Attractions of Lviv district

The Archcathedral of Saint George (Saint Yura)  in Lviv is one of the most beautiful architectural ensembles of the city, a pearl of the Ukrainian Baroque. The main shrine of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, where the residence of the metropolitans of the UGCC was located for a long time.

The first church on Svyatoyurska Hill in Lviv was founded during the times of the Galicia-Volyn principality. The current temple complex was built in 1744-1770 according to the project of Bernard Meretin, who combined the Rococo style with Ukrainian sacred aesthetics. Sculptures by Ivan Pinzel are installed on the main facade. The bell tower houses the oldest bell in Ukraine (1341). The most valuable relic of the temple is the miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary (XVII century).

Metropolitans Andriy Sheptytskyi and Volodymyr Sterniuk, Patriarch Yosyp Slipiy are buried in Saint George's Cathedral.

Next to the cathedral is the Metropolitan Palace, where Pope Ivan Paul II stayed in 2001 during his visit to Ukraine.

Since 1998, Saint George's Cathedral, together with the ensemble of the historical center of Lviv, has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

In the Armenian quarter of Lviv, between the streets of Virmenska and Lesi Ukrayinky, there is a cathedral, a bell tower, the palace of the archbishops and a nunnery. The buildings form a colorful "Armenian yard".

The construction was led by the Armenian architect Dorinh (Dorhi) at the expense of Armenian merchants. The image of the cathedral has many common features with the cathedral in the ancient Armenian capital of Ani. Over the centuries, the cathedral was renovated and extended. The oldest part is the eastern part (from the 14th century). Reconstruction in 1723 gave the building a baroque appearance.

In the altar part there are traditional "khachkar" stone crosses. The sculptural groups of the 15th century "The Belief of Khoma" and "Saint Sophia with Daughters" are of significant artistic value.

The building of the Lviv City Arsenal is one of the few preserved defensive structures of the medieval city. The Arsenal was part of the system of city fortifications of the 16th century.

The first small armory existed in this place at the beginning of the 15th century, but after a fire in 1571 it was demolished and a new two-storey building for the manufacture and storage of weapons was built in 1574-1575. The architects were probably well-known Lviv builders Pavlo Shchaslyvyi and Sebastyan Mochygemba.

On the east side, the Arsenal was adjacent to the High Defensive Wall between the Tokarivska and Shevska towers. There was a bastion in front of the building. Workshops for casting guns and bells and repairing weapons were opened at the arsenal. There was an ammunition depot nearby.

Under Austrian rule in the 18th century, the building was used as an unofficial prison. In particular, it housed the Haidamaks, participants in the Koliivshchyna uprising, as the memorial plaque reminds us.

In 1981, the Arsenal Museum was opened in the premises of the City Arsenal, which represents one of the best weapons collections in the country from 30 countries. The exposition includes ancient Rus and Cossack maces, graceful Arabian sabers, daggers of the peoples of the Caucasus and the Arab East, heavy European two-handed swords, armor of Polish "winged hussars", rifles and pistols with different types of locks, guns with coats of arms and much more. Many monuments are decorated with precious metals, gems, ivory, pearls, coral, mother of pearl. And this is only a small part of the weapons collection of the Lviv Historical Museum, which has about 4.5 thousand units.

"Museum-Arsenal" is a department of the Lviv Historical Museum. There is an antique salon at the museum.

Visually impaired visitors are offered audio description.

The first wooden Catholic church in the village of Navariia near Lviv was built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, but it was soon burned down by the Tatars.

The same fate befell the second wooden temple.

Only in 1641-1645 was the stone Ascension Church built at the expense of Elzhbeta Humnytska. The temple was damaged during the Liberation War and in 1739 the shrine was partially dismantled. The money for the reconstruction was allocated by the Venyavskyi family, and in 1740-1748, the prominent Lviv architect with Italian roots, Bernard Meretyn, built a new Ascension Church on the old foundations in the then popular late baroque style. It was probably the first work of the master.

Finishing and decoration with the participation of the artist Antonio Tavelli continued for several more decades. A bell tower was built in 1766.

In 1991, the church, restored after the Soviet period, was re-consecrated as the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and after 2011 it changed its title to Saint Valentine, since the relics of this saint have been kept here since the 17th century.

The Greek-Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin in Hlyniany is one of the oldest wooden churches in Galicia.

Officially, the date of its foundation is considered to be the 17th century, although the Orthodox parish in Hlyniany existed in the 15th century. The three-log, one-story church is located on the territory of the former northern suburb.

According to legend, Hetman Ivan Mazepa prayed here, and Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi planted two old ash trees in the yard.

In the Church of the Assumption there is an icon of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (15th century), which is associated with the legend of self-renewal: in 1936, the enthroned image, blackened by time, was purified by itself and covered with gilding.

In 1937, a bell tower was built at the entrance to the yard.

After the Second World War, the church was closed and the premises were transferred to the museum of carpet weaving, but the miraculous image was preserved, people continued to come to it and hold services.

Currently, the Assumption Church is in need of restoration.

The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in the village of Vyshnivchyk in 1930. The neo-Gothic temple was designed by the architect Vavzhynets Daychak.

During the Soviet rule, the building was used for economic purposes. Nowadays, the Church of the Assumption is abandoned and crumbling.

The Castle Church of the Assumption of the Virgin was built in Svirzh in 1546 by the magnate Andriy Svirzhsky on the site of a wooden church of the 15th century.

After several reconstructions, the church acquired a Renaissance appearance, although it was originally Gothic. Above the entrance you can see the remains of the noble coat of arms of the former owners.

An underground passage led to the church from the castle, which can still be traced in the moat near the drawbridge.

In Soviet times, the temple was used as a warehouse.

