Attractions of Chortkiv district

The Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was built in Buchach under the castle hill near the town hall at the expense of the owner of the town, Kaniv mayor Mykola Vasyl Potoski, as evidenced by his Pylyava family coat of arms on the pediment. The inscription on the portal says: "Out of a desire to have three crosses in Pylyava Potocki, the House of the Cross was built for the glory of God."

The outstanding sculptor Ivan Pinzel worked on the interior design of the Assumption Church for several years. The monumental composition of five altars includes the image of the Mother of God with the Infant Jesus, the figures of Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Yoakhim, Saint Anna, Saint Zazarius, Archangel Michael, Saint Yan Nepomuk, angels, allegorical figures of Swiftness and Love, and the composition of the Glory of God.

After the Soviet devastation, the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Buchach was restored and is once again welcoming believers.

The majestic one-nave Gothic-Renaissance Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Yazlovets was built at the end of the 16th century at the expense of Mykolay Yazlovetskyi.

At first, it was a parish church, but in 1639 it was transferred to the Dominican monks, who founded the monastery (the semicircular chapels that were added at that time have been preserved). Nearby is a powerful open bell tower.

Polish composer Mykolay Gomulk is buried in the church.

The Yazlovets church was closed during Soviet times, and is now in a dilapidated state.

The Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in Kopychyntsi in 1802 by the Bavorsky magnates, who owned the city, as a family tomb.

The first Catholic church, which existed since 1443, was destroyed in the 17th century.

Three-nave temple. In 1846, a stucco altar with figures of Peter and Paul was built. In the underground part are the remains of the tomb of the Bavorsky.

During the Soviet era, the Assumption of Virgin Mary Church was closed, revived in 1991.

The Bernardine church and monastery was founded in Husiatyn in 1610 by the Polish magnate Valentiy Oleksandr Kalynovskyi, who handed over the first wooden church to the Bernardine brothers.

10 years later, the future Crown Hetman Martyn Kalynovskyi started the construction of a baroque stone church and a two-story monastery building. In 1648, the monastery was destroyed by the Tatars. It began to be restored after the liberation of the city from Turkish rule, and was completed only in 1728.

Under the Austrians, the church became a parish church, and under the Soviet authorities it was closed. The revival began in 1991 with the efforts of the Franciscan brothers. Currently, it is the Catholic Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the building needs restoration.

The Bilche-Zolote Village Museum opened in 2020 on the eve of Ukraine's Independence Day at the initiative of Lidia Miskiv and folk craftswoman Kateryna Butovska.

The exhibition presents ancient household items of the villagers, tools, icons, pedestals, old working women's and men's clothing, furniture (bed, bambetel, sideboard (credenza), chest).

The room "History of the Village in Figures" contains many old photographs, exhibits from the "Verteba" cave. An unusual exhibit is a wooden log with a trident and the inscription "Glory to Ukraine" carved inside. The patriotic inscription was carved by the rebels on a young tree and it grew into the trunk.

A separate room is reserved for wind-up dolls, which are created by local craftswoman Kateryna Butovska.

In 2022, the museum's collection was replenished with postcards of Ukrainian insurgents, which local residents found while cleaning an old house.

The museum room of the world-famous Ukrainian, Canadian, Swiss economist, public figure, philanthropist, former member of the Club of Rome Bohdan Havrylyshyn has been operating in the village of Koropets on the first floor of the House of Culture since 2019.

Bohdan Havrylyshyn was born in Koropets in 1926. He was an advisor to three presidents and 14 prime ministers of Ukraine.

In the museum exhibition you can see the table at which Bohdan Havrylyshyn worked, his personal belongings, awards and many photos from different stages of his life.

Bokhit (Bohyt) is an ancient pagan settlement on the mountain of the same name in Medobory. Some elements, such as the local dolmen, date back to the 6th-5th centuries BC, while the main buildings date back to the 9th-10th centuries.

The length of the settlement is 300 meters, the width is 50-100 meters. In the center of the temple, an eight-petaled figure with indentations on the edges was found, paved with stone. A similar object has an analogy with the elements of the Perun temple in Novhorod. A square earthen recess for the idol was discovered near the shrine.

In 1848, a Zbruchansky stone idol was found on the bank of the Zbruch River (Lychkivtsi village district), the origin of which is associated with the Bohit settlement. There is an opinion that after the baptism of Rus, most pagans left their lands and moved their spiritual center from Kyiv to these places. Confirmation of this theory is the presence of other hillforts nearby (Zvenyhorod, Hovda) and its satellites.

The "Medobory" Nature Reserve has developed a tourist route and laid an ecological trail through the hillforts.

The Museum of Bolshevik Terror, Political Prisoners and Repression in Chortkiv is located in the premises of the diocesan administration of the Buchach Eparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The initiative for its creation belongs to the former UPA liaison officer, public activist Mariia Shtepa.

In the basements of the former monastery of the Sisters of Mercy (now the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary Church), where during the Soviet occupation the NKVD detention centers were located, the "Calvary" exhibition is located. The interior of the prison cell has been recreated here, the hiding place of the repressed Greek Catholic Church has been reconstructed, and a church chapel has been equipped.

The exposition "Repressed Church" collects materials about the blessed Bishop Velichkosky. Authentic items from the 1940s, photos of the repressed, as well as symbolic pieces of land from places sprinkled with Ukrainian blood in the fight against the Russian occupiers are presented: Baturyn, Berestechko, Kruty, Uman, Makivka, etc.

