Attractions of Poltava region

The Poltava Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics is dedicated to outstanding events in aerospace science and technology in Ukraine and the world.

The Museum of Aviation and Space Rocketry was founded in Poltava in 1987 on the initiative of the creator of rocket engines, Academician Valentyn Hlushko.

The exhibition is housed in the former building of the first Poltava fire brigade (1810). Personal belongings of cosmonauts, models of spaceships and real units of space vehicles are exhibited in 6 halls.

A significant place in the exposition is given to natives of Poltava region. In particular, the scientific heritage of Yuriy Kondratyuk from Poltava is highlighted.

The funds include about 4,000 exhibits.

A private ethno-museum of beer and moonshine opened in 2018 on the territory of the hotel and restaurant complex "Almaz-Plus" in the village of Abazivka near Poltava.

The exhibition presents original equipment and tools used for brewing and moonshine at different times and in different countries.

The collection of more than 600 exhibits was collected over 7 years by the owner of the complex Vasyl Kozhan. In addition to vats, cauldrons, bottles, mugs, there are also scales, control equipment, players, telephones, old books on the technology of brewing beer and other beverages.

The museum conducts tours and drinks tastings. The complex also includes the Beer House brewery. 

The burial pyramid in Komendantivka, based on the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs, is a 15-meter granite tetrahedron.

Oleksandr Bilevych, an officer of the Russian fleet, who participated in the Russian-Turkish war and fought in the Balkans, being in Egypt in the early 1860s as part of a limited contingent of Russian troops, impressed by the pyramids he saw there, built a pyramid temple in 1864 in to his estate near the village of Komendantivka.

The pyramid was built from granite blocks mined in a local quarry, which were pulled up by wooden chutes with cables. Since the blocks were held together with an expensive lime mortar with the addition of cattle blood and egg whites, construction took 13 years.

The building is three-story. The underground tier consisted of three funeral chambers connected by passages. An Orthodox church with an iconostasis and an altar was located on the first above-ground level. The upper tier served as a belfry. The building was crowned with an Orthodox cross.

In 1877, Bilevych's wife Sofia was buried in the tomb, and in 1916 - the builder of the Komendantivka Pyramid, which was consecrated as the Orthodox Church of Saint Sophia, was buried.

In the middle of the 20th century, the graves of the Bilevichs were destroyed, and a fertilizer warehouse was built in the pyramid.

Currently, the service has been restored by the UOC parish of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the church is being repaired. An extension was made to it, which with its modern appearance violates the compositional integrity of the architectural monument.

The Bilsk Museum of Local Lore is located in the village house of culture.

The main exposition is dedicated to the Scythian period in the history of the region on the basis of archeological materials of the Bilsk settlement - the largest settlement of the Scythian epoch in Eastern Europe.

Also in the museum you can get information about the development of the region during the Cossacks. Under the current name the village was founded in the XV century. Prince of Bilskym. Later it grew and became the hundredth town, which was part of the rank of Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

The museum has data on the number and composition of the rural population at different times, tells about the crafts that were engaged in by the inhabitants of Bilsk.

The exposition of the department of the Second World War is very rich.

The Bilsk Settlement near Kotelva is the largest Scythian settlement in Europe (4 thousand hectares).

Scientists identify the Bilsk settlement with the legendary city of Helon - the "Scythian capital" described by Herodotus.

The system of defensive ramparts and ditches that surrounded the city, with a total length of about 34 kilometers, is located on the banks of the Vorskla River around the present village of Bilsk. First, the Western and Eastern fortifications were built, then they were connected by a common oval-shaped rampart, which was called the Great Fortification.

According to one of the versions, it is this Scythian settlement described by the "father of history" Herodotus in the "History of the Greco-Persian Wars" (5th century BC) as the northernmost Greek city of Helon, founded in the Scythian lands by Hellenes who moved from the Black Sea.

To protect the archeological monument, the historical and cultural reserve "Bilsk" was created with the administration in the town of Kotelva (Pokrovska Street, 13), whose employees conduct tours of the ramparts, the Scythian necropolis of Skorobor, Barvinkova Mountain, the Skovoroda Oak and other archaeological and archaeological sites weekends - by prior authorization).

The wooden palisade and the watchtower at the entrance to the settlement are the buildings of the conserved open-air museum "Skifland", which planned to create the charitable foundation "Helon".

The most beautiful building in Poltava, which currently houses the regional office of the SBU, was built at the beginning of the 20th century for the Peasant and Noble Land Bank, which issued long-term loans to peasants for the purchase of noble lands.

Architect Oleksandr Kobelev designed the building, which is now considered one of the best examples of Ukrainian modernism. And the decorations are widely used details of Rus architecture. Multicolored mosaics give a special picturesqueness. The central entrance at the truncated corner of the building is decorated with a decorative mosaic panel with firebirds and siren sculptures.

The building was damaged during the Second World War, restored in 1948.

The municipal institution of culture "Chutove Museum of Local Lore" covers the history of Chutove region from ancient times to the end of the XX century, as well as tells about the famous inhabitants of the region.

The museum was founded in 1968 and is located on the territory of the Chutove Vocational School № 55.

The museum has 5,700 exhibits. After the reconstruction, the ethnographic exposition "Ukrainian Room" again conducts lectures on ethnography, in particular on Ukrainian folk customs and rites.

