Mykulychyn. The Kirkut, a Neglected Jewish Heritage Site

The Jewish cemetery in Mykulychyn holds a cultural and historical heritage and a landmark place in this village in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. A kirkut — that is what Jewish burial grounds are called in Western Ukraine — lies in the central part of the village, to the east of the main road. A place of memory and mourning for the former Jewish community, on the verge of vanishing. 

Mykulychyn. The kirkut

The Dobropillia Area. From Sviatohorivka to Dobropillia

The history of our people and our state has been denied and silenced since time immemorial, and to this day the enemy destroys our cultural heritage. Even the smallest village, the humblest of houses, has its own master and its own story, one that bears witness to the past and to memory, to the dignity and the morality of a person. We do not always treat our history with awe and respect; through rebuildings and innovations we destroy our moral bearings and our national traditions, and from generation to generation we pass on a deformed and distorted understanding and perception of our roots. 

Through the example of the villages of the Dobropillia area, let us look at how the historical and cultural monuments are being preserved, and at what the community has managed to keep alongside powerful agricultural and industrial enterprises.

 

The village of Dobropillia. Donetsk region

Lviv. Father Blazheiovskyi's Embroidered Icons Museum

Museums come in many kinds. There are museums of icons, of the history of religion, of church heritage and of church vessels. Ethnographic and local-history museums keep collections of embroidered works, and in the Ivano-Frankivsk region there is a museum of embroidered shirts. But the only museum collection of embroidered icons in Ukraine can be seen in Lviv alone.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons 

Yaremche. The Elephant Rock. Hey There, Carpathian Giant!

Travellers are always in search of places that leave unforgettable impressions. Ukraine has a host of wonderful spots to which even the most seasoned tourists, who have seen it all, want to return and feel something unsurpassed once more. Yaremche is a wellspring of natural and man-made landmarks that astonish, inspire and make one exult. In the central part of the town, east of the main road, stands a Carpathian marvel — the Elephant Rock.

 

Yaremche. The Elephant Rock

The Calendar. Helper, Souvenir, Adornment, Heritage

Every year, in the moment when the last day of the departing year passes into the first day of the one to come, we open a new calendar that will keep us company for 365 days. By a calendar we mean a periodical reference publication in the form of a table or a journal, with a numbered reckoning of all the days, month by month.

 

A Ukrainian calendar

Pniv Castle. A Stronghold in Need of Restoration

Tourists wishing to plunge into antiquity and to touch heroic legends never pass the old castles by. Witnesses of epoch-making turns, having outlived centuries and the fractures of history, they draw the traveller with their colourful architecture, their unsolved mysteries and the picturesque views that open from a mountain top — for castles were usually built on hills. Pniv Castle is one of six sworn brothers to have come down to our day, all of them set in the super-mega-touristic Ivano-Frankivsk region. More precisely, what has come down are the remains of a defensive structure raised in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Polish feudal lords, the Kuropatwas.

Pniv Castle. Ivano-Frankivsk region

Diesel Train Kolomyia-Dilove. To the Centre of Europe

The suburban train 6441 Kolomyia-Dilove links Prykarpattia and Zakarpattia, the Ivano-Frankivsk and Transcarpathian regions. In 2022 Ukrzaliznytsia rebuilt 20 kilometres of track that runs along the border with Romania on Transcarpathian soil, and extended the Kolomyia-Rakhiv service on to Dilove, with a stop in the village of Berlybash. The first train to one of the geographic centres of Europe was greeted at the Dilove passenger railway point on 26 August 2022.

The suburban diesel train Kolomyia-Dilove

Lviv. The Zankovetska Theatre. 'Christmas Night'

The magical Christmas night is wrapped in prophecies and bound up with traditions that are lovingly kept to this day. In the evening, with the first star, costumed carollers come to the houses with wishes of goodness and prosperity, while grateful hosts wait for them and generously treat the participants of the festive rite to sweets. The whole family gathers at the festive table, on which there are 12 dishes of Ukrainian cuisine. On the good festive days everyone waits for gifts and for wishes to come true. For many years now, ahead of the beloved and long-awaited holidays, the Maria Zankovetska National Academic Drama Theatre in Lviv has been giving a true wonder — a production for collective, individual and family viewing, "Christmas Night".

 

Lviv. The Maria Zankovetska National Academic Drama Theatre

Mykulychyn. Holy Trinity Church and Bell-Tower Museum

It conforms to the canons of wooden Hutsul sacred buildings, it has kept a refined interior, its parishioners preserved the shrine through the years of wartime calamity and Bolshevik atheism, restored it after a flood and created a museum. The Church of the Holy Trinity in Mykulychyn, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, has been granted the status of an architectural monument of national significance.

 

Mykulychyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Church of the Holy Trinity. 1868. UGCC

Lviv. The Solomiia Krushelnytska Museum

In 2022 it was 150 years since the birth and 70 years since the death of the great Ukrainian Solomiia Krushelnytska. She was called the Wagnerian prima donna, the most enchanting Butterfly, the ideal singer. In her lifetime she was recognised as the most outstanding opera performer in the world for her acting talent, her consummate performing art and her inborn beauty. She performed demanding parts in eight languages, but considered Ukrainian her mother tongue. Into the programme of her concerts Solomiia always included Ukrainian folk songs. Her lyric-dramatic soprano accompanies the tour of the music and memorial museum, housed in Lviv in the flat where, from 1903 to 1952, this outstanding opera singer of the 20th century lived.

Lviv. The Solomiia Krushelnytska Music and Memorial Museum