Lutsk seems cosy and unhurried, but behind its old walls lies one of the most fascinating museum routes in western Ukraine. Here a medieval castle sits next to Jesuit dungeons, ancient icons next to 20th-century avant-garde, and the house where Lesia Ukrainka once lived still keeps the atmosphere of her family.
Most of the museums are concentrated in the Old Town around Lubart's Castle, so the route is easy to walk. Two contemporary museums are located on the outskirts, in the Adrenaline City complex.
Under martial law, museums may change their opening hours, so it is worth checking the latest information on their official pages.
1. Lubart's Castle and the Bell Museum
Lubart's Castle in Lutsk. Photo: DonSimon, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 1a Kafedralna St.
The best place to begin a tour of Lutsk is Lubart's Castle, a brick fortress with three towers embraced by a loop of the Styr River. Its silhouette is so recognisable that it even appears on the 200-hryvnia banknote.
Several exhibitions are housed inside the towers. The most unusual is the Bell Museum in the Bishop's Tower, the only one of its kind in Ukraine, with bells from Volyn, Poland, Austria and other countries. Below is a recreated castle prison, above is an armoury with 15th–17th-century weapons, and in the warm season the Styr Tower with its battle galleries also opens to visitors.
2. Art Museum
Courtyard of Lutsk Castle, home to the Art Museum. Photo: Xsandriel, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 1a Kafedralna St. (Lutsk Castle grounds)
Right on the castle grounds is the Art Museum, which holds one of the finest collections of Western European painting in Ukraine. The core of the collection came from the former Radziwiłł gallery in Olyka.
Among the gems of the collection are “Saint Jerome” by Jusepe de Ribera, the only work by this Spanish master in Ukraine, a canvas by Nicolas Poussin and Josef Neugebauer's double portrait “The Sisters”, which has become the museum's emblem. Polish, Ukrainian and Volyn artists are also widely represented.
Please note: the main collection was evacuated at the start of the full-scale invasion, so the halls now host temporary exhibitions, including works by Lutsk artists.
3. Volyn Regional Museum
Volyn Regional Museum, 20 Shopena St. Photo: Yurii Fetysov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 20 Shopena St.
The oldest and largest museum in Volyn tells the story of the region in all its dimensions. Its collection numbers more than one hundred and forty thousand items, and the exhibition fills more than two dozen halls.
Minerals, herbaria and animal collections sit here alongside archaeological finds, folk costumes and everyday objects of Volyn people. The museum is lively: it hosts quests and master classes in the “Ptakha” workshop, while the “Museum Courtyard” is used for art events.
4. Museum of the Volyn Icon
Museum of the Volyn Icon. Photo: Vishchun, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 5 Yaroshchuka St.
This museum is dedicated to the Volyn school of icon painting, and its collection includes more than one and a half thousand works of sacred art. The exhibition shows how the images of saints and the style of Volyn masters changed over the centuries.
The main treasure of the collection is the Miraculous Icon of the Mother of God of Kholm, a Byzantine work of the 11th–12th centuries. It is one of the oldest icons in Ukraine, and people come to the museum from all over the country to see it.
5. Korsaks Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art
Korsaks Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, second floor. Photo: Vishchun, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 1 Ivana Korsaka St. (Adrenaline City complex)
On the outskirts of the city is the largest museum of contemporary Ukrainian art. Its three floors hold more than eight hundred works by over a hundred artists: painting, graphics, sculpture, video art and installations.
The highlight of the collection is considered to be Oleksandr Arkhypenko's early sculpture “Nude”. Alongside it are Lviv modernists, Soviet-era nonconformists and postmodernists, among them Vlodko Kaufman and Yuri Izdryk. The museum also has cinema halls, a library and a café, so visitors come here for the whole day.
6. Museum of Technical Progress
Museum of Technical Progress. Photo: Vishchun, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 1 Ivana Korsaka St.
Next to the Korsaks Museum is a museum devoted to the history of technology. It displays old calculators, radios and mobile phones from the early 2000s, along with modern robots.
Many of the exhibits are interactive, which makes the museum especially popular with families with children. The exhibition clearly shows how inventions step by step changed people's everyday lives.
7. Dungeons of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul
Winter church in the dungeon of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. Photo: Vishchun, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: Kafedralna St., Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul
Opposite the castle rises the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, and beneath it stretches one of the largest dungeons in Ukraine. It was built by the Jesuits, and some of its passages remain unexplored to this day.
Underground lie an old chapel, wall paintings, burial crypts and the tomb of the young wife of a Lutsk commandant. There is also a well into which, by tradition, people throw coins for luck. The labyrinths can be explored on a guided tour booked on site.
8. Lutsk Brotherhood History Museum
Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, next to the Lutsk Brotherhood History Museum. Photo: Yurii Fetysov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 5 Yova Kondzelevycha St.
Next to the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in the premises of a former monastery, the museum tells the story of the Lutsk Brotherhood of the Exaltation of the Cross. It was founded to revive the Orthodox Church after the Union of Brest, and Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky was among its members.
The exhibition preserves monastery furniture, church objects, early printed books from the brotherhood library and documents revealing the everyday life of the brotherhood. Among the heroes of the story is Halshka Hulevychivna, founder of the Kyiv Brotherhood School. Visitors can also see the crypts of the church.
9. Pharmacy Museum
Pharmacy Museum, 11 Drahomanova St. Photo: Xsandriel, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 11 Drahomanova St.
One of the oldest pharmacies in Lutsk still keeps the spirit of past centuries. Its laboratory once used more than two hundred species of medicinal plants to make ointments, tinctures and syrups, and later it sold mineral water from its own artesian well.
Lesia Ukrainka came here for medicine more than once. The historic building and the atmosphere of old-time pharmacy make it one of the cosiest stops in the Old Town.
10. Lesia's Living Room Museum
Information plaque on the Kosach House, home to the Lesia's Living Room museum (cropped photo). Photo: Bukovynka, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Address: 23 Drahomanova St.
Near the castle stands the house where the Kosach family lived at the end of the 19th century. It was Lesia Ukrainka's last home in Lutsk, and her father had his official apartment on the second floor.
The small Lesia's Living Room museum recreates the atmosphere of the poet's family home. The same building houses the administration of the Old Lutsk reserve, where tours of the Old Town and the cathedral dungeons can be booked. Visits to the museum are by prior arrangement.
Together, the ten museums of Lutsk form a complete story of the city: from a princely castle and ancient icons to bold experiments of contemporary art.
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