Bakhmut. How the First and Other Places of Worship Appeared in the Town

Bakhmut (from 1924 to 2016, Artemivsk) is the oldest town in the Donetsk region, founded four and a half centuries ago with the creation of the Bakhmut watch-post to defend the state frontiers against enemy raids. With the formation of the sloboda came the need to build places of worship. In the 17th and 18th centuries the county town had several churches. The Church of St Nicholas has survived to our day unchanged, one of the most ancient wooden churches still in use in Eastern Ukraine (8 Taras Shevchenko Street).

Bakhmut. Donetsk region. The Church of St Nicholas. 1797.

Synevyrska Poliana. Tourist Sights, a Kolyba and Landscapes

The Ukrainian Carpathians are a beloved tourist mecca, with developed infrastructure, well-trodden routes and unusual legends.

Zakarpattia. Mizhhiria district. The chairlift

Zhovkva. The Castle: Royal Residence, Military Headquarters, NKVD Prison, Museum-Reserve

Zhovkva is a small town in the Lviv region, the only one in Ukraine to have preserved the layout of an ideal Renaissance town of the 17th century. Fifty-five sites hold the status of architectural monument, all concentrated in the historic core of medieval Zhovkva. The central place in the historical and architectural reserve is held by the residence of the royal court — the castle, founded by the town's founder, Stanislaw Zolkiewski, at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Novoekonomichne. A Short History of a Not-So-Small Settlement

The Donetsk region — a conglomeration of industrial cities that grew out of small settlements founded in the 17th-18th centuries. How did they come into being, what has survived, and what is life like now in one such settlement — Novoekonomichne in the Pokrovsk district?

Novoekonomichne (Karakove). Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region.

Halych. A Modern Ancient Princely Town

Halych is one of the oldest cities in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe, its history reckoned from the year 898. In the 12th century the Galician-Volhynian princes chose Halych as their capital and turned it into a mighty political and spiritual centre. Let us see how modern-day ancient Halych is laid out and what landmarks make this district centre of the Ivano-Frankivsk region so rich.

Halych. Ivano-Frankivsk region. Nativity Square

Syniak. A Balneological and Ski Resort of Zakarpattia

As far back as the 16th century the messengers of Ivan the Terrible, crossing the mountain ridges and the hard-to-reach passes of the Sarmatian Mountains, reported to the tsar that the water in these parts was: "sour as cabbage soup, and there are wells in which you could boil an egg, and there are little streams in which, once you wash, you could turn into a bird". The healing properties of the Carpathian springs helped resorts to develop in this picturesque and ecologically clean locality. High on a mountain meadow, amid untouched forests, lies the small village of Syniak.

Novostriltsivka. The Stud Farm. Keeping Up Records and a High Standard

The stud farms of Ukraine were set up under the tsars; many have a two-hundred-year history, and some have passed the 250 mark. The Striletskyi stud farm in the Luhansk region was founded in 1798. Farming needed hardy draught horses, the army — riding horses, and prestige and amusement — trotters.

Zhovkva. A Walk with History

To immerse yourself in the unique atmosphere of the Renaissance and see the historic centre of an ideal town of the early 17th century — welcome to Zhovkva, an old town of Prykarpattia.

Zhovkva. Viche Square. The Town Hall. The fountain

Kramatorsk. The Noble Nest of the Korshuns

Neglected and ruined estates, forgotten names and the tragic fates of their owners. Ruined family houses in which people grew up and lived who served their Motherland and their people faithfully and truly. On the northern edge of Kramatorsk, in oblivion and desolation, amid the thickets of an abandoned park, the mansion of a noble family gleams white and forlorn — the house in which the eminent microbiologist, the talented scholar Stepan Vasylovych Korshun, lived and worked.

Kramatorsk. Donetsk region. The Korshun house. Late 19th c.