Eastern Ukraine

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.

Explore Eastern Ukraine

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Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Eastern Ukraine.

  • Museum

    Kharkiv Art Museum

    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…

  • Square

    Ploshcha Svobody

    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…

  • Jewish Site

    Menorah Center

    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…

  • Park

    Korpusny Park

    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…

  • Museum

    Poltava Museum of Local Lore

    Located on the southeast edge of Zhovtnevy Park, the museum exhibits random archaeological and cultural artefacts, its collection almost overshadowed by…

  • Historic Site

    Khortytsya Island

    The Zaporizhska Sich on Khortytsya Island was the cradle of Ukrainian Cossackdom, where Hetman (chieftain) Dmytro Baida united disparate groups of…

  • Fort

    Dytynets

    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…

  • Cave

    Antoniy Caves

    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…

  • Museum

    Kharkiv History Museum

    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…

  • Park

    Rocket Park

    Every city has a symbol of its might, but few of these symbols are so straightforwardly phallic as Dnipro's. Space rockets produced at the local Yuzhmash…

  • Museum

    Hoholeve Museum

    Nikolai Gogol wouldn't have been able to describe the life of Russian landowners in his most famous book, Dead Souls, had he not been a landowner himself:…

  • Museum

    History Museum & Diorama

    A lovingly curated establishment, the museum has visually attractive rooms dedicated to the Cossacks, the Russian empire, the Civil War and Holodomor…

  • Square

    Maidan Soborny

    Vul Zhovtneva terminates on a bluff at Cathedral Sq, the prettiest little spot in Poltava, with sweeping views of Khrestovozdvyzhensky Monastery across…

  • Monastery

    Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery

    Dating back to Prince Igor's era (but rebuilt several times since) is the idyllic Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, a complex of wood-shingled buildings and…

  • Museum

    Museum-Preserve of Ukrainian Pottery

    An old potters' village, Opishnya has revived the craft by opening this interesting museum where you can see lots traditional and not-so-traditional…

  • Museum

    Phaeton Museum of Machinery

    A huge hangar in the gritty industrial part of city, 3.5km from pr Soborny (Lenina), contains a lovingly arranged exhibition of civilian and military…

  • Museum

    Tarnovsky History Museum

    The charmingly old-fashioned museum traces local material history from paleolithic bones to the post-apocalyptic self-made shields and helmets of Maidan…

  • Dam

    Dniproges Dam

    At 760m – two and a half times longer than the famous Hoover Dam – the wall of the USSR's first dam certainly represented a monumental engineering feat…

  • Fort

    Sich Reconstruction

    A collection of wooden buildings resembling a 17th-century Cossack fortress occupies a prime clifftop spot with a view of Dniproges dam and contains…

  • Museum

    Kotlyarevsky Museum

    Just behind Uspenska Church, surrounded by a lovely flower garden, this is the lovingly restored former home of Ivan Kotlyarevsky (1739–1838), one of the…