Attractions of Sumy region

The majestic Savior Transfiguration Cathedral on a pedestrian street in the very center of Sumy combines Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism elements in its image.

The Transfiguration Cathedral in Sumy was built in 1776-1788 on the site of a wooden church of the 17th century. The 56-meter baroque bell tower with English chimes was added later. The cathedral acquired its modern appearance after a major reconstruction, carried out in 1882-1892 according to the project of the authoritative Kharkiv architect Mykhaylo Lovtsov. Cast-iron figures of the apostles Peter and Paul, as well as two identical figures of Saint Volodymyr the Great, and figures of the four evangelists: Luke, Mark, John and Matthew, are installed in the corners of the dome.

In the interior - an iconostasis made of white marble and Ural malachite, paintings on biblical themes by Volodymyr Makovsky. The main shrines are miraculous icons of the Tikhvin Mother of God and the Korsun Mother of God.

The cathedral belongs to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate. Festive services are broadcast outside.

The Sukhanov-Sumovsky estate is a beautiful two-story palace-type house in Sumy.

It was built in 1895 by Sumy businessman and philanthropist Mykola Sukhanov. Later, the manor became the property of the Sumovsky family. The manor house is located in the depth of the park behind a fence with a wrought-iron gate and figured bars.

A two-story residential building with rich architectural decorations was connected by an underground passage to an office building with an attic in the Neo-Renaissance style. On the border of the manor plot there is a long building of the farm building.

Currently, the Institute of Applied Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the services of the Academy of Banking, as well as one of the divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are located in various premises of the Sukhanov manor.

In the premises of the library of the banking academy, the exhibition "The Sukhanovs in Sumy" was opened, which tells about the life and charity of the Sukhanov family.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

On April 13, 2025, the Russians fired two Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles at the city center of Sumy. As a result of the Russian missile strike, the architectural monument of the Sukhanov-Sumovsky estate, which is located between the sites of both strikes, suffered significant damage - in particular, the original wrought-iron fence from the late 19th century was destroyed, there are holes in the ceiling and walls, and windows were broken.

As a result of this Russian attack in Sumy, 35 civilians died, including two children. 117 people were injured, including 15 children.

A small gazebo made of carved wood, built according to the project of the architect Matviy Shchaveliyiv without a single nail, is considered a visiting card of the Sumy city.

According to legend, it was built by a burgher, Yosyp Lishchynsky, on the site of a well drilled during an unsuccessful search for oil.

The Sumy gazebo is the only wooden structure in the city that was not damaged at all during World War II.

Sumy Regional Art Museum named after Nikanor Onatsky is located in Sumy in the building of the former State Bank, built in the early XX century by Sumy architect Hustav Sholts.

The museum was established in 1920 on the basis of nationalized private art collections and the collection of Oskar Hansen, which was then in Sumy. The first director was the artist Nikanor Onatsky, a student of Illya Repin, whose works, in particular, are presented in the museum.

The most interesting are the landscapes of Italian artists of the XVII-XIX centuries, Dutch and Flemish painters, including the works of Rubens' students, French landscape painters of the XIX century.

Also presented are the works of famous artists-travelers: Shyshkin, Kuyindzhi, Levitan, Savrasov. The masterpieces of painting of the late XIX - early XX century include the works of Vasnetsov, Serov, Kotarbinskyi, Ayvazovskyi. 

The museum has a collection of works by the outstanding Ukrainian folk artist Mariya Prymachenko.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

On April 13, 2025, the Russians launched a missile strike with two Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles on the city center of Sumy, killing 35 people, including two children, and injuring 119 people.

As a result of the Russian missile strike, the building of the Sumy Regional Art Museum named after Nikanor Onatsky was severely damaged. In addition, other cultural institutions and cultural heritage monuments of the city were destroyed, including: the Regional Museum of Local Lore, the Regional Academic Theater for Children and Youth, the Shchepkin National Academic Theater of Drama and Musical Comedy, the Regional Scientific and Methodological Center for Culture and Arts, the Regional Philharmonic, the Regional Library for Children, the workshop of the regional organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, and the Sukhanov-Sumovsky estate.

The Sumy Regional Museum of Local Lore is located in Sumy in the former building of the county zemstvo administration with a notable tower-like projection on the facade, which rises above the main building and ends with a dome.

