Leisure Pursuits Of Kyiv (Ukraine)

1. Kyiv CHILDREN’S RAILROAD:

Children always enjoy riding a train. If it is a special children’s train, in which the carriages are decorated with bright pictures and inscriptions, and the drivers, conductors and inspectors are children, then the pleasure is doubled. Therefore, we suggest you take a train trip through Syretsky Park, where 60 years ago the Kiev Children’s Railway was laid. It has an adult, official name – Small South-Western Railway. This is not surprising: a real diesel locomotive TU7a and a steam locomotive GR-336 pull the same carriages along the rails that run on all the railways of our country.

The steam locomotive is rarely used, only on holidays, and plays more of a decorative role, reminding us of the history of the development of railway technology. But the diesel locomotives work regularly all summer. The Kyiv Children’s Railway has only two stations – “Vyshenka” and “Yablonka”. The journey takes about 15 minutes, but during the short trip the children will have many impressions. The train will take them through a birch grove, along the shady alleys of the park, across a viaduct over a deep ravine (the length of the viaduct is 100 m, and the height is 19.6 m, this is the height of a five-story building).

From the window, passengers will see children – station attendants, giving signals to the train, small but very respectable station buildings, railway traffic lights and much more. And you will need to look around in the carriages. Although they are not particularly comfortable – ordinary wooden seats, but it is not every day that you get to ride a special children’s train. The Kyiv Children’s Railway has a school for young railway workers, where children aged 10-15 study. During the training course, they not only take a general railway course, but also master professions: some want to be a driver, some want to be a carriage inspector, and some like the profession of a station announcer.

The training lasts from autumn to spring, and in the summer, the children undergo practical training on the children’s railway. It is impossible not to notice the young railway workers: they are all in working uniform, like real adults. After riding the train with children, you can take a walk in Syretsky Park, there are good children’s playgrounds and sports grounds. Please note that on very hot days the railway may not work. Therefore, we recommend that you check in advance with the information whether children’s trains are running.

2. TOY MUSEUM IN Kyiv:

It is almost impossible to imagine childhood without games and toys. In the old days, children used toys to learn about the world around them, and loved even the simplest and most straightforward figures made of wood, clay or straw. Therefore, when visiting Kiev, you should definitely visit the State Toy Museum, which has a huge collection of dolls and cars, construction sets and board games, animal figurines, musical instruments and much more. Although the Toy Museum in Kyiv opened only in 2005, its collection has been collected for over 80 years, and now it has about 15 thousand items.

Not everything is on display: visitors can only see about 2 thousand exhibits so far. Perhaps, over time, the museum will move to a more spacious room and will be able to present its treasures in all their glory. But even today, the toys on display touch and delight children and adults. The museum is divided into several thematic exhibitions: Ukrainian folk toys, designer toys, industrial samples of toys from the 1930s-90s, a unique collection of board games. The history of toys and the change in the materials they are made from is interestingly traced here: at first papier-mâché and celluloid were used, later – polyethylene and PVC.

Although the history of the state is also traced here. Many of the toys in the collection were created in the Soviet Union, and the delicate dolls-ladies in lace dresses were replaced by dolls in military uniforms and Budenovka hats. Among the cars beloved by all boys, there is a completely unheard-of toy “From a horse to a tractor”, wittily called the first transformer. The doll figures are dressed in police uniforms, in steelworker’s clothes; there is even a tumbler-corn doll. But the most touching thing is when visitors recognize among the things on display in the windows the toys they themselves played with as children or dreamed about. Adults look at dolls and cars, a wind-up combine and a railroad, soft teddy bears and hares, a rocking horse and a metal construction set. There are very interesting things in the museum collection.

For example, the family of Academician Bogomolets gave the museum a doll created in the 19th century and an African doll. There is a New Year tree made of chicken feathers, a cute hedgehog made of straw, and even a straw bull familiar to everyone from a children’s fairy tale. There are also many dolls in national costumes at the exhibition. And it is especially nice that children will find something familiar to them among the exhibits – for example, girls stand for a long time in front of a stand with Barbie dolls in various outfits. The only regret is that you can’t touch all these toys with your hands. But maybe after this museum, children will pay more attention to their toy favorites.

3. MUSEUM OF PIROGOVO:

The open-air museum in the village of Pirogov near Kiev is a unique collection of folk architecture monuments from different regions of Ukraine. On an area of ​​more than 130 hectares, in the middle of the old Goloseevsky forest, there are peasant houses, churches, mills, outbuildings and other examples of folk architecture, created between the 16th and 20th centuries. Such structures can probably be seen today only in very remote, remote villages, which most modern people never visit. And after visiting this museum, it will be much easier for a child to understand what kind of huts the heroes of folk tales lived in, what the mill that the cockerel went to looks like, and what the well is, into the bottom of which the girl dropped the spindle in the tale of Grandmother Metelitsa.

In general, there are many things in Pirogov that are now found only in fairy tales. The houses contain household items that our ancestors used: spindles and spindles, wooden and clay dishes, bast-woven or leather shoes, yokes and much more. It is interesting that on weekdays, especially for children, there are master classes in weaving, embroidery, wickerwork, pottery and blacksmithing in Pirogovo. Here you can also learn folk dancing. And on holidays, the museum hosts folk festivals, where participants follow ancient rituals and traditions. For children, the open-air museum is a paradise. Firstly, in the summer they can run around the lawns barefoot.

