The History Museum in Kharkov

The History Museum in Kharkov is a must see for any foriegn visitor to the city. Kharkov like many Ukrainian cities lacks good quality tourist attractions and general things to do. I guess they just don’t recieve enough foriegn visitors to warrant investing in upscale attractions. The History Museum is therefore an exception, a high quality and interesting tour of kharkov’s history.

Directions

Easy. You can reach the museum by taking the underground metro and getting off at the Istorichesky Muzei station (blue line). When you are at street level just look for the large red building across the street, you may see some tanks and artillery outside. Don’t expect to see any helpful sign posts.
Alternatively you can get off at the or Radyanksa (in Russian: Sovietska) station (red line) which is just a short distance away, when you are at street level, just head north and after a few minutes you will come to Sumskaya Street, turn left at the crossroads here and you will soon see the red building that is the History Museum.

Cost of entrance tickets

Peanuts. Like most state owned establishments the entrance fee is so low that It’s not worth mentioning. You can also leave your jacket in the manned coat room for a small fee.

Review

The museum has several exhibits outside including a tank and some heavy artillery from the Second World War.

Inside the building you will find three floors, with different exhibits on each. My understanding is that the World War Two exhibit is permanent while the others change periodically.

When I visited they had a ground floor display with local artefacts from 18th to 20th century and on the top floor they were showing historical items made by the large Kharkov Chocolate Factory which produced foodstuffs for the local region and Russia (still does).