Travel Guide

After the tragic death of Austrian empress a church was erected to recur to her memory, and named after St. Elizabeth. After the War the church was not functioning. It was returned to believers as a sanctuary of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in independent Ukraine In the western part of the city this majestic building was erected in new Gothic style on the watershed of the Dniester and the Buh rivers.

The Complex of the Bernardine church in the city of Lviv is one of the most favourite places in the city. The kostel-basilica of Italian (with a touch of German culture) Renaissance was being built from 1600 till 1630 on a place of its wooden forerunner of XV century. The matter, begun by Paolo Domіnіcі Romanus, was continued by architect A.Prihilnij and also by monk-builder, Bernard Avelides. Possibly, because of that fact, that the building had several "parents", it represents the magnificent example of styles mixing.

Town Arsenal was built in 1554-1556. It is a long one-store building shaped in the form of an irregular rectangle with a beveled corner. During the Swedish attack in 1704 the Arsenal was ruined but two years after that it was rebuilt again. It was restored in the years 1979-1981. Currently it’s a museum of weapons – mostly cold weapons. It has one of the biggest collection of a cold weapons in Ukraine. There are hundreds of knifes and bayonets from ancient days till nowadays.

This is a unique "sitting" Statue of Liberty in Lviv. It is a sculpture on a dome of the house (15, Freedom Avenue) built by architect Yuriy Zakharevych and decorated by sculptor Leandro Marconi in 1874—1891. In reality, the statue of the lady is the allegoric symbol of the Austrian empire.

The Korniakt on Market Square in Lviv is a prime example of the royal townhouse. The fabric of the palace is of various dates. It was originally built by architect Piotr Barbon for merchant Konstanty Korniakt, a champion of Greek Orthodoxy and co-founder of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood. Construction of this severely elegant Renaissance palazzo was completed in 1580. After Korniakt's death in 1603, King Wladyslaw IV Vasa stayed at his palace. He got smallpox and recovered here. In 1640, the edifice was purchased by Jakub Sobieski and was later inherited by his son, King Jan III Sobieski. The Polish-Lithuanian ruler remodelled it into a palatial residence, with spacious rooms and an audience hall where he signed the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686.

Lviv Opera and Ballet Theatre, building intrigues with its sculptural and picturesque richness, was constructed in 1897-1900 in the Viennese neo-Renaissance style. An extensive and varied programme of opera and ballet is regularly performed here throughout the year, and particularly during the summer months. Many stars of Ukrainian, Russian and world opera have performed here, such as Enrico Caruso, Mattia Battistini, Solomeya Krushel’nits’ka, Alexander Mishuga and others.

Since its inception, the Les Kurbas Theatre has grown into one of Ukraine’s most critically acclaimed theatres – both in Ukraine and abroad. Its productions of Grace-given Erodii, Games for Faust, and Apocrypha have been invited to (and invariably taken prizes at) numerous international theatre festivals. It also hosts its own biannual festival, “Theatre: Method and Practice,”

The historic building housing this theatre was once the biggest in Europe, and the Theatre is the oldest in Ukraine. The Maria Zankovetska Drama Theatre is the national theatre with national repertoire. At present the repertoire of the theatre consists of 39 performances, modern and classic. Among them there are the famous works of Shakespeare “Romeo and Juliet”, “Hamlet”, Flober “Madam Bovary”, L. Kostenko “Beztalanna”, Dostoyevsky “Idiot” and others. Zankivchany is a theatre with a high reputation its own traditions, rightly forming part of Ukraine’s history and culture.

Lviv Voskresinnia Theatre was founded in 1990 by Yaroslav Fedoryshyn and group of young actors from various cities of Ukraine. In a short while, the Theatre won the respect of audiences and theatre critics due to the consistent search for its own distinctively expressive stage form. The Theatre opens up new horizons to Ukrainian spectators, staging plays of world acclaim for the first time in the country and gradually it is broadening the artistic awareness of the audience and actors.

Lviv Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life is an open-air museum containing 120 monuments of folk architecture including six wooden churches. Hardly any museum in the world can boast so many religious buildings. The open-air museum is located on a 50-hectare land plot in the picturesque part of the city - Shevchenkivsky Hay (Shevchenko Park). Unbelievably beautiful wooden houses and churches of the past ages create a genuine atmosphere of Ukrainian villages from different regions of the country - the lands of Boykos, Lemkos, Hutsuls, as well as Bukovyna and the Transcarpathian Region. In dwelling and utility houses you will find items of everyday use and farm implements. The churches, chapels and belfries have an authentic look.

The Lviv National Museum of Ukrainian Art was founded in 1905. The history of its creation is linked with the extensive democratic movement in Western Ukraine for national and social liberation, and for the Ukrainians' right to their own culture. A leading role in the foundation of the museum was played by Ivan Franko, artist Ivan Trush, ethnographers Volodymyr Hnatyuk, Filaret Kolessa and others as well as by Illarion Svientsitsky, the museum's first director, an eminent Slavist, art historian and specialist in the theoretical and practical aspects of running a museum.

The Lviv Art Gallery (called the Lviv Picture Gallery till the fourth of February 1998) is the biggest artistic museum of Ukraine where unique works of painting, sculpture, graphic, decorative-applied art of West and East European countries from the Middle Ages to modernity are collected. The total number of exhibits of the collection is over fifty thousand.