The Most Beautiful Places in Ukraine
15 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Ukraine are Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Khotyn Fortress and Swallow's Nest. The list covers 15 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Ukraine is mostly a broad plain of steppe and forest, so its beauty gathers where rivers cut into rock and where centuries of faith and power left buildings behind. The Dnipro, the Dniester and their tributaries carved chalk cliffs, limestone canyons and high banks that monks, princes and frontier garrisons chose for their monasteries and fortresses. Kyiv was the capital of medieval Rus, and its churches carried Byzantine art north; later the Cossack Baroque, Austrian architects and Russian imperial builders each added their own layer.
The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, founded in the 11th century, combines golden-domed churches with cave passages where monks lived and were buried, and Saint Sophia Cathedral nearby keeps mosaics and frescoes from the age of Yaroslav the Wise. St Andrew's Church, designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, stands high above the Dnipro on a steep hill. In the east, the Sviatohirsk Lavra climbs the white chalk cliffs above the Siverskyi Donets.
In the west, Khotyn Fortress rises over the Dniester with massive stone walls, and the castle of Kamianets-Podilskyi sits on a rocky spur where the Smotrych River loops through its canyon. In Chernivtsi, the Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans is a complex of patterned brick and tile by the Czech architect Josef Hlávka. Sofiyivka Park in Uman is a romantic landscape of grottoes, ponds and waterfalls, and the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater is a lavish work of the Viennese firm Fellner and Helmer. Two quieter places complete the picture: the green Tunnel of Love, where trees close over a railway line near Klevan, and the abandoned Ferris wheel of Pripyat.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyiv Pechersk Lavra | Lavra | ✓ |
| 2 | Khotyn Fortress | Castle | |
| 3 | Swallow's Nest | Castle | |
| 4 | Sviatohirsk Lavra | Lavra | |
| 5 | St Andrew's Church, Kyiv | Church building | |
| 6 | Saint Sophia Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 7 | Tunnel of Love, Klevan | Tunnel | |
| 8 | Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans | Palace | |
| 9 | Pripyat amusement park | Amusement park | |
| 10 | Sofiyivsky Park | Arboretum | |
| 11 | Mother Ukraine Monument | War memorial | |
| 12 | Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle | Castle | |
| 13 | Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater | Opera house | |
| 14 | Pochaiv Lavra | Lavra | |
| 15 | Vorontsov Palace, Alupka | Palace |
01 Kyiv Pechersk Lavra
Києво-Печерська лавра
Ukraine · 3.4 km from Kyiv50.434° N 30.558° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by JamesHills from Pixabay The monk Anthony founded this in 1051 by settling into a small hand-dug cave, seeking nothing more than solitude and prayer.
Did you know? In 1615 the archimandrite Yelisei Pletenetsky set up the first printing press in Kyiv here, and the monastery became a major centre of book printing.
02 Khotyn Fortress
Хотинська фортеця
Ukraine · 19.1 km from Kamianets-Podilskyi48.522° N 26.498° E
Image by ania5555 from Pixabay Khotyn Fortress rises from a rocky shelf on the high right bank of the Dniester in the town of Khotyn, in Ukraine's Chernivtsi Oblast.
Did you know? Jan Sobieski left a vivid account of the 1673 battle, describing more than sixty guns firing without pause until the earth shook and rocks split.
03 Swallow's Nest
Ластівчине гніздо
Ukraine · 8 km from Yalta44.431° N 34.129° E
Image by IrinaKushnikova from Pixabay The current Neo-Gothic villa perched on Aurora Cliff, 40 metres above the Black Sea, went up in 1911–1912 for the oil baron Pavel von Steingel, designed by the architect Leonid Sherwood to look like a fantasy of a medieval keep rather than function as one.
Did you know? An earlier house on the cliff, nicknamed the Castle of Love, appears in paintings by the marine artists Lev Lagorio and Alexei Bogolyubov.
04 Sviatohirsk Lavra
Святогірська лавра
Ukraine · 34.4 km from Kramatorsk49.028° N 37.568° E
Image by oleg_mit from Pixabay The Sviatohirsk Lavra stands on the high right bank of the Siverskyi Donets in northern Donetsk Oblast, where the river cuts into white chalk hills that give the area its old name, the Holy Mountains.
Did you know? The bell tower of the Church of the Intercession held eight bells, the largest weighing more than six tonnes.
05 St Andrew's Church, Kyiv
Андріївська церква
Ukraine · 2.6 km from Kyiv50.459° N 30.518° E
Image by Adrian34 from Pixabay St Andrew's Church crowns a steep hill above the old Podil district of Kyiv, its green-and-gold silhouette visible from the river and from far along the Andriyivskyy Descent, the winding cobbled street named after it. It is one of the finest buildings of the Baroque in Ukraine.
Did you know? Its bricks came from the brickworks of three Kyiv monasteries, and the Pechersk Lavra sent 50 of its best masons to the site.
06 Saint Sophia Cathedral
Софійський собор
Ukraine · 1.9 km from Kyiv50.453° N 30.514° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Rbrechko · CC BY-SA 4.0 Saint Sophia in Kyiv is the great surviving monument of Kyivan Rus', the medieval state from which Ukraine traces its history, and one of the largest churches built anywhere in Europe in the eleventh century.
Did you know? Graffiti on the walls, in both Cyrillic and Glagolitic script, include a note on the death of Yaroslav the Wise and an autograph of Volodymyr Monomakh.
