Is Kharkiv Interesting for a Foreign Traveler?

Kharkiv is the largest city in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine and the sec­ond largest city in the coun­try, with a pop­u­la­tion of over 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple. In this arti­cle, we will try to ana­lyze whether the city is inter­est­ing for a West­ern tourist and what you should look at while plan­ning your trip. In the past few years, the city has opened up to for­eign tourist flows thanks to the emer­gence of West­ern low-cost air­lines that allow you to trav­el at a very rea­son­able price.

The city is locat­ed in the north­east of Ukraine. Kharkiv may seem very alien to West­ern trav­el­ers because of the Cyril­lic alpha­bet. It would be very help­ful to learn how to read the Cyril­lic alpha­bet before com­ing to Ukraine, although many road signs on build­ings are now also writ­ten in West­ern Latin let­ters. Gen­er­al­ly, Kharkiv res­i­dents speak both Ukrain­ian and Russ­ian, as the city is locat­ed only 30 km from the Russ­ian bor­der, but in most cas­es, peo­ple mix the two lan­guages ​​togeth­er. Eng­lish is spo­ken poor­ly, and most often by young Ukraini­ans.

Kharkiv Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (IATA: HRK) is locat­ed 12.5 km south­east of the city cen­ter and is served by a num­ber of air­lines:

• Atlas­glob­al
• Belavia
• LOT
• Pega­sus
• sky up
• Turk­ish Air­lines
• UIA (UIA)
• Wizz Air

How to get to the city from the airport

By bus: Bus­es 115 and 119 to Prospekt Gaga­ri­na metro sta­tion, cost 10 UAH. By minibus (minibus): Minibus­es 255 and 152 to the metro sta­tion “Akademi­ka Barabasho­va”, cost 10 UAH. By trol­ley­bus Trol­ley­bus 3 to the cin­e­ma “Zir­ka”, cost 5 UAH.

Renting an apartment in Kharkov

The most prof­itable option for liv­ing is rent­ing an apart­ment. You can rent an apart­ment in Kharkov for a day using the dai­ly rental ser­vice. Prices for apart­ments are on aver­age 50% low­er com­pared to hotels, which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the bur­den on the bud­get dur­ing trav­el.

What is the best way to get around the city

The metro is the fastest and eas­i­est way to get around. About a mil­lion peo­ple use it every day — this is the most con­ve­nient pub­lic trans­port in Kharkiv. There are three metro lines (red, blue and green). To enter the Metro, you need to buy a token from the vend­ing machines you will see at the entrance. One token is valid for one trip, no mat­ter how far you trav­el or how long it takes. You need to put a token in the turn­stile to get inside. Make sure you go through the cor­rect side of the turn­stile oth­er­wise you might get hit by the inner met­al gates.

Interesting sights of the city

• Chil­dren’s rail­way, Gorky Park. Oper­ates from May 1st to Octo­ber 31st. The length of the road is 3 km
• Dol­phi­nar­i­um Nemo, Sum­skaya street, 35, week­days, hours 10:00–19:00, Sat­ur­day, 10:00–21:00
• Kharkov Art Muse­um, st. Sov­narko­movskaya, 9, apt. 11 — great col­lec­tion, help­ful staff, out­dat­ed tick­et­ing sys­tem means you may need mul­ti­ple tick­ets to gain access to all rooms, but prices are still very low.
• Kharkiv His­tor­i­cal Muse­um, st. Uni­ver­sitet­skaya, 5 (the new main entrance on Con­sti­tu­tion Square is not yet open as of March 2018). An excel­lent col­lec­tion of arti­facts from pre­his­to­ry to the present day, the exhibits on the upper floors are ded­i­cat­ed to World War II and the cur­rent war in Don­bass.
• Kharkiv Zoo (Zoo), Sumy 35 (st. M. Uni­ver­si­ty), 08:00–20:00. Kharkiv Zoo is one of the largest and most famous in Ukraine. It is locat­ed in the very cen­ter of the city in Shevchenko Park. This zoo cov­ers a large area of ​​22 hectares.
• Cen­tral Mar­ket Pisunkovskaya street, near the metro sta­tion of the same name. Here you can wan­der through the stalls of the his­toric mar­ket hall sell­ing a vari­ety of fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles, mar­vel at the vari­ety of meat prod­ucts avail­able, and explore the out­door mar­kets.
• Kharkov Opera and Bal­let The­atre, st. Sumy, 24
• Free­dom Square (Inde­pen­dence Square) is one of the largest squares in the world. Locat­ed in the city cen­ter. Thanks to the con­ve­nient loca­tion in the cen­ter, you will be more com­fort­able to explore all the city’s attrac­tions.