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.
Lyman is a city in the Donetsk region, located 138 km from Donetsk. Its history began in the 17th century when Ukrainian Cossacks founded a sloboda in these lands. It was a settlement near the watchtowers not far from the Torska fortress (now the city of Sloviansk). In 1911, a railway line was laid and a station was built close to Lyman, which eventually turned into a potent railway junction. Thus, Lyman became a city of railway workers.
The building of the City Palace of Culture in the constructivist style, named after the Bolshevik Artem, was opened in 1929. Two years later, two drama groups, a choir band, a big dance group, and three orchestras (a symphony, a brass band, and an orchestra of folk instruments) worked here.
During World War II, a bigger part of the Palace of Culture was destroyed by artillery shelling and bombing, and its large stage was significantly damaged. However, with the return of peace to Ukrainian lands, the city community restored the house very quickly.
A puppet theatre, a summer cinema, and a library were opened in the Palace of Culture. The latter had a collection of almost 40,000 editions and provided books to more than 30 mobile libraries. These were organised for people who did not have time or opportunity to visit a regular library.
Over the years, the Palace of Culture has staged about 40 plays, operettas, vaudevilles (including ‘Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube,’ the classic of Ukrainian drama), and many other works. Up to 18 creative groups and 12 clubs operated here until recently. The Palace of Culture, now the House of Science and Technology of Railway Workers, has been the centre of the city’s creative life for almost a hundred years.
In the spring of 2022, both the building and the city itself ended up in one of the epicentres of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a major railway junction, Lyman has become strategically important for Russian troops because it provides access to railway and road bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River. The city has been under constant shelling since late April. On April 30, the Palace of Culture was also damaged by shelling and the resulting severe fire. And after a month of fierce fighting, the Russians finally occupied Lyman.
The site that once held memories may now turn 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.
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.
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.
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.