Secondly, there is a playground for them on the Singing Field. Thirdly, there is a special children’s excursion. The exposition is divided into several ethnographic zones, and the creators of the museum tried to select an appropriate natural landscape. For example, examples of folk architecture of the Carpathians are located on three hills, which really resemble the nature of this part of Ukraine. During the excursion, you want to look into each house: to see the simple and modest life of the poor and the rich housing of wealthy peasants, to look at the home of the priest and the village teacher. With special caution and reverence, many children look into the school, examining the unusually small classroom, uncomfortable narrow desks, old maps on the wall and a bucket with rods in the corner.

Many exhibits of the museum are very interesting. The museum fund contains more than 70 thousand items: tools, clothes, icons, musical instruments, examples of decorative and applied art. But it is especially interesting to visit Pirogovo on those days when the museum comes to life: blacksmiths, weavers, potters and other artisans work. Since the territory of the museum is quite large, you can use an electric car or a bicycle (your own or rented here) to explore it. On weekends, there are holidays, festivals, and fairs.

4. NATURE MUSEUM IN Kyiv:

Is it easy for you to imagine that while walking around the center of Kyiv, you can get into a karst cave or find yourself in a hut made of mammoth bones? Meanwhile, this is quite possible – you just need to visit the National Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Having come here, you can show children the nature of different corners of our planet and what the Earth was like millions of years ago. The museum will be most interesting to schoolchildren who are already studying natural history or biology.

However, you can also come here with little ones to see individual, the most striking and understandable exhibits for them. The National Museum of Natural History unites five museums: Paleontological, Archaeological, Geological, Zoological and Botanical. Their total area is 8 thousand square meters. m, and the number of items in them is over 30 thousand. Here you can learn about the origin and evolution of the Earth, the structure of our planet, ancient and modern flora and fauna, the history of the tribes and peoples who inhabited the territory of Ukraine. The collection of the Paleontological Museum is one of the richest in Europe. Its most interesting exhibits are the skeletons of extinct animals – the dinotherium elephant, the Steller’s cow (there are only 25 of these in museums around the world), the chersonotherium giraffe, the giant deer, the cetotherium whale, the primitive aurochs and the mammoth.

Small figurines of these animals are exhibited next to the huge skeletons to imagine what the inhabitants of the Earth looked like in ancient times. Other objects that “capture” ancient life are also exhibited here: petrified wood, insects frozen in amber, mollusk shells. The oldest exhibit of the Archaeological Museum is over 800 thousand years old: these are tools of ancient people found in Zakarpattia. The diorama will allow you to look back many thousands of years and see how the Cro-Magnons lived. There are also exhibits of various cultures: Scythian, Trypillian, Sarmatian, Cimmerian. The extensive exposition of the Geological Museum is dedicated to the origin and structure of the Earth, its depths, phenomena and processes occurring inside and on the surface of the planet.

The dioramas depicting various terrestrial landscapes are especially good in this museum. Here you can see the volcanic massif of Karadag, and a river valley, and a seemingly fantastic forest of the Carboniferous period. The Zoological and Botanical Sections of the Natural History Museum of Kyiv present the entire diversity of flora and fauna of the planet. Children will love the huge collection of birds, both familiar and exotic. The collection of penguins collected here is one of the largest in the world. Looking at the dioramas, you can be transported from Crimea to the Carpathians, from the tundra to the African savannah, getting acquainted with the kingdom of plants.

5. Kyiv IN MINIATURE:

Kiev is an amazingly beautiful city. There are many historical and architectural monuments, amazingly beautiful buildings, temples, and monuments. If you are planning to stay in Kyiv for a short time, but still want to see the main sights of the city, we recommend going to the park “Kyiv in Miniature”, where models of the most beautiful buildings in Kyiv are collected. In addition, this is a good way to show the magnificence of the city to children without tiring them with long excursions. The park contains 48 models of buildings and structures without which it is impossible to imagine Kyiv. Here you will find St.

Andrew’s Church, Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Golden Gate, Opera and Ballet Theater, and the Red Building of Taras Shevchenko University. Guests of Kyiv pay attention to the city’s transport gates: the buildings of the central railway station and Boryspil airport. A mini-Dnieper also flows through the park, crossed by four main bridges. Among the models are famous monuments: the Motherland, the monuments to Prince Vladimir and Princess Olga, Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Miniature copies of government agencies are also presented – the Cabinet of Ministers and the National Bank of Ukraine. But most of all among the exhibits are churches and monasteries of Kyiv, which is rightfully considered the cradle of Christianity.

Of course, among the models are the main streets of the city – Khreshchatyk and Maidan Nezalezhnosti. Life is in full swing on these miniature streets: people rush about their business or just stroll, cars drive. Mini-Kyiv has about 700 residents. In the future, it is planned to “revive” the town: cars will really move along the streets, ships will go along the Dnieper, and planes will be preparing for takeoff at the airport. All models are made on a scale of 1:33. They are created by specialists who carefully study the original from photographs and reproduce all its features and details. The exhibition is planned to be expanded – there are many amazing places in Kyiv that are worthy of being presented in the park of miniatures.

In addition, the collection has recently been replenished with models of landmarks located in other cities of Ukraine – in Odessa, Lviv, and also in Crimea. A walk through the park “Kyiv in Miniature” takes about an hour. However, you can wander around it as much as you like – it is convenient to move along the wide alleys, even if there are many visitors. It is interesting to take pictures near the miniatures you like, because the miniature city is in no way inferior to the real Kyiv in beauty.