The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against all travel to Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Please check with your relevant national government.
In many ways a continent away from the folkloric west of Ukraine, the predominantly Russian-speaking territory east of the Dnipro River is often dismissed as 'not Ukrainian enough'. But, from an economic and political standpoint, this vast region is the country's power source.
The region was hit hardest by the crisis precipitated by the 2014 revolution. A part of it (fortunately not a very big one) has been occupied by Russian-backed rebels who proclaimed two 'people's republics', putting Donetsk and Luhansk on the front line of a simmering conflict. We can't overemphasise the danger of coming anywhere close to rebel-held areas.
That said, the rest of eastern Ukraine is safe to travel in, provided that you watch the news. The area includes places that are key to understanding Ukraine, such as the Zaporizhska Sich, Gogol’s Poltava region and Unesco-listed Chernihiv. Kharkiv and Dnipro are large industrial cities with intriguing cultural dynamics.
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Eastern Ukraine.
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The focal point of the city centre is the circular Korpusny Park, laid out in the early 19th century in an attempt to emulate the grand planning ideals of St Petersburg. Eight streets radiate off the plaza, and in its centre rises the Iron Column of Glory, topped by a golden eagle. Southeast of Korpusny Park, the city's main pedestrian drag – ul Sobornosti – leads down to verdant Soniachny Park.
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Located on the southeast edge of Zhovtnevy Park, the museum exhibits random archaeological and cultural artefacts, its collection almost overshadowed by its gorgeous art nouveau building (1903), adorned with the ceramic crests of each district capital in the Poltava oblast. Outside stands an impressive cubist Shevchenko monument, which has the national poet emerging from angular blocks of grey concrete.
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Kharkiv's most famous museum owns one of many versions of Ilya Repin's Zaporizhsky Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan, which is found in a room full of Repin paintings in the museum's permanent collection. The entire collection of romantic paintings here is of a high standard for Ukraine, but the neighbouring exhibit hall is hit or miss.
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The Zaporizhska Sich on Khortytsya Island was the cradle of Ukrainian Cossackdom, where Hetman (chieftain) Dmytro Baida united disparate groups of Cossacks in the construction of a sich (fort) in 1553–54. Today the island houses the Historical Museum of Zaporizhsky Cossacks, closed for renovation at the time of writing, as well as the Sich Reconstruction – a wooden fortress, complete with churches and about a dozen thatched-roof khaty (dwellings), built for the epic movie Taras Bulba in 2007.
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From Krasna pl it's a three-minute walk southeast along pr Myru to the old historic core, known as the Dytynets ('citadel' in old Russian). Today it's an informal park dotted with domed churches overlooking the Desna River. The highlight is the 12th-century Boryso-Hlibsky Cathedral, which contains a worthwhile museum where the star attraction is the pair of intricate silver Royal Doors, commissioned by the famous Cossack leader Ivan Mazepa.
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The Antoniy Caves, Chernihiv's answer to Kyiv's Kyevo-Pecherska Lavra, lurk beneath the ground a short walk north of the Trinity Monastery, under the early 11th-century Illinska Church. The caves consist of 315m of passageways, galleries and chapels constructed from the 11th to 13th centuries. These are very different from those in Kyiv in that they lack both dead mummies and, for the most part, live tourists.
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Locals claim that this enormous expanse of cobbles is the second largest in the world after Beijing's Tiananmen Sq. At 750m long it's indisputably huge and is certainly Kharkiv's most unique sight. Planned as an ensemble of Ukrainian government buildings when Kharkiv was the republican capital, it was laid out between 1925 and 1935. A Lenin statue, which stood in the middle, was toppled by the revolutionary mob in 2014, leaving a comically lonely granite shoe on the podium.
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Vaguely reminiscent of MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall, this giant structure looming over the remains of the Old Town is the slick new heart of the city's Jewish community. It was built over the city's old synagogue, of which only the original facade remains – the interior is completely new. The compound also contains a shopping arcade, two hotels and the main attraction – the Museum of Jewish Heritage and Holocaust in Ukraine.
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The city's history museum found itself encased in a giant glassy structure as the result of an unfinished reconstruction, which hasn't touched upon the building itself. But the changing wind of history can be felt in the musty halls, where exhibitions have been updated to reflect the Maidan revolution and the war in the east.