There are four caryatids on the pylons of the second floor, which support the balcony. Oleksandr Kuprin and Volodymyr Korolenko visited the office in different years. In 1905, the printing office and editorial offices of the first Sumy newspapers were located here.

The Regional Museum of Local Lore in Sumy was founded in 1920. The museum`s exposition presents objects from archaeological excavations of early Slavic and ancient Rus monuments, rare materials from the history and nature of Sumy Region.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

On April 13, 2025, the Russians launched a missile strike with two Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles on the city center of Sumy, killing 35 people, including two children, and injuring 119 people.

As a result of the Russian missile strike, the building of the Regional Museum of Local Lore  was severely damaged. In addition, other cultural institutions and cultural heritage monuments of the city were destroyed, including: the Sumy Regional Art Museum named after Nikanor Onatsky, the Regional Academic Theater for Children and Youth, the Shchepkin National Academic Theater of Drama and Musical Comedy, the Regional Scientific and Methodological Center for Culture and Arts, the Regional Philharmonic, the Regional Library for Children, the workshop of the regional organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, and the Sukhanov-Sumovsky estate.

The ancient Church of the Three Holy Anastasies in Hlukhiv was founded in the 18th century by Hetman Ivan Skoropadskyi as a house church near the Hetman's estate.

Named after his wife Anastasiya. It was revived in 1884-1893 at the expense of the Tereshchenko family of sugar growers, becoming their ancestral tomb. Its forms resemble the Saint Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv, which was also built with the participation of the Tereshchenko family.

The project in the neo-Byzantine style was developed by architect Andriy Hun. Famous artists Svedomski, Pymonenko, Vereshchahin, Zhuravlyov, who also designed the Sain Volodymyr Cathedral, created masterpiece paintings based on sketches by Viktor Vasnetsov. A luxurious white marble iconostasis has been preserved.

In 2003, after a visit to the city by one of the descendants of the Tereshchenko family, a family crypt was discovered in the basement of the Three-Anastasies Cathedral. The founder of the family Artemiy Tereshchenko, his wife Yevfrosyniya, their sons Fedir and Mykola are buried here.

Today it is the cathedral church of the Konotop and Hlukhiv Diocese of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine occupies a complex of historical buildings in the center of the city of Sumy.

The first educational building is located in Taras Shevchenko Square (Soborna Street), in the former premises of the First Female Gymnasium. It belongs to a large group of Neo-Gothic buildings of the 19th-20th centuries in the city.

The main building of the academy was built only a few years ago on the central Petropavlivska Street, on the site of the former estates of the descendants of the founder of Sumy Hryhoriy Kondratiev. Until 1917, one of the city's fire brigades was located here, then various institutions. All the architectural nuances of the historical building have been carefully preserved in the reconstructed building. Instead of a fire station, a tower with a clock was built, which notifies the city about various celebrations at the academy.

The forty-meter water tower is a business card of Hlukhiv. It can be seen for many kilometers from the city, is an expressive element of its architectural silhouette.

The water tower was built in 1927 on the site of the Putivl Gate of the Hlukhiv Fortress after a decision was made to create a city water supply. Unique in architecture - the round cone-shaped trunk in the upper part gently transitions into an extended two-tiered cylinder with rectangular windows.

An internal spiral staircase of 186 steps leads to the upper level with an observation deck that offers a magnificent view of the city and its picturesque surroundings. Access to the observation deck is open in summer.

The Yampil Local Lore Museum was founded in 2009. The museum is located on the territory of the Yampil Botanical Garden of local significance.

The museum collection includes about 1,700 exhibits. These are household items, dishes, regional folk clothing (girls' and women's costumes of Eastern Polissia (Yampil region) and Dnipro region (Poltava region), men's embroidered shirts), interior embroidery of the late 19th - first half of the 20th century, photos and audio library of the 20th century, household clocks of the second half of the 20th century, sculptural porcelain of the 1950s-1970s, etc.

The decoration of the folk clothing presented in the museum is the wedding costume of Yefrosinia Popravko from the Deriazhnia farm, which is more than 100 years old. The exposition is complemented by a selection of photographs of residents of the Yampil region in national clothing of the late 19th - first half of the 20th century.

The pottery exhibit features a unique clay spark arrester - a device that was placed on a thatched roof to prevent it from catching fire.

The Central City Park of Hlukhiv is a small park area in the very center of the city.

