For a hike along unknown tourist trails, a single day off or a few hours is enough. In small towns and villages there are hidden, unusual finds that can stir up all sorts of emotions - from delight to regret. Unpopular places are always close at hand; it is worth looking at a map and plotting a route. Barvinkove - a small town in the south of Kharkiv region - will mark the 370th anniversary of its founding in 2023. A town with a rich history and a Ukrainian name deserves tourist recognition. The tour begins at the railway station, opened in 1869 on the initiative of the novelist H. P. Danylevsky, a native of the Barvinkove area.
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| Barvinkove, Kharkiv region. The railway station |
In 2022, passenger trains stop at the station, bound from Kyiv and Odesa to Kostiantynivka and the local electric trains that connect Kharkiv,
Lozova, Blyzniuky, with the cities of Donetsk region - Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Lyman, Kostiantynivka. Already on the platform, lively taxi drivers offer rides at a fair price, while a scheduled bus waiting there runs out to the far-off residential districts.
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| Barvinkove. Pershotravneva Street |
The main Orthodox shrine is 200 metres from the station. The Holy Dormition Church was built in 1884 in the late Byzantine style in honour of the feats of the Barvinkove Cossack regiment, which distinguished itself in the struggle against the Ottoman yoke in the Balkans. Among the church's donors were Emperor Alexander II and the capital's high society.
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| Barvinkove. The Holy Dormition Church |
The churchyard is surrounded by a massive wrought-iron fence, which suffered along with the church and the other historic buildings during military offensive operations.
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| Barvinkove. The fence beside the Holy Dormition Church |
The church is painted in white-and-sky-blue tones, and its dome does not gleam with gold, which is a rarity in the Ukrainian backcountry. The building in the yard is executed in the same style as the place of worship, yet it has undergone radical changes with the use of insulation, and this has introduced a dissonance into the aesthetic perception of the church complex.
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| Barvinkove. The churchyard |
Unfortunately, the house of culture, the library and the museum are closed on Sunday, and there was nowhere to learn the historical details and curious facts. The mute witnesses to the chronicle of Barvinkove stand frozen beside the library and museum buildings.
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| Barvinkove. Sculptures of Scythian warriors beside the library |
The local history museum has an art department and rich collections. The museum's founder was I. O. Plys - an artist, public figure and collector. It is a great pity that it was not possible to see the collections of paintings and antiquities; the educational institution has been closed since 5 October 2021 owing to quarantine restrictions.
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| Barvinkove. The local history museum and the art department |
On the initiative of Ivan Oleksiyovych Plys, a monument was made to the legendary otaman of the Zaporozhian Host, the Cossack Barvinok, who by one account is considered the founder of the settlement on the bank of the Tor River. In the years of Soviet rule the sculpture was destroyed. The restored figure of this companion of the otamans Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Petro Doroshenko rises on a symbolic mound, but the look of the monument is baffling - Barvinok is depicted not at full height, but with the lower part sawn off.
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| Barvinkove. The monument to the Cossack Barvinok |
One of the main streets of the town bears the name of Ivan Plys, a patriot and talented artist; on it stands the town's key enterprise - the Barvinkove grain-processing plant. On the plant's grounds, the production buildings of an early-20th-century mill complex have survived, whose owners were the Frese brothers. The two-storey and single-storey buildings are in use, while the three-storey brick building is living out its days in a half-ruined state.
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| Barvinkove. The mill complex on the grounds of the grain-processing plant |
Another mill, that of Heinrich Epp, has been dismantled. In place of the flour-milling monument, a pile of broken brick remains. Behind the fence of the grain-receiving enterprise, the former house of the Frese entrepreneur brothers stands empty; in Soviet times it housed a court and a military enlistment office. These and other buildings of the Mennonite heritage could be attractive objects on the tourist map of the Barvinkove area.
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| Barvinkove. Soborna Street. The former music school and library |
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| Barvinkove. Ivana Plysa Street. The house with columns |
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| Barvinkove. Ivana Plysa Street. The house of the Frese brothers |
On Ivana Plysa Street stands the building of the centre of social services for family, children and youth. The building's façade is decorated with pilasters and a bas-relief image of the periwinkle - a Ukrainian talisman, a symbol of love, with which many beliefs and legends are associated.
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| Barvinkove. The centre of social services |
It is gratifying that some buildings, having survived the wartime hardships and the neglect of the perestroika era, are finding benefactors, being restored and put to use.
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| Barvinkove. Tsentralna Street. 1870. |
In the yard of the restored monument, an exposition has been created of Scythian warriors, millstones and threshing rollers gathered from all over the district. The former wasteland has been transformed into an arboretum and a rose garden; thujas, roses and evergreen shrubs have been planted, benches and decorative little bridges installed, and paths laid out. Entry into this comfort zone is free, with a request not to harm the plants and the exhibits. The arboretum and the collection of stone antiquities lie behind the building of the Barvinkove city council on Tsentralna Street.
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| Barvinkove. The exposition of stone antiquities |
In the very heart of the town stand the city council, administrative and commercial buildings, a war memorial, the 'Barvinok' shop, and the house of culture.
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| Barvinkove. The 'Kolos' stadium |
The young people of Barvinkove reach their first sporting goal at the children's and youth sports school.
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| Barvinkove. The children's and youth sports school |
As a tribute to the fortification past of Barvinkove, the children's playground in the park is made in the shape of a fortress.
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| Barvinkove. The children's playground |
Beside the play citadel, a narrow-gauge steam locomotive TU4-1597 and a dining-car PV-40 have found refuge. The rolling stock was used to carry workers to a sand quarry from the Husarivka station. In 1986 the narrow-gauge line was rebuilt to standard gauge, and this veteran of the railway infrastructure was sent into retirement and turned into an exhibit. It is a great pity that this monument of railway history lies in oblivion.
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| Barvinkove. The narrow-gauge steam locomotive with a carriage |
The walk, with its positive and its sad moments, took me 3.5 hours; I covered about 8 kilometres in the southern and central parts of Barvinkove.
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| Barvinkove. The public garden. A framework topiary |
For the comfort of tourists, the town has a hotel (Soborna Street, 13) and the 'Fortetsia' hostel (Velychko Street). Barvinkove has the potential of a small tourist town that could be included in travel routes through the Kharkiv region.
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| Barvinkove. The park |
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