The Yavoriv Zabavka. Treasury of the Yavoriv Region

Fortunate are those who have held on to their own distinctive toys — some of the very first playthings through which a child comes to know the world.

 

Yasinia. The Museum of Local History

Every town or village ought to begin with a museum of local history or at least a museum room. Local history exhibitions preserve our traditions and cultural heritage, our historical records and objects of the past; they shape the national ethnic code and touch the state of the soul. In Yasinia, in the Zakarpattia region, one of the finest museums of local history in the district has been running since 1966.

Yasinia. Museum of Local History

Lviv. The Psychiatric Hospital: Architecture and Nature

We live in a hard time, when mental pain is familiar to us all and outweighs physical pain. Some cannot cope with their affliction on their own and end up in a specialised institution that in common speech is called a madhouse or a "loony bin". People have always needed psychiatric support. In Ukraine one of the oldest hospitals for the mentally ill first admitted patients in 1875, on the outskirts of Lviv. Over 150 years this "house for the mad" has grown into a large psychiatric centre with a wide range of treatment and prevention wards.

 

Lviv. The Regional Psychiatric Hospital

Monuments to T. H. Shevchenko Across Ukraine

From our school lessons we remember the dates tied to the life and work of Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko. 1814 — 1861 — these are the 47 years of the life's journey of a great poet, playwright, artist and public figure, at the dawn of industrial development in Ukraine and of the peasant movement against serfdom. Shevchenko spent 24 years in serfdom and 10 years in exile. There is a number that grows year by year — the number of monuments and memorial markers raised in honour of the national poet.

 

Ternopil. Monument to T. H. Shevchenko. 1982. Sculptors M. Neveselyi and S. Kalashnyk

Lviv. The Museum of Electrification of the Lviv Region

Electrification, which supplies energy to industry and to household consumers, has taken on a special importance during the war in Ukraine. How the making and the growth of electrification in Lviv and the region came about can be learned at the Museum of the History of Electrification of the Lviv Region, which is housed in the building of the advisory centre for work with electricity consumers.

 

Lviv. The Museum of the History of Electrification of the Lviv Region

The Evacuation Train. Rescue and a Humanitarian Mission

The evacuation train carries you ever further from your home. Alongside the carriages, villages, fields and forests rush past and fly away. The views beyond the window bring no joy at all, as they would in peacetime on a journey. In the half-darkness of the compartment mothers lull their children to sleep; ahead lies the unknown, but with it a deep faith in Victory and a hope of a swift return.

 

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