Part of the Sviatohirsk Lavra. All the skete’s buildings are made of massive pine trunks. The All Saints Church, the main skete’s sanctuary, used to be the biggest wooden church in Ukraine.
All Saints Skete of Sviatohirsk Lavra, located in the Donetsk region, impresses at first sight. All the skete’s buildings (both temples and cells) are made of massive pine trunks and adorned with carvings. The skete is surrounded by a wooden palisade with corner towers. It was built not so long ago, from 2000 to 2009, although the first church in honour of All Saints was consecrated here back in 1912. It was a brick church with a bell tower near a cemetery.
After the Bolsheviks seized power in Ukraine, the church became a refuge for monks who had been expelled from the Sviatohirsk Lavra. When the Soviet government started to impose a state atheism policy, the church was turned into a granary. However, it was not the most terrible thing that happened to the skete during Soviet times. It survived World War II but was blown up by the Soviets’ order with remnants of shells, grenades, and mines collected during the demining of nearby fields in 1947. Moreover, the church cemetery was razed to the ground, while the crosses and tombstones were taken away for recycling.
The skete’s territory stood empty after this act of vandalism until the restoration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991. In 2000, the site was cleared up for the new skete’s buildings and the reconstruction of the All Saints Church (which had stood here almost a century earlier). A new wooden church with 17 silver cross-topped domes was built on the foundation of the blown-up church in 2009. This place epitomised the revival of faith and life in these lands.
In the following years, the All Saints Skete was transformed into a large complex containing temples and monks’ dwellings, agricultural land, gardens with 600 trees, ponds, greenhouses and a vineyard, a stable and a cowshed, cellars and an apiary with 150 beehives. The skete had been developing thanks to the efforts of monks and churchgoers until the spring of 2022 when Russian troops invaded these lands.
The Sviatohirsk Lavra repeatedly suffered from Russian attacks during April and May 2022. In particular, the St. George Skete was destroyed by missile shelling. On June 1, a few shells hit the monks’ cells, killing four and injuring four others. Finally, Russian shelling ruined the All Saints Skete on June 4. The fire entirely destroyed the main church of the complex, the largest wooden temple in Ukraine.
Having arisen on the ruins of the destroyed church, the skete was a reminder of the times when it was forbidden to worship, think, speak, and live freely in Ukraine. In the 21st century, this place also became evidence of the crimes committed by the Russian army that took thousands of lives and hundreds of cultural heritage objects in Ukraine.
The site that once held memories has now turned into a memory itself.
Formerly Palace of Culture of the Azovstal plant. The building of the former Continental hotel (1887–1910).
A unique monastery complex of the XVI–XIX centuries with natural caves.
Historical buildings reflecting the Mariupol architecture of the late XIX and early XX centuries before the Bolshevik Revolution.
Donbas Arena is the home stadium of the Ukrainian ‘Shakhtar’ football club, which became the first of the ‘elite’ category in Ukraine and in all of Eastern Europe.
An ancient building of 1902 in the Northern Art Nouveau style, which comprised under its roof the works by respected Ukrainian landscape painters, as well as world-famous marine and realist artists.
Invaluable monumental artworks, created by a group of Ukrainian monumentalists led by Alla Horska, a dissident artist and one of the Sixtiers movement’s founders. These panels incorporated elements of Ukrainian folk tradition, contemporary world trends, and Soviet art.
Formerly prospering trade and then a metallurgical centre of Ukraine that has become the symbol of the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine and the genocide committed by the Russian army and government.
The only church in the world entirely decorated with Petrykivka paintings, an ancient style of folk Ukrainian decorative painting included in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
The museum was established at the Faculty of History of Mariupol State University. It has become an important cultural and educational site bringing together students, professors, and citizens around the native land’s history.
The manor of Mariupol City Council’s mayor, having more than 150 years of history behind. Its architecture incorporated elements of the Stalinist Empire, Neoclassicism, and Baroque.
One of the oldest and largest Ukrainian museums, which collection comprised over 180 thousand exhibits, including the monuments and artefacts of world importance.
One of the biggest steam mills in the German Mennonite colony that existed in the Donetsk region at the turn of the 20th century. Built in 1903, this mill had been feeding people of New York and all of its suburbs for decades.
The central church of the Sviatohirsk Lavra’s convent, erected in the neoclassical style with baroque elements in 2005 in the site of a stone church of 19th century dismantled by the Bolsheviks.
The house was built in the constructivist style in 1929. It has been the centre of the city’s creative life for almost a hundred years.
Former State Bank’s building, constructed at the turn of the 20th century. In 2019, this site housed the city library, which history began back in 1904. An intellectual and educational centre of the city.
A two-storey manor in the classical style with a neo-Gothic tower, built in Mariupol 125 years ago. The state was a property of respected doctors.
The Azovstal plant in Mariupol was one of the largest iron and steel producers in Europe. In 2022 it became a symbol of resistance to brutal Russian aggression and the incredible courage of Ukrainian fighters.
Educational institution with more than 140 years of history where many generations of Mariupol citizens studied.
Center of spiritual life of Muslims of Donetsk region.
Two buildings are a monument to an entire era. They were the last buildings in Mariupol designed in the Stalinist Neoclassicism style.
One of the oldest theatres in the Left-bank Ukraine.
The mosque was built in 2007 on the site of a mosque built in 1906 and destroyed by the Bolsheviks in 1936.
St. Demetrius Church dedicated to the holy martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki is one of the oldest in the region.