more than 500 varieties of roses here, including unique ones. On 20 hectares of former fields of a local poultry farm, tens of thousands of seedlings are grown at the same time.

The "Rose Republic" is popular as a tourist attraction - there are tours with tastings of rose jam and liqueur, which are prepared according to unique recipes from the petals of especially fragrant varieties.

Roses on the farm bloom from spring to late autumn, but it is better to choose May-June to visit the "Free Roses Country".

The Museum of the History of Fire Protection of Odesa operates on the territory of the Third State Fire and Rescue Department of the city, where a fire and technical exhibition operated for 20 years, and now the history of fire protection of the Odesa region from the beginning of its foundation to the present has been collected here.

In the hall of memory of the Chornobyl accident, a diorama "Explosion at the Fourth Power Unit of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant" is installed, made according to the sketches of the specialist of the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odesa region Larysa Leonova.

Among the exhibits of the museum's exposition you can see models of ancient and modern fire equipment, a horse-drawn barrel train, a manual fire pump of the 19th century, real fire equipment, archival photographs of the 18th-19th centuries, and reduced copies of fire equipment.

Only group tours are held by prior arrangement.

The Museum of the History of the Jews of Odesa "Migdal-Shorashim" was opened on the initiative of the Migdal Jewish Community Center in Odesa.

His exhibition is located in a small apartment and reflects the history of the Jewish community, which is inextricably linked with the culture of Odesa.

The permanent exhibition of the "Migdal-Shorashim" Museum includes about a thousand items: documents, photographs, books, newspapers, postcards, religious and household items, musical instruments, works of art, etc.

Vasyl Tayirov Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking was established on the outskirts of Odesa in 1905 as an experimental farm "Vinemaking station of Russian winegrowers and winemakers".

The initiator of its creation was the editor of the magazine "Herald of winemaking", an enthusiast of grape culture, Vasyl Tayirov. At the first stage, a small basement was equipped, and a library was assembled. In the period from 1910 to 1912, the construction of a complex of station premises was completed on the banks of the Sukhy Estuary. An experimental vineyard (3 hectares) was established and a seedling grafting workshop was built to develop viticulture issues.

In 1931, the station was reorganized into the Ukrainian Research Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking. For its 100th anniversary, a museum of grapes and wine was opened, which tells about the main directions of development of the domestic winemaking school.

The exposition presents Vasyl Tayirov's personal belongings, lifetime editions of scientific works, old laboratory equipment, gifts of the institute.

Excursions with tastings are held.

The Holy Assumption Church (or "White Church") was founded in Biliaivka in 1794 and is one of the oldest churches in the Odesa region. The first church was made of willow stakes covered with clay and whitened every year. This is why this church was nicknamed "White Church" by the people, which it still has today.

A new stone church was built in 1873. During the Soviet regime, the church was closed, the dome was destroyed, and the rector of the church was shot near the church gate. In 1943, during the Romanian occupation, services in the Holy Assumption Church were resumed and the church was reconstructed. In the 1950s, with the return of Soviet power, the church was closed again. The church building was used as a workshop for a long time.

After Ukraine gained independence in the 1990s, the restoration of the church began. In the interior of the Holy Assumption Church, a fresco depicting Saint Onuphrius has been preserved, which has been painted over many times, but the image of the saint has appeared through the paint.

The Holy Assumption Church is an architectural monument of local importance. It is used by the Odesa Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.