Attractions of Sumy region

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 Krasnopillia History Museum was established in 1985 as a museum of the history of the district on a non-profit basis. In 1994, it received the status of a "People's Museum".

The museum's collections include about 4 thousand exhibits, some of which are available for viewing in four halls of the museum. A special place in the exposition is occupied by stands dedicated to famous natives of the region - Pavlo Hrabovsky, Petro Sokolenko, Leonid Zhabotinsky, etc. Separate expositions are dedicated to the events of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1922 and the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933.

In addition, the museum presents a large ethnographic collection of the region.

Krolevets Museum of Local Lore was established in 2000 on the basis of the city history museum opened in 1971.

The museum occupies an old wooden house in the city center.

The exposition tells about the history of the region from ancient times to the end of the Second World War, about the culture and art of Krolevets.

A separate hall presents the history of weaving, the art of which Krolevets was famous in the XVIII century.

The Lebedyn city art museum named after Borys Rudnev is located in an old building in the center of the city. This was the mansion of the surgeon and founder of the zemstvo hospital, Kostiantyn Zilbernyk, built at the beginning of the 20th century.

The beginning of the creation of the art museum in Lebedyn was laid in 1918 by Borys Rudnev, a technological engineer from Kharkiv. The exposition was created on the basis of the nationalized collections of local landowners, in particular from the Strohaniv estate in Khotin near Sumy.

Currently, there are about 2,000 rarities in the exposition. Among them are good collections of Ukrainian portraits of the 18th century, works of artists Dmytro Levytskyi, Vasyl Polenov, Serhiy Vasylkivskyi, Hryhoriy Myasoedov, Valentina Serova, the Krychevskyi family, etc.

The building of the city administration (town hall) with a tall clock tower was built in Lebedyn at the beginning of the 20th century.

Made in the forms of rationalist modernism as an architectural dominant of the city center.

In Soviet times, a fire brigade was placed in the building, and the tower was converted into a fire hydrant.

The museum-workshop was founded in Sumy in 2006 by the famous Ukrainian artist Leontiy Kostur. The artist works in a style that he called his own surname - "kosturism". His mainly clay works, kosturs, tell about the everyday life and traditions of Ukraine.

The workshop is located in a house that Leontiy Kostur inherited and converted into a museum-workshop. The museum exhibits more than 300 sculptures ("kosturs") and a significant number of paintings.

The former house of the manager of the estates of Leopold Koenig in Trostianets was built in 1911 in the far part of the Neskuchne Park.

The two-story building of an asymmetrical composition with a tower in its eastern part is made in the Art Nouveau style. The head of forestry lived here with his family. During the Soviet rule, an agricultural school was opened in the building, and in 1923, the first forest research station in Ukraine.

Today it is the administrative building of the Krasnotrostyanetska Forest Research Station - a branch of the Institute of Forestry and Agromelioration.

The Manager's House has the status of an architectural monument of national importance.

During the Russian occupation of Trostianets in 2022, the House of the estate manager Leopold Koenig burned down. In particular, the fire destroyed the red oak wooden staircase and the library, which had more than 15,000 books and began to take shape during Koenig's time. The monument needs complete restoration.

A monument to the entrepreneur Leopold Koenig was erected in 2010 in Trostianets, across the street from the Trostianets chocolate factory "Mondelize" (formerly "Kraft Foods", "Ukraine").

At the end of the 19th century, Koenig opened a sugar refinery on the site of this enterprise. Koenig also built a parquet factory, a mill, and a distillery in Trostianets, contributing to the economic development of the city and the region.

Leopold Koenig Manor (Holitsyn Palace) in Trostianets is a neoclassical manor house with Baroque elements, built in 1762 by the Nadarzhynskyi brothers next to the Round Yard Manor.

Prince Vasyl Holitsyn owned it for almost half a century from 1832, and in 1881 the estate became the property of the sugar factory Leopold Koenig, who carried out the reconstruction. Now the palace houses the Trostianets Museum and Exhibition Center.

The building is decorated with rich stucco on the facade and sculptures in the niches. The palace is surrounded by a luxurious park with a lake, a gazebo and park sculptures. The grand oak staircase to the second floor, door portals with volutes, and a dance hall decorated with stucco and sculpture have been preserved in the interior. In the summer of 1864, the composer Petro Tchaikovsky lived and worked in this house while visiting Oleksiy Holitsyn, here he wrote the overture to the drama "The Thunderstorm" – his first symphonic work. During Soviet times, the palace housed a kindergarten, then the building was empty for a long time. Restoration was carried out in 2007-2009.

