According to CachedHealth, Kherson is an ancient city located at the mouth of the Dnieper. There is interesting architecture here, mainly of the 18th-19th centuries, the arsenal building of 1784, where muskets, cannons, ammunition and edged weapons for the army were stored, deserves special attention. One of the main city attractions is the monument to the first ships of the Black Sea Fleet, built in 1972.
The most interesting thing in Kherson is outside the city – the Askania-Nova Reserve, one of the last territories in the world where animals listed in the Red Book live. Here you can meet buffaloes, deer, bactrian camels, bison and antelope in their natural habitat. In the same places there are stone Scythian statues, why they were built is still a mystery.
How to get there
Kherson is located on the way from Kyiv towards Simferopol. You can get there by train from the Ukrainian capital, they run every day in the morning and in the evening (only two flights). The journey takes 7-8 hours depending on the train.
From Odessa can be reached by bus in 3-4 hours. In summer, buses run every half an hour, at other times a little less.
In addition, the city has its own airport accepting flights from the capital of Ukraine and other cities of the country.
Entertainment and attractions of Kherson
In the city itself, the main attraction can be considered the picturesque remains of the ramparts and gates of the fortress of the 18th century, as well as the cozy historical center of the 19th century. Special attention should be paid to the building of the Black Sea Hospital (1803-1810), which was built by the famous architect Andrey Zakharov. The Admiralty Arsenal of the end of the 18th century, as well as the nearby “Kazyonny Park” – the park of the regional lyceum, founded in 1868, are also attractive.
Relatively modern monuments include the Kherson TV Tower and the Adzhigol mesh steel lighthouse, built by Shukhov in 1910 – this unique hyperboloid structure reaches a height of 70 meters. Kherson also boasts a couple of remarkable museums, for example, the Literary Kherson region – the museum-apartment of B. A. Lavrenev. Children, as a rule, like it in the Natural and Ecological Museum, you can also look into the Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore or the Art Museum. O. O. Shovkunenko.
Temples of Kherson
The city has a lot of monuments of religious architecture, for example, the charming Spassky Cathedral (1781) with a bell tower, the Chabad synagogue of the late 19th century, the Church of St. Alexandra and the ancient Greco-Sofievsky Cathedral of 1780. If you have an extra hour and a half, take a walk to the Holy Assumption, St. Catherine and the Holy Spirit Cathedral with a bell tower of 1836. Finally, another of the oldest churches in the city is Nikolaevskaya (1819).
Neighborhoods of Kherson: Zmievka, Heroisk and Askania-Nova
But, as already mentioned, the main remarkable places of Kherson lie outside the city limits. One of them is the Swedish village of Zmievka, which was founded in the late 18th century by Catherine the Great. Zmievka is a unique corner of Sweden in Ukraine, the original architecture of a northern country against the backdrop of Little Russian nature. You can get here by minibus to Nova Kakhovka, from where it takes only 20 minutes by taxi to the village itself.
Another interesting field trip from Kherson is a 50-minute ferry ride south to Gola-Pristan (42 UAH, twice a day, navigation is open from April to October) – the last significant city on the Dnieper. From there, the road to the west leads along the picturesque “bird’s corner” – the Black Sea Biosphere Reserve – to the city of Geroisk. This ancient Cossack settlement is remarkable not only for its history, but also for its architecture, nature, and original way of life. You can get from the port to Geroisk by bike, but you can only get inside with a group tour, which can be booked in advance at one of the city’s tour desks.