On Cathedral Square, next to the park, there was a manor house, in which Dmytro Bortnyansky lived until 1758, a famous Ukrainian composer and the founder of spiritual choral singing. In 2002, a memorial sign with a bas-relief image of the composer, cast from bronze, was installed on the site of the Bortnyansky manor.

There is a monument to Bortnyansky in the park opposite the square. A monument to the composer Maksym Berezovsky, who was also born in Hlukhiv, was erected next to it.

The fountain-monument "Sumka" (Bag), installed in 2008 on one of the central pedestrian streets of Sumy, symbolizes the legend of the founding of the city.

According to legend, in the summer of 1655, the first Cossack settlers from the town of Pruda in the Kyiv region, led by Otaman Kondratyev, found three hunting sums with coins at the place where a small river flowed into the Psel. The river was named Sumka, and the city founded here was called Sumy.

Sculptor Oleksiy Shevchenko recreated the legend in stone: a bag with money hangs over a well with water, from which water also flows. A new urban tradition has appeared - to wet the face, bags and wallets with "magical" water from the well.

Konotop City Museum of Local Lore is one of the oldest and richest museums in Sumy region. It was founded in 1900 on the initiative of the prominent Ukrainian historian Oleksandr Lazarevsky, whose name the museum now bears. The paintings, books, ancient weapons, and manuscripts donated by Lazarevsky became his first exhibits.

Now the museum has almost 24 thousand exhibits. 9 exhibition halls cover the history, nature and ethnography of the region. Stone Age tools, vessels of the Bronze Age, ancient Rus and Cossack weapons, etc. are presented.

Among the most interesting exhibits: the chair (armchair) of Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky from the palace in Baturyn, the castle and the key to the gate of the Konotop fortress, the Gospel-aprakos of 1707 from the printing house of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

The foyer presents works of art of Ukrainian and Western European art.

The facade of the museum is decorated with a mural with a portrait of Oleksandr Lazarevsky.

The Neo-Renaissance palace in Kyianytsia is considered one of the pearls of manor construction in Slobozhanshchyna.

It was built in 1890 by the Lishchynsky merchant family, who inherited Kiyanitsa from the rich sugar farmer Ivan Kharytonenko.

The two-story Kyianytsia Palace with an elegant tower, surrounded by an age-old park, looks especially romantic from the opposite bank of the pond. More than 70 species of trees and shrubs grow in Kyianytsia Park (56 hectares), among which you can find sycamores, ginkgos, silver firs, pines, lindens, maples and, of course, the main park-forming wood - oak. A small outhouse has also been preserved.

In Soviet times, the "Kyianytsia" recreation center was located on the territory of the Lishchynsky manor. Currently, the building is owned by Sumy National Agrarian University, partial restoration has been carried out.

The exposition of the local lore museum "Petro Chaykovsky and Ukraine" is located in the village of Nyzy in the manor house of the landowner Mykola Kondratyev, who was a guest of the outstanding composer Petro Chaykovsky every summer in 1871-1879.

Kondratyev was introduced to Chaykovsky by his friend Oleksiy Holitsyn from nearby Trostianets (there is also a Chaykovsky museum there). In Nysy, the composer worked on the operas "Cherevychky", "Oprychnyk", the Second and Third symphonies, created several piano pieces and romances. He dedicated the cycle of plays "Evening Dreams" to Kondratyev, "Salon Waltz" to his wife, "Little Waltz" to his daughter, and "Sentimental Waltz" to his governess.

The next owner of the manor, Dmytro Sukhanov, a sugar factory, demolished the wing where Chaykovsky lived during the reconstruction, but the main building was preserved.

In Soviet times, a sugar factory club was located here, then a high school. Since 1990, a part of the premises has housed a permanent exhibition-museum of Chaykovsky, recreating the atmosphere of the 19th century. The exposition dedicated to the composer is made up of the exhibits of the Sumy Regional Museum of Local Lore.

The building is in dire need of repair. Due to the lack of heating, the museum "Petro Chaykovsky and Ukraine" is open only in the summer.

The complex of educational institutions was built in Hlukhiv in the second half of the 19th century.

In 1874, a teachers' institute was opened, which trained teachers for the Chernihiv and Poltava provinces. In 1914, the outstanding film director Oleksandr Dovzhenko graduated from it. The artist Heorhiy Narbut studied at the Hlukhiv men's gymnasium.

Currently, all buildings are occupied by the Oleksandr Dovzhenko Hlukhiv State Pedagogical University. It houses a historical and pedagogical museum.