A separate exhibition "The Chortkiv Offensive" tells about the offensive military operation of the Ukrainian Galician Army in 1919, which became one of the most significant events of the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918-1919.

The Brush Museum opened in 2025 in the premises of the Zabolotivka Starostvo on the initiative of the starost of the village of Zabolotivka, Mariia Hadzhala. The exhibition is dedicated to local brush makers and their craft - brush making, which has long been widespread in this village.

The exhibition presents ancient tools and instruments of brush makers, sheaves of local sedge, which served as the main material for making bristles, and samples of finished products.

The interior of the museum hall is decorated with other antiques - a bambetl, century-old images, household items, samples of local embroidery from the villagers' hiding places. A separate corner is dedicated to local participants in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

By prior arrangement, the museum can organize a master class on making brushes.

The ruins of the defensive Buchach Castle, which protected Buchach from the Tatars and Turks since the 14th century, stand on a hill in the center of the city.

The fortress was founded in 1379 by the local magnates Buchachskyi, and three centuries later it was fortified by the new owners Potocki. In 1648, the Cossack army tried to capture Buchach Castle, and in 1665 and 1667 it was unsuccessfully besieged by the Tatars. Only in 1672, the Turkish army was able to capture the city and the fortress was destroyed.

The Potocki tried to restore Buchach Castle, but in the 19th century it finally lost its significance and was almost completely dismantled for building materials.

Fragments of walls and towers have been preserved.

Buchach Town Hall is a wonderful baroque creation of the Lviv architect Bernard Meretin, and is a hallmark of the city.

The 37-meter-high town hall was built in Buchach at the expense of Mykola Vasyl Potoski. The two-story tower rests on a two-story cubic base. Initially, the town hall was crowned with an 18-meter spire (replaced by the current dome after the fire of 1811) and decorated with 17 sculptures by the outstanding sculptor Ivan Pinzel on the theme of the struggle between good and evil. Most of the sculptures were destroyed by a fire in 1865, four of them survived only in fragments.

Thanks to the sophisticated synthesis of architecture and sculpture, the Buchach Town Hall is considered an outstanding work of world architecture of the late Baroque era.

Restoration is currently underway, and the creation of the Ivan Pinzel Museum is planned. The lost sculptures are planned to be replaced with copies. The restored clock on the top tier strikes every quarter of an hour, and every hour plays the melodies of Ukrainian songs.

In 2014, a monument to Ivan Heorhiy Pinzel was erected in front of the town hall.

Budaniv Castle was built at the beginning of the 17th century by Yan Khodorovsky on the site of a wooden castle burned by the Tatars, built at the end of the 16th century by Voivode Yakub Budzanovsky, whose name the village still bears.

The new stone castle on top of the hill was quadrangular in plan, with four round corner towers around the perimeter. During its existence, the castle was captured and destroyed several times by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi's troops, as well as by Turkish troops. It was restored every time, and in the middle of the 18th century, the new owners of Potocki Castle rebuilt the western part of the fortifications into a church.

To this day, in addition to the church, two round towers and part of the castle walls have been preserved. A women's psychiatric hospital has been located on the territory of the castle since Soviet times, but the castle can be freely viewed both from the outside and from the courtyard.

The ruins of a poorly preserved castle built in the 17th century on a mountain surrounded by the Drapaka stream. The name of the founder is unknown.

The castle in Vysichka was quadrangular, with four corner towers. In 1672, it was captured by the Turks, and in 1675, the Polish king Yan Sobeskyi stayed in the castle with his army.

In 1820, the owner of Vysichka, Mariya Holiyovska-Charkovska, built a palace in the Neo-Gothic style on the territory of the dilapidated castle. In 1900, Kyrylo Charkovskyi ordered the castle walls and the entrance tower to be dismantled, as well as the moats to be filled in.

The palace was completely destroyed during the Soviet rule. In fact, only one castle tower has survived. Another is in ruins, and only the foundation remains of the third. One of the utility rooms and some basement rooms have also been preserved.

The ruins of the castle tower in Ozeriany are located in the very center of the village near the crossroads.

The castle probably dates back to the 17th century, when Ozeriany belonged to the Polish king. The castle controlled the salt road that runs through the village. The walls of the surviving tower are 1 meter thick. The rectangular tower measures 10 by 7 meters.

Only the first tier and the dungeon have survived.

The cave monastery in Monastyrok was founded in the 9th-10th centuries by hermit monks on the site of an ancient Slavic pagan temple.

It is noticeable that human hands put effort into the arrangement of the natural cave. A huge stone overhanging the entrance to the cave is supported by several columns made of flat stone blocks.

In the temple there is an image of Jesus, which, according to legend, came to the monks in the form of a play of light and shadow. They drew this image with paint and got what we can see now.

An ancient altar is also preserved in the cave, which is still used for its intended purpose. It is decorated with icons and lamps. Archeologically, it has been proven that the temple was lined with wood, had a wooden floor and may have been heated.

At the end of the 17th century, the temple was destroyed by fire, and in the 18th century it was destroyed by an earthquake.

Back in the 16th century, the Basilian Monastery was founded nearby. The complex includes the Ascension Church (XVI-XVIII centuries) and monastery cells. Near the entrance to the cave lies a stone with a cross carved on it, which is called the "stone of Dovbush". Perhaps it was a pagan altar.