Currently, the ballroom and other central premises of the palace house a picture gallery and a small exhibition dedicated to Petro Tchaikovsky (a room-museum of Tchaikovsky is planned to be opened on the second floor). The Trostianets Museum of Local Lore operates in the right wing. In 2012, a chocolate museum was opened in the left wing, where the products of the Trostianets chocolate factory "Mondelize" (formerly "Kraft Foods", "Ukraine"), which is now produced mainly under the "Korona" brand, are presented. A coffee room is also open.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

During the large-scale Russian invasion in 2022, when Trostianets was under Russian occupation for a month, Leopold Koenig's estate was damaged. There was a partially destroyed room with a local history exposition. The museum needs restoration.

The Lesya Ukrayinka People's Museum was opened in Kosivshchyna in 1971 for the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth.

Lesya Ukrayinka's stay in Sumy region is connected with her treatment for tuberculosis. In 1889, the mother brought Lesya to the Kosivshchyna to the folk healer Paraska Boрush. Here the poetess wrote her "Spring Songs".

Lesya Ukrayinka's museum room is located in the local secondary school named after the poetess. Among the 600 exhibits are things that belonged to Paraska Boрush: a pot, a thick-walled pot for medicine, a trough, a towel. Lesya Ukrayinka's first collection "On the Wings of Songs" published in 1904, etc., is presented.

Excursions are conducted by young tour guides.

The Kozatske Village Local Lore Museum in Sumy region was founded in 2000 as a school museum. Since 2017, it has been operating on the basis of the local club "Krayeznavets" at the Kozatske Village House of Culture.

The museum's exposition, spread over several halls of the house of culture, tells about the origin of the village and its name, the history of the local school, church, and agricultural enterprises of the village.

Visitors can learn more about the traditions and customs of local residents, as well as see an exhibition of naive art paintings created by masters of the village of Kozatske.

An exhibition of retro equipment has been created in the park next to the museum, featuring old cars, tractors, and other equipment used by local agricultural enterprises.

The Mammoth Monument in Kulishivka is the first such monument in the world.

It was established in 1841 in honor of a paleontological find made in 1839 by the Ukrainian scientist-naturalist, professor of Kharkiv University, Ivan Kalynychenko. He unearthed a well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth discovered by local residents during excavations. The find was presented to the zoological office of Kharkiv University.

At the suggestion of Professor Kalynychenko and with the participation of the owner of the estate, Count Yuriy Holovkin, in 1841, a 3-meter cast-iron memorial was erected at the place where the bones were found.

The Kulishivka monument to the mammoth is now a landmark of the district and is even depicted on its coat of arms.

Maydan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Sumy is the historical and administrative center of the city.

The city began from this place in the middle of the 17th century, when its founders, Colonel Herasym Kondratyev of the Sumy Slobid Cossack Regiment and Voivode Kyrylo Arsenyev, began to implement their plans for the construction and arrangement of the Sumy Fortress and its post.

In 1694, a wooden Mykolaiv church was built, which has not survived to this day. Already after the death of Colonel Kondratyev in 1702, the construction of the Resurrection Cathedral was completed, which is now the main decoration of the square. Mykolayivska and Voskresenska squares, formed around the churches, later merged into one.

For a long time, the square was called Petrivska because Tsar Peter I visited it on the eve of the Battle of Poltava. After the Second World War, the square was reconstructed, at that time it was named after Lenin. In 1991, it was renamed Maydan Nezalezhnosti.

The buildings are dominated by high-rise buildings of the regional council and the Sumy hotel.

The village of Nova Sloboda in the Sumy region is called the Ukrainian Khatyn, because in 1942 the German occupiers shot 586 villagers to take revenge for the help of the villagers to the partisan unit of Sydor Kovpak.

In 2004, the "Bell of Sorrow" memorial was opened in the center of Nova Sloboda - a monument to the unconquered village and its brave inhabitants.

The monument is made in the shape of a bell, inside there is a small chapel, the names of all those who died in that tragedy are engraved on the marble slabs.

The Michael's Virgin Land Nature Reserve is a unique area of virgin meadow steppe with an area of 202 hectares, which has never been touched by a plow.

Since 1741, these lands belonged to the Kapnist Counts, who bred Oryol trotters at their stud farm in Mykhailivka. Large areas of the steppe were set aside for pastures and therefore were never plowed.

In 1928, "Michael's Virgin Land" was declared a reserve, until recently it was part of the Ukrainian Steppe Nature Reserve (in 2009, it was allocated to a separate protected area). The territory of the reserve, surrounded by a protective afforestation, is a low hill that gradually descends to the surrounding streams. The total area of the reserve is 882.9 hectares.

More than 500 types of herbs grow here, 38 of which are protected (11 are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine). Since they bloom at different times, the steppe changes color 10-12 times during the summer.

Brown hares, foxes and small rodents live in the reserve.

Excursions to the "Michael's Virgin Land" are organized by the Lebedyn city museum of local lore.