Sights in The Carpathians
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Chernivsti University
Chernivsti University is like a trip on LSD. This fantastic red-brick ensemble, with coloured tiles decorating its pseudo-Byzantine, pseudo-Moorish and pseudo-Hanseatic wings, is the last thing you'd expect to see here. The architect responsible was Czech Josef Hlavka, who was also behind Chernivtsi's Former Armenian Cathedral, as well as large chunks of Vienna.
To the left as you pass the gatehouse is the Seminarska Church, now used for concerts and ceremonies. Straight ahead stands the former main palace residence of the Metropolitans, housing two remarkable staircases and a fantastic, 1st-floor Marmurovy Zal (hall). Whether you'll be able to access them is uncertain, b…
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Khotyn Fortress
While Kamyanets-Podilsky is awesome taken as a whole, its castle building is upstaged by Khotyn Fortress. Eastern European filmmakers love to use this massive fort overlooking the Dnister River as a location; recently refurbished, it served as Warsaw Castle in the recent Russian-language blockbuster movie Taras Bulba. With walls up to 40m high and 6m thick, today’s stone fortress was built in the 15th-century, replacing an earlier wooden building. Its location safeguarded river trade routes making it a sought-after prize. The defining moment in its history came in 1621, with a threatened Turkish invasion. The incumbent Poles enlisted the help of 40,000 Cossacks and manage…
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Europe's Geographical Centre
Ukraine contends that it holds Europe's Geographical Centre, just before the village of Dilove. Ukraine is not the only country to declare itself the continent's centre: Germany, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia have all staked rival claims.
Furthermore, Austrian experts, quoted in the Wall Street Journal Europe in 2004, say the pillar erected by Austro-Hungarian geographers in 1887, in what is now back-country Ukraine, was never intended to mark Europe's middle; its Latin inscription of simple longitude and latitude was mistranslated. None of this has dented official Ukrainian aspirations to the honour, although some locals are more sceptical. Today, a Soviet-era spire has…
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Museum of Forest Ecology
The Museum of Forest Ecology stands on the hill behind the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve headquarters building. This old-school museum of natural history is surprisingly informative, rich and colourful as well as slightly kitsch. So, in between chuckles at the odd moth-bitten, taxidermied sheep, you’ll learn a bit from the handy Carpathian Mountains relief map, and the dioramas of forest landscapes and Hutsul festivals – even without reading the signs.
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Palanok Castle
Mukacheve’s highlight is the hilltop Palanok Castle, which pops up from the surrounding plain as you approach Mukacheve from Uzhhorod, like something in a fairy-tale fantasy. Famous as the site where Croatian-Hungarian princess Ilona Zrini held off the Austrian Emperor’s army for three years before finally capitulating in 1688, the 14th-century castle includes one or two interesting exhibits with English explanations, and has some excellent views.
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A
Pysanky Museum
The freshly repainted Pysanky Museum showcases the colourful, hand-painted Easter eggs (pysanky) that are a Ukrainian tradition. Any visiting Australians will immediately rename this the ‘Big Egg’ as the two-storey museum is itself that shape – reminding one of the many ‘big things’ that infamously dot the landscape down under. Inside, there are hundreds of pysanky, decorated in various regional designs.
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B
St Nicholas Cathedral
The city’s most unusual church is St Nicholas Cathedral. It’s called the ‘drunken church’, because of the four twisted turrets surrounding its cupola. Painted blue with golden stars, these turrets create an optical illusion, much like an Escher sketch. The cathedral is a 1930s copy of a 14th-century royal church in Curtea de Arges (Romania).
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C
Museum of Hutsul Folk Art
Behind the Pysanky Museum, cut diagonally left towards the next street, to the Museum of Hutsul Folk Art. This well-curated exhibition is probably the best of its kind in Ukraine, with decorated stove tiles and other ceramics, musical instruments, carved wooden tools, boxes, furniture, traditional and embroidered folk dress and woven wall-hangings.
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Dovbush Cliffs
The Dovbush Cliffs are actually a series of boulders, which were pushed off a cliff to form 'caves' that outlaws, such as Robin Hood, once hid in. With several looped trails around here, you could spend anything from half an hour to three hours walking.
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Carpathian Biosphere Reserve Headquarters
Some 5km southwest of Rakhiv the highway leads to the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve headquarters, which isn’t so much of interest for itself as for what’s surrounding it. The reserve is maintained quite well.
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D
Music and Drama Theatre
The Music and Drama Theatre was designed in the same style of De Stijl that also inspired the Viennese architects of Odesa’s Opera and Ballet Theatre.
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Former Synagogue
Chernivtsi’s former synagogue was once famous for its exotic African/Middle Eastern style, but was turned into a cinema in 1954.
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Former Armenian Cathedral
The architect responsible for the Former Armenian Cathedral is Czech Josef Hlavka.
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Former Jewish Cemetery
The Former Jewish Cemetery is a melancholic jumble of leaning, overgrown headstones.
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