Attractions of Bila Tserkva

Bila Tserkva Museum of Local Lore presents a large collection of objects of material and spiritual culture of the Southern Kyiv region. The museum was founded in 1924 by local historian Stepan Drozdov-Myshkivsky on the basis of his own collection of antiquities. The museum is now housed in an original constructivist building erected in 1983 on Castle Hill opposite the Church of St. John the Baptist, near the foundations of the ancient Church of St. George in the time of Prince Yaroslav the Wise.

The exposition consists of nine chapters that tell about the nature of Southern Kyiv, the ancient history of the region, the events of the Polish-Lithuanian era and the Cossacks, the heyday of the city in the XVIII-XIX centuries, the development of industry and education, the Soviet era and modernity.

Among the most valuable exhibits of the museum: the Scythian sword akinak, a unique Chernyakhiv lamp with the image of a human face, ancient Rus'ian women's jewelry. Valuable relics of the Cossack times are the flag of the Cossack Hundred of the Bila Tserkva Regiment, a mace, a bunchuk, timpani and weapons. The basis of the collection of numismatics are Roman coins, Kiev hryvnias, money of the Cossack era. The art department presents icons, paintings and sculptures of the XVII-XX centuries from the Branytsky collection. Visitors are especially interested in the recreated interiors of housing of different segments of the population at that time.

A modern reconstruction of the Church of St. George, which gave the city its current name, was built on the Castle Hill of ancient St. George near the Bila Tserkva Museum of Local Lore. A monument to the city's founder, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, has been erected on the observation deck above the Ros River.