Attractions of Kyiv region

The magnificent 19-domed Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv is the oldest architectural monument of Rus, one of the largest Christian churches of its time, a UNESCO world cultural heritage site.

The temple complex of the Sophia Monastery is located in the historical center of Kyiv, on Starokyivska Hill, within the City of Prince Yaroslav.

According to the latest research, Saint Sophia Cathedral was founded by the Kyiv prince Volodymyr the Great in 1011, and it was built no later than 1018. Earlier it was believed that the cathedral was erected in 1037 in honor of the victory of Yaroslav the Wise over the Pechenegs, as indicated in the Tale of Bygone Years. A grandiose building for those times with a very complex structure was built by Byzantine craftsmen on the model of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Constantinople.

The temple acquired the current Ukrainian Baroque style during the reign of Hetman Ivan Mazepa as a result of the reconstruction initiated by Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, carried out in the 17th century by the Italian architect Oktaviano Manchini. The interiors have preserved priceless ancient Rus mosaics and frescoes, including the iconic mosaic image of the Mother of God of Oranta.

Saint Sophia Cathedral was the main temple of the Kyiv state, under its arches ceremonial entrances to the grand prince's throne, church cathedrals and receptions took place. Buried in the church are Prince Yaroslav the Wise, his wife Iryna (Ingigerda) and son Vsevolod with his family, Prince Volodymyr Monomakh, and many Kyiv metropolitans. A valuable source of historical information is numerous ancient graffiti, which can be considered an unofficial chronicle of the Saint Sophia Cathedral and the entire Rus-Ukraine of the 11th-18th centuries.

Today the National Reserve "Sophia of Kyiv" unites 77 architectural monuments. Around the cathedral there are monastic buildings of the 17th-18th centuries: the house of the metropolitan, the fraternal building, a bursa, a refectory, a bakery, cells and a hotel. The complex is surrounded by a wall with Zaborovskiy gates and a southern entrance tower. The bell tower, which serves as the main gate, is open to the public.

On the square in front of the bell tower, there is the grave of Volodymyr, Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, who was buried at the entrance to Sophia on Black Tuesday, July 18, 1995 after a violent clash between believers and police.

There is also a tactile model of the cathedral with relief plaques in front of the entrance. The reserve is made more accessible thanks to an inclusive information center.

Separate objects of the reserve are the Golden Gate, Saint Andrew's Church and Saint Cyril's Church in Kyiv, the Genoese Fortress in Crimea.

The building of the Karaite Kenasa was built in Kyiv in 1900 by the architect Vladyslav Horodetskyi at the expense of the "tobacco kings" Kohens.

The construction of the kenasa was ordered by the Kyiv community of Karaites, who are considered to be descendants of the ancient Khazars (Turks by origin, Jews by religion). The Kohens were the most influential representatives of the city's Karaite community.

The kenasa building is made in an unusual Moorish style. It was considered one of the most beautiful in the city, impressive with the luxury of decoration and the skill of execution. The exterior finish is made of the most progressive material at that time - cement. The walls are 1.5 meters thick at the base. The building was crowned by a dome with a spire.

In Soviet times, the kenasa building housed a puppet theater, a cinema, and since 1981 - the Actor's House.

The Actor's House hosts performances and concerts, presentations of magazines and books, creative evenings, anniversary celebrations and benefits, scientific conferences, and art exhibitions.

Fragments of the ancient Rus settlement Vasyliv earthworks have been preserved on the hill to the west of the Cathedral of Anthony and Theodosius.

The current city of Vasylkiv was founded in 988 by Prince Volodymyr the Great, who received the name Vasyl at baptism. The old name of the city Vasyliv (Vasylyev) comes from the Christian name of the prince. It was a well-fortified fortress with earthen ramparts and ditches, often used as a stronghold in times of strife. The city was destroyed by the Mongols in 1240. Remains of an ancient wooden temple and princely palace were found on the territory of the cub.

