TOUR DETAILS
"Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated." (Wilde)
One or two travellers: €90
Add €40 per additional traveller
Meets at 1045am
Departs at 11am
Duration is about 3 hours
Meeting point map
Every day exc. 25/12, 01/01
Taxi connections included
Local expert Lviv tour guide
Veteran of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Ukrainian to English translator (if required)
TOUR OVERVIEW
Some say there is no escaping a Soviet past, and that is true for hundreds of Ukrainian cities where thousands of people live in quasi-cacotopic blocks of flats, one indistinguishable from the next, ad infinitum. Let's explore Soviet Modernism in Lviv, aka Brutalism.
You might have seen them on TV, the grey buildings that house most of Ukraine. Typically ten or so levels of colourless misery, these are the result of Khrushchev's khrushchevkas.
On December 7th, 1954, Nikita Khrushchev called for an overhaul of Soviet architecture to replace the post-war communal flats where families were forced to live together in ghetto-like conditions. How ironic.
These were his khrushchevkas, five floors of prefabricated concrete, linoleum, and nothing else. Tens of thousands of khrushchevkas are still occupied today, and a similar number of the colourless ten storey tower blocks that followed in the 1960s and 1970s have come to define urban Ukraine.
The teetering, glazed "balconies" that resemble garden sheds allow the world to see another world of other people's laundry. Not pleasant. For many Ukrainians, their "balkon" is closet space. The horror.
This lingering Soviet legacy is ugly as Hell, but we don't tour the tower blocks, we just pass them by to deliver an insight on how Soviet, russian standards still blight the lives of many Ukrainian people.
We focus on the standalone examples of Soviet Modernism in Lviv, and there are some truly brutal examples in our city. One Pinterester has described a Socialist Modernistic edifice in Lviv as "Architecture of Doom". We go there, naturally.
It has to be said that the Ukrainian construction and property development sector has always had an eye for the main chance. Rampant profiteering, especially in wartime, has become another new normal. Swathes of Lviv have become building sites and corruption is rife.
Our cowboys haven't stopped and will never stop building 21st. century kruschevkas, the only difference this time around being coloured bricks instead of grey, a gym somehere inside and a kids creche, if you're lucky. Easy money. Ah, Ukraine.
Brutalist Lviv reveals Soviet Lviv and is guided by a local expert Lviv tour guide, a veteran of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a Ukrainian to English translator (if required). Your veteran guide will imbue Brutalist Lviv with his or her personal reflections about pre-war life in Lviv, fighting in the war against russian terrorism, and since returning home.
Connections by taxi are included, as brutalist sites in Lviv are located in different suburbs.
REQUEST TOUR
We take card payments over the phone (call direct / WhatsApp call) or you can pay in cash (USD, euros, sterling) to your guide on the day.
✍ by In Lviv Tours on March 7th, 2025.