Ukraine: Culture and History

Ukraine’s cultural highlights range from the history of surveying and historic architecture to vibrant traditions. When planning your trip, it’s worth first deciding which perspective interests you most: individual buildings, historic urban areas, archaeological structures, or traditional crafts and foods. This will help you choose a hotel in Ukraine that takes into account the cultural focus you want to shape your trip.

Architecture and Urban History

Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv is an important architectural monument and a monument of monumental art from the early 11th century. It preserves a collection of mosaics and frescoes from the 11th century. This building brings together historic architecture and surviving works of art from the same period.

The Residence of the Metropolitans of Bukovina and Dalmatia in Chernivtsi was built between 1864 and 1882 to designs by the Czech architect Josef Hlavka, and is an example of 19th-century historicist architecture. Compared with the cathedral, it represents a considerably later building period. Its date of construction and architectural classification offer another perspective on Ukraine’s architectural history.

The historic center of Lviv includes well-preserved urban buildings of Eastern European character, including numerous Renaissance and Baroque monasteries and houses. Historic buildings in Odesa, in turn, reflect the city’s rapid economic development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Together, these offer two different ways of exploring urban history: a focus on buildings and architectural forms, and a focus on economic change.

The History of Surveying and Archaeological Structures

The Struve Geodetic Arc offers another perspective: in Ukraine, it includes four of the survey points originally established between 1816 and 1851. Here, the focus is on survey points and their dates, rather than on individual façades or historic houses.

The ancient city of Tauric Chersonese and its chora include public building complexes and residential districts. The archaeological picture therefore ranges from public buildings to residential areas. This sets it apart from the study of historic urban architecture and gives the settlement structure its due.

Ukrainian Traditions: Borscht and Pysanka

The Ukrainian tradition of cooking borscht has been passed down within families for centuries, with children taking part in its preparation. UNESCO lists the tradition as being in urgent need of safeguarding. The tradition encompasses not only the dish itself, but also the passing of cooking knowledge from one generation to the next.

In the Ukrainian tradition of decorating pysanka eggs, patterns and symbols are applied to the egg with wax before it is dyed. The process is repeated until the desired pattern and colors are achieved. Unlike the borscht tradition, this focuses on a specific decorative technique whose steps build on one another.

Planning Your Trip

The Ukrainian tourism map provides phone numbers and addresses for Ukrainian tourist information centers, where visitors can get the information they need. You can use the map to find a place to ask your questions; check the contact details before getting in touch.

The State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine directs its projects, among other things, toward developing innovative tourist routes.

Discover more destinations: Kherson Oblast, Odesa Oblast, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Kirovohrad Oblast, Lviv Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Rivne Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, Poltava Oblast, Volyn Oblast, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Chernihiv Oblast, Sumy Oblast, Ternopil Oblast, Cherkasy Oblast, Zhytomyr Oblast, Luhansk Oblast, Chernivtsi Oblast.

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