In 1994, the church building was handed over to the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The temple was consecrated as the Church of the Holy Trinity and the Assumption of the Virgin. The restoration has been carried out.

The museum of authentic clothing and adornment from all regions of Ukraine was opened in Lviv by collector and ethnographer Roksolyana Shymchuk in 2024. The exposition is located in the basement of the Lviv Art Palace.

The founder of the museum began collecting her collection in the early 1990s. For over 30 years, she has sought out and restored vintage clothing, adornment and headwear. Now her collection includes several thousand examples of Ukrainian folk applied art.

Only a part of the collection is presented in the museum exposition. Here you can see the folk costumes of Hutsulshchyna, Boykivshchyna, Pokuttya, Bukovyna, Podillya, Lviv region, Volyn, Dnipro region, and Left Bank Ukraine.

By prior agreement, the founder of the museum conducts author's tours. On the first floor, there is an ethno-gallery, where you can buy modern designer items and adornment, the author of which is Roksolyana Shymchuk.

The palace in Tulyholove was built in 1899 by the Galician nobleman Stanislav Bal (Ball).

The project of the palace in the French Neo-Renaissance style was developed by the Lviv architect Vladyslav Halytskyi (according to another version, Ferdinand Fellner and Herman Helmer, the authors of the Odesa Opera). The rich sculptural design of the building was executed by master Petro Herasimovych.

The park and two outbuildings have also been preserved.

Since 1954, a tuberculosis dispensary was located in the Bal`s manor. In 2022, the palace was handed over to the Historical and Local Lore Museum in Vynnyky.

The wooden Church of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in Horodok is a sample of Galician folk architecture, one of the oldest Orthodox churches in Galicia.

Saint John's Church was founded in 1403 in the Cherlyanskyi suburb near the town of Horodok. It burned twice in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was rebuilt in its current form in 1755.

The wall painting was made by the artist Fedir Shcherbokoskyi in 1861. A small stone chapel of the Beheading of the Head of John the Baptist is attached to the church. In 1863, a three-tiered stone bell tower was built, which became a symbol of the city.

In Soviet times, the church was inactive, but in 1980 a complete restoration was carried out, which saved it from destruction.

The Church of John the Baptist in Horodok has the status of an architectural monument of national significance. Today it is an active church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The active Lviv synagogue "Beis Aharon ve-Israel" (translated from Hebrew - "House of Aaron and Israel") is located near the railway station.

The building, built in 1897, originally belonged to Moses Grifeld, a member of the Tsori Gilod Jewish Society.

In 1923-1925, according to the project of the architect Albert Kornbluth, the building was rebuilt as a synagogue. The two halls of the prayer house were designed for 384 seats. The central lamp of the main hall is decorated with a stained glass window in the form of a Star of David. The walls were painted by the artist Maximilian Kugel.

During the Second World War, the building was not damaged - it housed a warehouse.

Since 1989, the service has been resumed. The restoration was carried out in 2007. In the interior of the "Beis Aharon ve-Israel" synagogue, a polychrome painting has been preserved. The synagogue has a kosher kitchen and a mikvah.

The ensemble of the Benedictine monastery in Lviv - the church and the monastery building - was built with the participation of the architect Pavlo Rymlyanin. It has a pronounced defensive character.

The Church of All Saints is a small stone building, rectangular in plan. Adjacent to the south-eastern part is a two-story building of cells, which has preserved techniques and elements of Renaissance architecture. The complex is surrounded by walls with baroque gates of the 17th century.

Today it is an active Holy Intercession Monastery of the Sisters of the Studio Statute.

The monastery of the Bernardine order in Lviv with the church of Saint Andrew the First-Called in the 17th century was a separate fortification unit outside the city.

It was surrounded by a moat, a rampart and a defensive wall, which is partially preserved, with a tower of the Hlynyansky Gate overlooking the Customs Square. Powerful monastery fortifications were connected with a ring of city walls.

The Church of Saint Andrew was built in the years 1600-1630 according to the project of architects Bernard Avelides and Pavlo Rymlyanin in the Renaissance style. The lush interior is made in the Baroque style, there are many wooden altars of the 18th century. The decorative column in front of the facade was installed in 1736 in honor of Saint John of Dukla, the patron saint of the Bernardines.

The premises of the monastery now belong to the Central State Archives of Lviv, and the church of Andrew the First-Called was handed over to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The current building of the maternity hospital in the southwestern part of Lviv is the former Jewish hospital Beth Hulim, built by the famous doctor Yakiv Rappoport at the expense of the Mavrytsiy Lazarus Foundation.

The monumental building is designed in the Moorish style and decorated with Eastern and European symbols. In terms of architectural and visual solutions, the hospital resembles the largest synagogue in Eastern Europe in Budapest.

The author of the project of the 100-bed hospital was the well-known Lviv architect Kazymyr Moklovsky, who collaborated with the architectural and construction bureau of Ivan Levynsky, which implemented the project.

Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Central Park of Culture and Rest is located in the central part of Lviv, on the slope of the hill between Stryiska, Heroiv Maidanu, Vitovskoho and Zarytskyh streets. A recreation and entertainment zone existed here as early as the 19th century.

The modern park was laid out in 1951 and arranged according to the Soviet traditions of creating typical parks of culture and rest for working people. From those times, the central avenue with a length of more than 800 meters, the colonnade of the central entrance and the premises of the "Druzhba" cinema have been preserved. In 1970, the central entrance was decorated with fountains.

Since 1984, the Park of Culture has the status of a monument of garden and park art of local importance. There is a children's entertainment zone "Zhu-Zhu Park" and a park of moving dinosaur figures on the territory.

Street cafes and restaurants are open. Various festivals and fairs are held regularly.