07 Tunnel of Love, Klevan
Тунель кохання
Ukraine · 20.9 km from Rivne50.751° N 26.046° E
Tigrranubis7 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Near the small town of Klevan in western Ukraine, a single-track industrial railway runs through a forest, and for several kilometres the trees close over it in an almost perfect arch.
Did you know? The Chinese imitation of the tunnel opened on 20 May 2017 near the city of Hefei.
08 Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans
Резиденція митрополитів Буковини і Далмації
Ukraine · 1 km from Chernivtsi48.297° N 25.925° E
Oleksandr Malyon · CC BY-SA 4.0 Brick in two shades of red, glazed tiles in green and yellow laid in zigzags across the roofs, Byzantine domes and Moorish arches: the former residence of the Orthodox metropolitans of Bukovina and Dalmatia is one of the most extravagant buildings of the Habsburg nineteenth century, and since 2011 a UNESCO World…
Did you know? Besides the Marble and Red Halls, the metropolitan's wing has a Blue Hall, once the library, and a Green Hall, once the reception room.
More about Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans →
09 Pripyat amusement park
Парк розваг (Прип'ять)
Ukraine51.408° N 30.057° E
Image by 1681551 from Pixabay The amusement park in Pripyat is probably the most photographed fairground that never properly worked. It was built in the centre of the Soviet atomic city, next to the Palace of Culture, and was due to open on 1 May 1986 as part of the May Day festivities. On 26 April reactor No.
Did you know? In September 2017 the long-frozen Ferris wheel was briefly set turning by hand.
10 Sofiyivsky Park
Національний дендрологічний парк «Софіївка»
Ukraine · 1.3 km from Uman48.763° N 30.223° E
Облаухов Андрей Александрович · CC BY-SA 4.0 Sofiyivka, on the northern edge of Uman in central Ukraine, is one of the finest surviving landscape parks of the turn of the nineteenth century.
Did you know? The Polish poet Stanisław Trembecki praised the park and its namesake in a long poem titled Zofiówka.
11 Mother Ukraine Monument
Ukraine · 3.6 km from Kyiv50.426° N 30.563° E
spoilt.exile · CC BY-SA 2.0 On the hills of Pechersk above the Dnipro, next to the monasteries of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a stainless-steel woman raises a sword and a shield over the city. The statue itself is 62 metres tall; with its base the monument reaches 102 metres and weighs some 560 tonnes.
Did you know? Vasyl Borodai used the sculptor Halyna Kalchenko, daughter of a head of the Soviet Ukrainian government, as the model for the finished figure.
12 Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle
Кам'янець-Подільська фортеця
Ukraine · 1.8 km from Kamianets-Podilskyi48.673° N 26.563° E
Rbrechko · CC BY-SA 4.0 Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle stands where nature did half the work. The Smotrych River loops almost all the way around a limestone plateau, cutting a deep canyon, and the old town sits on that near-island.
Did you know? One of them, the Daily Tower, houses a Lutheran chapel.
13 Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater
Одеський національний академічний театр опери та балету
Ukraine · 2.7 km from Odessa46.486° N 30.741° E
Alexostrov · CC BY-SA 3.0 Odesa's opera house is the showpiece of a city that always looked west for its models. The first theatre here opened in 1810, designed by Francesco Frapolli and reworked by the French architect Thomas de Thomon, and it served the growing port for six decades until it burned out on a January night in 1873.
Did you know? Its electric lighting was supplied by the Edison company, making it the first building in Odesa lit by electricity.
14 Pochaiv Lavra
Почаївська лавра
Ukraine50.005° N 25.507° E
Aniskov · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Pochaiv Lavra appears long before you reach it. Its gilded domes and white walls crown a hill about 60 metres high above the small town of Pochaiv in western Ukraine, and from the surrounding countryside the monastery reads as a single silhouette of cupolas, bell tower and baroque façade.
Did you know? Taras Shevchenko painted watercolours of the monastery in autumn 1846 while recording historic monuments for the Kyiv Archaeographic Commission.
15 Vorontsov Palace, Alupka
Ukraine · 12.1 km from Yalta44.420° N 34.056° E
Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) · Public domain The Vorontsov Palace looks like two buildings joined back to back.
Did you know? The first scheme was a plain classical villa by Thomas Harrison of Chester; its only feature to survive was the great seaward niche, recast as an Islamic portal.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Ukraine?
- On our list, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra ranks first, followed by Khotyn Fortress and Swallow's Nest.
- How old is the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra?
- The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was founded in 1051 by the monks Anthony and Theodosius, who began by living in caves dug into the hillside above the Dnipro. Together with Saint Sophia Cathedral it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Why is the Pripyat Ferris wheel famous?
- The Ferris wheel in Pripyat's amusement park was due to open in 1986, but the town was evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster just days before. Standing unused ever since, it became one of the best-known images of the abandoned city.
- Who created Sofiyivka Park?
- Sofiyivka Park in Uman was laid out from 1796 by the Polish magnate Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki as a gift to his wife Zofia. Its rocks, grottoes, lakes and fountains were designed to evoke scenes from classical mythology.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Ukraine?
- In our collection, the places in Ukraine are most often lavras (3), castles (3), churches (2) and palaces (2).
- How many places are on this list in Ukraine?
- The list covers 15 places.