Kharkiv
Kharkiv's most famous museum owns one of many versions of Ilya Repin's Zaporizhsky Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan, which is found in a…
Must-see attractions in Eastern Ukraine
Kharkiv
Locals claim that this enormous expanse of cobbles is the second largest in the world after Beijing's Tiananmen Sq. At 750m long it's indisputably huge…
Eastern Ukraine
Vaguely reminiscent of MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall, this giant structure looming over the remains of the Old Town is the slick new heart of the city's…
Eastern Ukraine
The focal point of the city centre is the circular Korpusny Park, laid out in the early 19th century in an attempt to emulate the grand planning ideals of…
Eastern Ukraine
Located on the southeast edge of Zhovtnevy Park, the museum exhibits random archaeological and cultural artefacts, its collection almost overshadowed by…
Eastern Ukraine
The Zaporizhska Sich on Khortytsya Island was the cradle of Ukrainian Cossackdom, where Hetman (chieftain) Dmytro Baida united disparate groups of…
Eastern Ukraine
From Krasna pl it's a three-minute walk southeast along pr Myru to the old historic core, known as the Dytynets ('citadel' in old Russian). Today it's an…
Eastern Ukraine
The Antoniy Caves, Chernihiv's answer to Kyiv's Kyevo-Pecherska Lavra, lurk beneath the ground a short walk north of the Trinity Monastery, under the…
Kharkiv
The city's history museum found itself encased in a giant glassy structure as the result of an unfinished reconstruction, which hasn't touched upon the…
Eastern Ukraine
Every city has a symbol of its might, but few of these symbols are so straightforwardly phallic as Dnipro's. Space rockets produced at the local Yuzhmash…
Eastern Ukraine
Nikolai Gogol wouldn't have been able to describe the life of Russian landowners in his most famous book, Dead Souls, had he not been a landowner himself:…
Eastern Ukraine
A lovingly curated establishment, the museum has visually attractive rooms dedicated to the Cossacks, the Russian empire, the Civil War and Holodomor…
Eastern Ukraine
Vul Zhovtneva terminates on a bluff at Cathedral Sq, the prettiest little spot in Poltava, with sweeping views of Khrestovozdvyzhensky Monastery across…
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery
Eastern Ukraine
Dating back to Prince Igor's era (but rebuilt several times since) is the idyllic Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, a complex of wood-shingled buildings and…
Museum-Preserve of Ukrainian Pottery
Eastern Ukraine
An old potters' village, Opishnya has revived the craft by opening this interesting museum where you can see lots traditional and not-so-traditional…
Eastern Ukraine
A huge hangar in the gritty industrial part of city, 3.5km from pr Soborny (Lenina), contains a lovingly arranged exhibition of civilian and military…
Eastern Ukraine
The charmingly old-fashioned museum traces local material history from paleolithic bones to the post-apocalyptic self-made shields and helmets of Maidan…
Eastern Ukraine
At 760m – two and a half times longer than the famous Hoover Dam – the wall of the USSR's first dam certainly represented a monumental engineering feat…
Eastern Ukraine
A collection of wooden buildings resembling a 17th-century Cossack fortress occupies a prime clifftop spot with a view of Dniproges dam and contains…
Eastern Ukraine
Just behind Uspenska Church, surrounded by a lovely flower garden, this is the lovingly restored former home of Ivan Kotlyarevsky (1739–1838), one of the…
Eastern Ukraine
A block northwest of maydan Soborny up vul Parizskoyi Komuny is the quaint Spaska Church (1705), with its rebuilt bell tower. It's faced by an odd…
Eastern Ukraine
The famous battle was fought over a large area around what's now vul Zinkivska, about 7km north of the city centre. The best starting point is the Poltava…
Kharkiv
Just west of pl Konstytutsiyi, the gleaming domes of the Pokrovsky Monastery (Intercession of the Virgin) are visible from miles away. The predictably…
Eastern Ukraine
Life in Chernihiv revolves around the huge Krasna pl (Red Sq). As with its Moscow namesake, there is nothing remotely bolshie in the word 'red', which…
Eastern Ukraine
With a helmet-shaped cupola typical of Kyivan Rus church architecture, the 12th-century cathedral is one of the earliest tributes to the first Russian…
Kharkiv
Central Shevchenko Park is one of those post-Soviet parks where you can sit for hours watching families boarding the kiddie train, listening to some…
Eastern Ukraine
About 2km southwest of St Catherine's Church you'll spot the 58m bell tower of the Troyitsko-Illynsky Monastery (Trinity Monastery). It's worth climbing…
Eastern Ukraine
A small neoclassical building contains a museum dedicated to 18th-century Georgian poet David Guramishvili, who was made a major local landowner for his…
Eastern Ukraine
Once a major theology school set up on the orders of tsar Peter the Great with the money of hetman (Cossack chieftain) Ivan Mazepa in 1700 (when the two…
Khrestovozdvyzhensky Monastery
Eastern Ukraine
About 3km east of Korpusny Park is the early 18th-century Khrestovozdvyzhensky Monastery (Elevation of the Cross). The main cathedral is one of only two…
Eastern Ukraine
With just two rooms, this quaint museum has an interesting collection of antiques and locally produced porcelain. Note the portraits of Myrhorod celebs –…
Kharkiv
At the western end of pl Svobody, this late-1920s building is an example of early Soviet-era constructivist architecture: a geometric series of concrete…
Kharkiv
The park across the street from Uspensky Cathedral offers the best vantage point of the striking red-and-cream striped cathedral down in the valley, built…
Kharkiv
Locals are perhaps overly proud of this statue. Yes, it’s big and it does portray the heroic poet surrounded by 16 peasants, Cossacks and other Ukrainians…
Eastern Ukraine
From the river you’ll have views of the Assumption Church with its golden domes dusted with blue stars. If you find it open, come in to see locals and…
Eastern Ukraine
An endearingly old-fashioned museum, only slightly updated since the Brezhnev era, has the compulsory stuffed-animal section and interesting exhibits…
Kharkiv
This cathedral with its landmark mid-19th-century bell tower (89.5m tall) is now used only as a concert hall. The ticket office in the entrance is open in…
Eastern Ukraine
With its glistening gold spire and dome, Preobrazhensky Cathedral is a classical structure dating from 1830 to 1835. This is Dnipro's holiest church, so…
Eastern Ukraine
Displays include artefacts related to Poltava battle, maps and Tsar Peter's original uniform.
Velyki Sorochyntsi Regional Museum
Eastern Ukraine
Once a charmingly frozen-in-time Soviet-era village museum, it has undergone an ill-thought renovation, with hundreds of endearing objects disappearing…
