Attractions of Sumy region

The Ethnographic Museum of Horiun Culture in the village of Nova Sloboda opened in 2017 as a branch of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve in Putyvl.

Presents a unique culture of Horiuns - a small ethnic group living in Putyvl region. According to researchers, it is an autochthonous ancient Slavic population that has preserved its original culture, language and archaic features in everyday life.

The museum exposition recreates the estate of the Horiuns of the late XIX - early XX centuries. The interior of the house presents furniture, various household items, clothes, etc. Here and ancient icons, and embroidered towels, and a cradle, and a loom. In farm buildings - barns, barns, windmills - exhibited tools, other agricultural equipment.

In addition, in the Horiun courtyard you can see a crane well and a rare kind of cellar – a neck pit.

The church of Mykola Kozatskyi in the Ukrainian Baroque style was built in the 18th century at the expense of the residents of Putyvl - Ukrainian Cossacks.

It has an unusual silhouette with two towers of equal height. Initially, the temple was built in three parts and with one roof, but later a multi-tiered belfry was added to it from the western side. On the first floor of the two-story church is a "warm church" with low vaults. On the second floor is a "cold church" with a high central top.

The restoration was recently completed, and the museum exhibition "The Tale of Ihor's Campaign" is planned to be opened in the church.

The memorial museum complex of the Ukrainian artist, painter, and graphic artist Mykola Storozhenko opened in his small homeland, in the village of Vyazove, in 2018, on the occasion of the artist's 90th birthday.

Mykola Storozhenko is an academician of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, People's Artist of Ukraine, professor, laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine, founder and long-time head of the Painting and Temple Culture Workshop at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. He belonged to the circle of the second wave of the National Renaissance in Ukraine, the "sixties", which included such iconic figures as Opanas Zalyvakha, Lyudmyla Semykina, Yuriy Yakutovych, Alla Horska, Viktor Zaretskiy, Halyna Sevruk, Valentyn Zadorozhniy. All of them were open to experiments with different materials in order to carry out a high synthesis, combining the achievements of Ukrainian folk art, the experience of the Ukrainian avant-garde, and European modernism.

In addition to the artist's works, the museum's exhibits also feature the artist's memorial items donated to the museum by his family - books, brushes and paints, gifts and awards.

The house where Mykola Storozhenko lived and the school where Storozhenko studied and painted his first works have been preserved on the territory of Vyazove.

The Church of the Nativity of Christ, which is part of the ensemble of the Intercession Cathedral in Okhtyrka, is called the "Count's Church" because it was built at the expense of Countess Anna Chernyshova.

According to legend, her mother, Baroness fon Vedel (Veydel), fell fatally ill in Okhtyrka on the way to St. Petersburg. Before her death in the Intercession Church, she had an apparition of the Mother of God, who ordered her to give away her wealth to beggars, and promised to take her two young daughters under her care. Soon after the death of the baroness, her orphaned daughters ended up at court and successfully married, and since then they made large donations to the Intercession Temple. In particular, they financed the construction of the Nativity of Christ Church.

The temple is original in terms of its volume-spatial and decorative solution, and is more like a palace building than a religious one. Indeed, living rooms were provided in the side rooms, in which the pious countess often lived for months, spending time in prayers.

The Church of the Nativity of Christ is the oldest building in Shostka. The construction of the city began in 1779 with its establishment. The construction lasted 6 years.

The Church of the Nativity of Christ was built on the private donations of workers and employees of the powder factory. In 1809, a bell tower was added.

All solemn events in Shostka were held on the Church Square near the Church of the Nativity of Christ: processions, military parades, solemn religious services.

The Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin in Yunakivka is an outstanding monument of classicism architecture.

The beautiful five-headed two-story church in the style of classicism, designed by the architect Oleksandr Palytsyn, resembles the works of the late 18th-early 19th century architect Dzhakomo Kvarenhi. Construction began in 1793 on the site of the old wooden church and lasted 13 years at the expense of Prince Mykhaylo Holitsyn. The stone temple had three thrones: in the name of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Michael the Archstrategist and the main one - in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

In 1874, the warm church of the Three Saints was also arranged in the lower basement floor of the temple. There was a church-parochial school.