Later, the settlement of Vasyliv was included in the system of Cossack fortifications of the 16th and 17th centuries. The remains of ramparts can be traced throughout the city center. The best preserved is the rampart behind the cathedral, the crest of which can be climbed by stairs from the temple courtyard.

The historic Andriyivsky Uzviz Street has long been connecting the Upper Town with Podil.

The rough stone-paved road winds steeply between old one- and two-story houses. This is a colorful place that preserves the spirit of old Kyiv, favored by artists and souvenir sellers, and there are always many tourists here.

In the upper part of Andriyivsky Uzviz there is Saint Andrew's Church, below are museums, theaters, art galleries, antique shops, restaurants and cafes.

The Bulhakov Museum is open in the Turbiny House (Andriyivsky descent, 13), where the writer created the White Guard. A monument to Bulhakov has been erected near the museum.

"Castle of Richard the Lionheart" (Andriyivsky descent, 15) is a profitable house of the merchant Orlov in the English Neo-Gothic style. Opposite - the stairs to the top of the Castle Hill (the wooden castle stood during the Polish-Lithuanian rule in the XV-XVII centuries).

The Museum of One Street is located in building No. 2B on Andriyivsky Uzviz.

Palace and park complex in Yahotyn, on the shores of Lake Supiy, founded by Hetman of Ukraine Kyrylo Rozumovskyi in the XVIII century, expanded and arranged by his son Andriy Rozumovskyi.

The granddaughter of Hetman Varvara Ryepnina-Volkonska received Yevhen Hrebinka, Mykola Hohol, and Taras Shevchenko here. Preserved homesteads became part of the Yahotyn State Historical Museum.

In the outbuilding where Shevchenko lived in 1843, the interiors were restored and a museum was established. Personal belongings of Shevchenko and Ryepnins, paintings about Shevchenko's stay in Yahotyn, as well as a painting by an unknown Italian artist "Blind with a boy" from the personal collection of the Ryepnins. In the park - Shevchenko's favorite gazebo.

An art gallery is located in the preserved part of the palace. Works by Mykola Hlushchenko, Tetyana Yablonska, Serhiy Shyshko and others are presented. The pearl of the collection is the most complete collection of paintings by folk artist Kateryna Bilokur - more than 70 works: paintings, watercolors, graphics, sketches, sketches, sketches, early and unfinished works.

Monuments to Mykola Hohol, Kateryna Bilokur, and Sviatoslav Richter have been erected in front of the building.

The building of the synagogue in Pereyaslav was built at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the only surviving Jewish religious building in the city, although at the end of the 19th century, half of the population of Pereyaslav consisted of Jews.

Since Soviet times, the building has been home to the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Art Products Factory, which produces artistic weaving and hand-made embroidery (towels, vyshyvanka, etc.).

Excursions are conducted. Ready-made products can be purchased directly from the factory.

The majestic complex of the Ascension Monastery was built in 1700 in the center of Pereyaslav at the expense of Hetman Ivan Mazepa. It is a part of the National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve "Pereyaslav".

The monumental Ascension Cathedral is considered a model of Ukrainian national architecture due to its complex construction and rich Baroque stucco.

On the territory of the monastery there is a two-storey building of the former monastery school and the dormitory of bursaks. In 1776, a three-tiered bell tower in the Ukrainian Baroque style, 48 meters high, was built, which served as the second entrance to the monastery.

In Soviet times, a museum-diorama "Battle for the Dnipro and the creation of the Bukrin bridgehead in the autumn of 1943" (canvas length 28 meters, height 7 meters) was opened in the cathedral, which recreates the events of September 21-22, 1943, when Soviet troops Dnipro on the Bukryn bridgehead near Pereyaslav.

The Mausoleum of Eternal Glory is located in the basement, where the names of Pereyaslav residents who died in the Second World War are immortalized on the walls.

The Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary (Pyrohoshcha) Church in Kyiv is the oldest church preserved in its original form in Podil.