The building of the Myrhorod City Council in the center of the city was built in 1912. Architecture in the Art Nouveau style.

Currently, the Myrhorod District State Administration is located in the City Council building.

The Literary and Memorial Museum of David Guramishvili tells about the life and work of the great Georgian poet of the 18th century.

The classic of Georgian literature, who lived in Myrhorod for the last 32 years of his life, wrote about contemporary Georgia, Ukraine and, of course, Myrhorod region.

Guramishvili wrote his famous works on Ukrainian soil: many of them merged Georgian and Ukrainian landscapes, alternated poems based on Ukrainian and Russian songs. His poems were widely translated into Russian (Mykola Zabolotsky and others) and Ukrainian (Mykola Bazhan).

Guramishvili died in 1792 and was buried in the Myrhorod Ascension Church. In 1949, a monument was erected on the poet's grave.

The museum presents editions of the poet's works and books about him, Georgian and Ukrainian items of folk life of the past centuries, samples of 18th century weapons, works of fine and decorative and applied art, products of local craftsmen, Georgian souvenirs, etc.

Dibrivka Horse Farm No. 62 in the village of Dibrivka, Myrhorod region, was founded in 1888 by Grand Duke Dmytro Romanov, and since then has been one of the leading stud farms that breed trotting horses.

The Dibrivka type of the Oryol trotter is now considered the standard harness horse both in Ukraine and in Russia. A complex of residential and industrial premises of the 19th century has been preserved. There is a wide area for training and walking horses in nature, it is also possible to learn riding in an indoor arena.

At the Dibrivka Horse Farm, you can buy thoroughbred horses of various ages of trotting and new-Oleksandrian heavy-carrying breeds. In addition, there is a workshop for the production of koumiss on the basis of the plant.

Excursions are conducted. There is a museum.

Ecopark "Kovalivka" near Poltava is one of the largest contact zoos in Ukraine. On an area of 120 hectares, more than 5,000 animals of 530 species are kept here, which can be observed, and some can also be fed and petted.

Many species of predators are represented in the ecopark, including tigers, lynxes, panthers, red wolves, servals, caracals, ocelots and others. Lemurs, monkeys, a family of tapirs, tree porcupines, iguanas, and turtles live in the enclosures. Among the ungulates in the contact part of the zoo, llamas and alpacas receive the most attention from visitors. You can also feed raccoons with special feed purchased on the territory of the park.

The pride of the ecopark "Kovalivka" is the residence of birds, the area of which is about 900 square meters. Here you can see flamingos, cockatoos, cranes and many other birds.

A steam locomotive runs through the territory of the ecopark. There are cozy gazebos where you can have lunch.

The Poltava Educational House named after Mykola Hohol was built in 1901 according to the project of academician Oleksiy Trambytskyi, the St. Petersburg architect of the Directorate of Imperial Theaters.

The theater building is made in the Neo-Renaissance style. Rectangular in plan, the audience hall for 1,100 seats with balconies and boxes, an orchestra pit and a compact stage box resembled in miniature the stage of the famous Milanese theater La Scala.

During the Second World War, the theater was destroyed, in the post-war years it was restored to its original architectural form and adapted to the "Wizoria Kolos" cinema (now a 3D cinema).

Ethnographic collection "Drevo" is a museum of antiquities in the village of Kozubivka in the Poltava region, founded in the old parent's house of Poltava ethnographer Eduard Kutko. Five generations of his family grew up here.

The authentic village house has been restored, its original interiors have been restored, old furniture and household items reflecting the life of a traditional Poltava village are presented.

The museum collection includes more than 2,000 exhibits and items of intangible cultural heritage: embroidery, towels, carpets, paintings, icons, as well as recordings of ancient songs. Most of the exhibits date back to the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

In addition to excursions, the museum offers a master class on making necklaces from Oleksandra Gerasymova, tastings of craft wines from local winemaker Vladyslav Oliinyk, and dinners with traditional Poltava dishes. On the territory there is a garden, a gazebo, a swing.

The Museum of Pottery of Mali Budyshcha "Ethnoselo Рonchariya" has been operating since 2021 as a separate structural unit of the National Museum-Reserve of Ukrainian Pottery in Opishnia.

It is located on the territory of one of the largest pottery centers of the Opishnia pottery district - in the village of Mali Budyshcha, located on the northern outskirts of Opishnia.

In one of the two buildings will be presented local pottery, sketches of pottery paintings, epistolary heritage, photographic documents, photos, wood products and more.

In the second - the interior of the potter's house of the late XIX - early XX centuries is recreated.

The Exaltation of the Cross Monastery in Poltava was founded in 1650 on the banks of the Vorskla River at the expense of Colonel Martyn Pushkar, a Poltava elder and burghers.

The Cathedral of the Ascension of the Cross (1699-1709) is the only seven-headed baroque church in Ukraine that has survived to this day. The four-story belfry (1786) in the late Baroque style is 43 meters high. The complex also includes the single-domed Trinity Church (1750) and the Simeon Church (1887).

During the war with the Swedes, there was a pond of Karl XII.

In the first half of the 20th century, the monastery was closed and ransacked, the premises were used by the NKVD as a prison for minors, then as a boarding school.

The complex of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery was returned to the church in 1991.