The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin remained active for a long time even under Soviet power, but was closed in the 1960s, and has reached our days in a half-ruined state.

The brick one-bath church of the Nativity of John the Baptist with a bell tower is located on the northeastern outskirts of Sumy, which has the historical name of the settlement of Luka.

The church is the main architectural landmark of Luka, it is well visible from the railway, from the Lypen hillfort and from the banks of the Psel River. The territory of the church is surrounded by a wall with two forged ornamental gates of the end of the 19th century.

In 1687, the Sumy colonel Herasym Kondratyev founded the John the Baptist monastery for girls in Luka, in which a wooden temple of the same name was built in 1691. The monastery was closed in 1787.

In its place, in 1837, a stone three-part church with a bell tower was built at the expense of the family of local nobles Lyntvarov as a parish church for Luka and the neighboring village of Baranivka. In 1907, two side altars were added to the church - the Holy Trinity and Saint John.

The defensive Molchensky monastery-fortress on the banks of the Seim in Putyvl was built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries on the basis of a fortress from Lithuanian times, which was called the Kremlin.

The monastery was founded in 1570 by monks who moved to the fortress from the Molchensky desert, located 20 kilometers from Putyvl. In 1604, the impostor tsar False Dmitry I was hiding behind the walls of the monastery, coming from here to Moscow after the death of Borys Hodunov.

The complex of the Molchensky Monastery is dominated by the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, built in 1575-1585 and rebuilt several times in the 17th-18th centuries. The tower over the gate of the fortress serves as a belfry, and a fragment of the wall with a corner tower has also been preserved.

The complex also includes the 19th-century church of John the Baptist, the abbot's and cell buildings, a refectory and utility buildings.

Park-monument of horticultural art "Trostianetsky" is located on the slopes of the hills of the picturesque tract "Neskuchne", where there are three lakes in the middle of a mixed pine-deciduous forest.

The landscape park was established at the beginning of the 19th century, when Trostianets belonged to Oleksandra Nadarzhynska, the granddaughter of the city's founder Timofiy Nadarzhynskyi. Formed on the basis of ancient timber and using the natural landscape, Neskuchne Park occupies an area of 256 hectares (400-year-old oaks have been preserved).

Near the back entrance to the park in 1911, a two-story art nouveau manager's house with a tower was built, which now houses a forest research station.

On the shore of the third lake in the depths of the park is the "Grote Nymph" (1809), built of large flat stones for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. According to legend, the grotto was the entrance to the dungeons located under the city. Under Prince Vasyl Holitsyn, the grotto was used for theatrical performances on the theme of ancient Greek myths, hence the name.

The House of Civil Meetings for Nobles in Sumy was built at the end of the 19th century.

On the first floor there was a music salon, a theater hall, and a restaurant. On the second floor there are smoking rooms and rooms for gambling.

After the Soviet-Ukrainian war, the House of Nobles' Assembly was turned into a philharmonic hall. The Sumy Regional Philharmonic Hall is famous for its acoustics. In 2008, major repairs were carried out and an organ was installed.

The manor house of the Ohiyevsky landowners in Krolevets is famous for the fact that the poet Taras Shevchenko stayed there.

In 1859, he returned from Kyiv to St. Petersburg for the last time. After visiting his friends the Lazarevsky in the village of Hyrivka (now Shevchenko) in the Konotop district, he drove with them to Krolevets, where the Lazarevsky sister Hlafira Ohiyevska lived. Shevchenko spent the night here, then went to Hlukhiv.

The house of the Ohiyevsky was preserved in its original form. In 1964, a cast-iron memorial plaque was installed.

Currently, the Ohiyevsky manor houses the Museum of Krolevets Weaving, which exhibits traditional Krolevets towels, embroidered cloths, and looms.

Okhtyrka City Museum of Local Lore is located in a former private mansion of the late nineteenth - early twentieth century, located in the center of Okhtyrka.