It was built at the behest of Prince Mstislav the Great for the icon of the Mother of God Pirhotissa, i.e. "tower" brought from Constantinople (the bell tower of the Blacherna Monastery was depicted next to the Mother of God). Probably, the unusual overseas word in the vernacular split into two interrelated ones: "pie" (bread) and "guests" (merchants) - "Pyrohoshcha".

According to the "Word about Igor's Regiment", Prince Igor thanked the Holy Virgin of Pyrohoshcha in this church for his rescue from Polovtsian captivity.

In the 16th-19th centuries, the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God in Pyrohoshcha was the cathedral church of Podil. Magisterial ceremonies were held here, and the city archive was kept.

It was destroyed under Soviet power in 1935, restored in 1998 in its original Byzantine forms.

A small one-story house on Oleksandrivska Street (now Petra Sahaydachnoho Street) belonged to the Balabukh merchant family from a long time ago.

Balabukh became famous thanks to the production of candies from the signature "Kyiv dry jam" (candy), which were called "balabukhs" or "balabushkas". These delicacies were supplied even to the imperial court.

Judging by the location in relation to the streets, the Balabukh house was built before the fire of 1811. In 1839, a new two-story building in the style of late classicism with features of the Ukrainian Baroque, built according to the project of the architect Lyudvik Stanzani, appeared nearby, in which a pastry shop worked.

During Soviet times, the restaurant "Zaporizhzhia" (now the restaurant "Khachapuri and Wine") opened in the Balabukh estate. In the beautiful square between the houses, sculptures of a Cossack and a kobzar are installed.

The monument to the Baptism of Rus (Column Magdeburg Law) on the Dnipro embankment is the first monument in Kyiv.

It was installed in 1802 over a spring that once existed in Khreshchaty Yar at the foot of Volodymyr Hill, where, according to legend, Prince Volodymyr baptized his children. Since the reason for its construction was the confirmation by Tsar Alexander I of the Magdeburg Law of Kyiv-Podil, the monument is also called the "Column of the Magdeburg Law".

According to the plan of the architect Andrit Melenskyi, the monument was originally a two-story chapel with a golden dome. An octagonal pool with a fountain was located in the arched pedestal. During Soviet times, the dome was demolished, leaving only arched passages, but by the millennium of the Baptism of Rus, which was celebrated in 1988, the column with the dome and the cross was restored.

The monument is connected to the upper part of the Volodymyrsky Descent by steep stairs.

The beautiful building with many spiers belonged to the Baltic baron Volodymyr Ikskull-Hildenband (his coat of arms is preserved above the double arch of the front entrance and entrance).

It was built in 1901 according to the project of civil engineer Mykola Vyshnevsky as a profit house, designed in the Gothic style. During the Second World War, the wooden parts burned down, and the Gothic spiers were lost. After the war, the building was renovated, changing the layout. The main details of the facade and a beautiful stylish lobby (it can be seen in one of the episodes of the film "His Excellency's Adjutant") have survived.

In recent years, the Baron Ikskull-Hildenband House was reconstructed again, according to the author's drawings that have survived, the spiers were restored, and an extension was added to the yard.

The monument to Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi is one of the oldest and most outstanding city monuments, a business card of Kyiv.

The idea of its installation belongs to professor Mykhaylo Maksymovych, historian Mykola Kostomarov, poet Mykhaylo Yuzefovych and artist Mykhaylo Mykeshin, who convinced Tsar Oleksandr II to start collecting donations for the monument "to the one who returned the Kiev shrine to the Rus people, who saved, perhaps, Orthodoxy on the banks of the Dnipro".

The multi-figure composition of the monument conceived by Mykeshin had to be greatly simplified for financial and political reasons, excluding anti-Polish and anti-Semitic elements. The idea was embodied in bronze by sculptors Pius Velionskyi and Artemiy Ober.

