The Ancient Zvenyhorod Historical and Cultural Reserve was established in 2020 in the village of Zvenyhorod, Lviv Oblast. It is located only 20 km from Lviv.
The administration of the Ancient Zvenyhorod Historical and Cultural Reserve is a municipal institution of the Lviv Regional Council. The reserve manages the territory of the nationally significant archeological monument – the ancient settlement of the chronicle city of Zvenyhorod.
In the Middle Ages, Zvenyhorod, along with Przemysl and Terebovlia, was at the heart of the sovereignty that was being formed in Western Ukraine. The city became the princely capital for several decades in the 12th century. Archaeological findings show that the city was a major cultural, artistic, and educational center. Three of the oldest documents in the archival fund of Ukraine, birch bark charters, originated there. The exceptional local soils and the territory of the ancient city free from building-up contribute to the preservation of artifacts of the past. Zvenyhorod is one of the most promising locations in Ukraine for archaeologists to explore.
The strategic vision of the reserve’s development is to create a place where the innovative future of Ukrainian history and archeology is being born, which will contribute to the establishment of a competitive cultural and tourist product, as well as sustainable development of the territory. The Reserve’s priorities set out in its Strategy for 2022-2027 include:
- Popularization of knowledge and understanding of cultural heritage;
- stimulation of the conscious tourism development;
- ensuring the preservation of traditions through research and innovative approaches to the presentation of heritage;
- Strengthening local entrepreneurship and promoting the investment attractiveness of the area.
The territory of the reserve has a number of important advantages, in particular:
- geographical location: only 20 km from the center of Lviv, a city with a population of about 750,000 people with annual tourist turnover about 2 million people; it’s also on the way to well-known and promoted tourist magnets of Lviv region, in particular, Svirzh, Zolochiv, Olesko, and Pidhirtsi castles;
- transport infrastructure: good road infrastructure (recently repaired roads) connects it with Lviv, and it can also be easily reached by public transport;
- exposition offer – thanks to an innovative approach and the support from UCF, virtual tours of medieval Zvenyhorod were created in the past years; they are part of the reserve’s tourist product now;
- territorial offer – the area of the reserve is more than 31 hectares, which are currently free from construction; the territory was partially landscaped with EU funds in 2019-2020, which makes it a good venue for large-scale open air events