The museum was founded in 1920. There are three permanent exhibitions: "Fauna of the native land", "History of Okhtyrka", "Okhtyrka in the occupation period" and an exhibition hall.

The most interesting exhibits of the museum: personal belongings of the writer-countryman Ivan Bahryany, antiques, photographs, books on historical themes, index "Kharkiv Provincial Assembly of 1786-1919", books on the liberation of Ukraine from fascist invaders, theatrical costumes.

During the large-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the museum building was damaged by an explosion and is now in need of restoration. Part of the exposition was damaged. But the most valuable exhibits were saved.

Employees of the museum conduct tours of the city of Okhtyrka and its surroundings.

The Okhtyrskyi Holy Trinity Monastery was founded in 1654 in a picturesque place on the top of Monastyrska Hill on the forested banks of the Vorskla.

The first builder of the monastery was hegumen Ioannikiy, who came to Okhtyrka with his brothers from the Lebedyn monastery beyond the Dnipro, destroyed by the Poles.

According to legend, the first wooden church was consecrated in the 17th century in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the monastery was originally called Annunciation. Later, a stone refectory church of the same name was built instead of a wooden one at the expense of the Okhtyrka colonel Fedir Osypov.

From 1720, according to the decree of Peter I, the abbot of the Okhtyrskyi monastery became the tsar's confessor Tymofiy Nadarzhynskyi. He died in 1729 and was buried in the Trinity Cathedral built by him. His son Yosyp Nadarzhynskyi built the stone Church of the Transfiguration with a fraternal refectory and bell tower at his own expense, and in 1741 – a hospital with the Church of Peter and Paul. The main shrine of the monastery was the miraculous Okhtyr icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Sorrowful Ones".

In 1917, the Okhtyrskyi monastery was closed, an asylum for orphans was placed in it, then a military unit. During the Second World War, the monastery buildings were badly damaged.

The revival of the Okhtyrskyi Holy Trinity Monastery began in 2002.

The Museum of the outstanding lyric poet of the 20th century, Oleksandr Oles (Oleksandr Kandyba), opened in the city of Bilopillia, the poet’s birthplace, in 1998 on the second floor of the Bilopillia Central District Library, which has been named after its famous compatriot since 1993.

A bust of Oleksandr Oles (the work of Sumy sculptor Yakiv Krasnozhon) is installed in the lobby of the library. In two spacious halls with a total area of ​​54 square meters, an exhibition is located, which includes 384 exhibits and tells about the life and work of the poet.

The first hall is dedicated to the Bilopillia period of Oleksandr Oles’s life. Thanks to the local bookseller Kostya Storozhenko, the museum has a photograph of the house where the poet was born in its then appearance. A photocopy of the entry in the church book of the Intercession Church indicates that little Oleksandr was baptized here.

The exhibition opens with a diorama of the central square of Bilopillia from the end of the 19th century. The museum's exposition is complemented by furniture from the end of the 19th century, which was kept in the apartments of Bilopillia's residents. The highlight of the museum is a samovar found in the Kandyba estate in the attic of a barn that has survived since those times.

The most valuable treasure of the museum is Oles's personal belongings transferred from the poet's archive by the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and lifetime editions of his works dated 1909, 1917, 1919, 1923, 1935.

A significant place in the exhibition is given to materials that highlight the life and work of the poet's son Oleh Olzhych (Oleh Kandyba), the stay in the Bilopillia region of Oleksandr Oles' grandson - Oleh Kandyba, who lives in Canada.

Oleksandrivska Male Gymnasium is the oldest educational institution in Sumy. An architectural monument of national importance.

Founded by philanthropist Pavlo Kharytonenko. The main building in the style of classicism was built in 1873. Later, a boarding house for 40 people was built for out-of-town students. Thanks to pointed towers, battlements, a pointed portal and the same windows, this building resembles a medieval castle. The hospital was built in the same style. Unusually beautiful stairs leading to the second floor of the main building and a two-light assembly hall.

Currently, it is the Sumy Classical Gymnasium, specializing in advanced study of the English language.