The city authorities decided to place the monument on Sofiyivska Square, where in 1648 the people of Kyiv met the Cossack regiments led by Khmelnitsky, who entered the city after the victory over the Polish nobility. Eight years were spent on disputes about the place of installation and placement of the monument, as a result of which the hetman began to "threaten" with his mace not Warsaw, but somewhere in the direction of Moscow. Only in 1886, the architect Volodymyr Mykolayiv began the construction of a pedestal from granite blocks that remained after the construction of the pillars of the Lantsyuhovy Bridge.

The opening of the monument took place on the day of the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Rus.

After the Bolshevik coup of 1917, the inscription on the pedestal "We want an Eastern, Orthodox tsar" and "Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, one indivisible Russia" were replaced by one laconic one: "Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. 1888."

Since that time, the square around the monument has repeatedly become the scene of important social and political events, both in the revolutionary times of the beginning of the 20th century and now - usually, rallies and demonstrations of national patriots are held here.

The Museum of the History of the Bohuslav Region is considered to be one of the most creative historical museums in small towns of Ukraine.

It is located in Bohuslav in a two-story building of the former ministerial school in 1907.

The exposition presents an interesting collection of archaeological finds from the Paleolithic era, household items of Scythians and ancient Slavs, ancient Rus jewelry, Cossack relics, photographs and documents from the period of the Ukrainian Revolution, related to the Medvyn Uprising.

The original is decorated with exhibition halls in the spirit of its time. First, visitors enter a cave of the Stone Age, then go from the Scythian burial to the wooden frame of Bohuslav Castle, then find themselves in the interiors of a village house and a burgher house, where the iron stairs fall into the era of industrialization.

The branches of the Museum of the History of the Bohuslav Region are the Museum of Modern Decorative and Applied Arts, the Ivan Soshenko Memorial Museum-Estate, and the Marko Vovchko Memorial Museum-Estate.

Boryspil State Historical Museum was founded in 1967 on the initiative of local historian Viktor Yova.

Now the museum's collection includes more than 13 thousand exhibits, all collected in a stylized building on the ancient architecture of the Kyivskyi Shlyakh Street, built specifically for the museum in the 1980s.

The exposition tells, in particular, about famous Boryspil residents: Cossack families of Sulymas and Bezborodkos, poet Ivan Nekrashevych, ethnographer Pavlo Chubynskyi.

The exposition also presents materials of Trypillya culture, a diorama "Construction of the Letky Synagogue", a fragment of a Polovtsian stone woman, a large number of weapons, tools, jewelry and household utensils, the interior of a peasant house.

Separate expositions tell about Boryspil during the period of Tatar captivity and Polish rule, about the economic development of the city, about the historical events of the liberation struggle of 1917-1921, the Second World War, the Holodomor, the post-war revival, the present.

Botanical garden named after academician Oleksandr Fomin at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University is located behind the Main (Red) building of the university.

The main inhabitants of the garden are introduced plants (moved outside the natural range), which were primarily intended for study by university students. The first plantings in the garden were carried out in 1839 with plants transplanted from the Kremenets botanical garden. The formation of the garden's main collection ended in 1850.

Currently, the garden occupies an area of 22.5 hectares. The territory is divided into zones, which mostly correspond to the origin of the plants. In the middle is a pool surrounded by exotic plants. In the spring, the most beautiful magnolias bloom here, the collection of which, numbering 65 species, is the largest in Ukraine and is considered one of the main dominants of the garden.

One of the most valuable in the collection is the southern Lewiston palm, which gives a unique flavor to the exposition of the subtropical flora of Australia. Its age is more than 200 years, its height is almost 28 m. The central place in the exposition is occupied by a unique specimen of the Encephalartos horridus, which is one of the oldest in the country, its age is more than 200 years.

Access to the open part of the botanical garden is possible free of charge through the central entrance near the "University" metro station. Group tours with greenhouses must be booked in advance. You can also visit the Museum of the History of the Botanical Garden named after academician Oleksandr Fomin, which opened in 2009 in a separate room.