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It is the largest city in western Ukraine and the capital of Lviv Oblast . As of 2022 , the population is 717,273, making it the fifth largest city in Ukraine and the largest city in the west.[7]

Since its founding in the 13th century, the city has had a turbulent history in which its owners have changed several times, and its name has also changed to Lvov, Lwów, and Lemberg. Although the city was founded by the Ruthenians , due to the long period of Polish rule, much of the influence of Polish culture remains. However, because Lviv, along with Kiev , functioned as the center of the Ukrainian national movement for a long time, many Ukrainians considered it their spiritual and cultural capital, and Lviv is still a major cultural center for Ukrainians. Despite its turbulent history, the old town has been miraculously preserved and traces of the fusion of various cultures remain, so UNESCO , recognizing its historicity, designated the entire 120-hectare old town as a World Cultural Heritage in 1998.

In French and English , it is written as Lviv, Lvov, Lwow, etc.

Lviv has been the center of Red Ruthenia and Galicia since its founding in 1256 . It was alternately ruled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , the Kingdom of Poland , and the Habsburg Empire. During this period, Poland's rule was particularly long.[8] , As Polish people , who began settling in the city during the Kingdom of Ruthenia, became the majority of the city, it was largely Polishized, so it has a somewhat differentiated appearance from other Ukrainian cities, including Kiev . Even after losing their country , Poles made up the majority of the city's population and turned Lviv into the cultural center of Poland. However, since Jews and Ukrainians also occupied a significant portion of the city at the same time, Lviv also served as their cultural center and, in particular, the home of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. As nationalism spread, Poles and Ukrainians began to fight over the city's identity.

If Lviv's modern history was the history of the rise and fall of a glorious multi-ethnic nation, modern history was, as mentioned above, the history of the coexistence and conflict of two peoples without a nation. Throughout this history, Lviv was a city of longing for Ukrainians, and as the possibility of the city finally returning to Ukraine grew after the war, Ukrainians flocked to the city, and now the overwhelming majority of the city's population is Ukrainian. Considering this historical fact and the fact that current Ukraine has long been at odds with the pro-Western faction in the west and the pro-Russian faction in the east, Lviv is one of the cities with the strongest Ukrainian nationalism in Ukraine, despite its short history as the majority of the city is comprised of Ukrainians.

The name of the city changed frequently as rulers called it in their own language. Ukrainians called it Lwów, Poles called it Lwów, and Austrians ( Germans ) called it Lemberg.[9] , Russians call it Lvov (Львов). The Latin spelling is Leopolis, and in Spain and Italy it is called Leópolis and Leopoli in their native language.

It is believed that there has been a village in this area since the 6th century , but Lviv's history as a city began in 1256 when Danil of Galicia, king of Ruthenia, established a city in this area . The city was named after Danil's eldest son, Lev. In 1260, not long after it was built, Lviv was invaded and destroyed by the Mongolian imperial army led by Burundi. In 1270, Danil's successor Lev rebuilt the city and made Lviv the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia ( Kingdom of Ruthenia ). There were few cities in the Ukraine at the time, and Kiiu, which until recently had been the largest city , virtually disappeared due to the invasion of the Mongolian army led by Batu Khan in 1240. Lviv functioned as the largest city and trade center in the region and became the home of numerous merchants, including Germans and Armenians . The population also increased significantly as large numbers of Poles who fled from Krakow , which was suffering from famine at the time, settled in Lviv.

In 1323, when the Ruthenian Rurik Dynasty ceased to exist, this area was given to Bolesław Jerzy II of Masovskaya, a member of the Piast Dynasty .[10] After his assassination , King Kazimierz III of Poland at the time claimed that the rights to the region belonged to Bolesław's cousin, but the local nobles elected Dmytro Dedko as their leader. An indignant Kazimierz III invaded Galicia, but Dedko successfully repelled the Polish invasion with support from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . Only after Dedko's death in 1349 did Kazimierz III gain all of Galicia, including Lviv (Lwów).

In 1356, Kazimierz III granted the city urban privileges under the Magdeburg Laws. Citizens who were able to establish a city council and separately elect a mayor accelerated urban development. Lvouv is a city located in the middle of the Black Sea and Baltic Sea trade circles, connecting the two trade circles and becoming a wealthy city as numerous goods passed through it. The city gradually became an international city where various peoples and religions coexisted, and as a result, a Latin- speaking Catholic cathedral, an Armenian Apostolic Church , and an Orthodox cathedral were all built. Ukrainian Greek Catholic[11] , Roman Catholics, and Armenian Catholics all had archbishops in the city. In the early 17th century, Lwów, with a population of 25,000 and 30 artisan guilds, was the largest city in the federation, along with Gdańsk and Kraków . During this time, the city was well fortified and Lvouf became the main defensive line in the southwestern part of the Confederation.

As the decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth accelerated after the mid-17th century, Lwów also had to fight several defensive battles. At a time when the Commonwealth was being ravaged by the Great Flood , a Cossack uprising broke out in the Zaporizhia region of Ruthenia, making the city a major target for the rebels. In 1649, it was attacked by Cossack rebels led by Bohdan Khmelnitsky, but did not fall. Subsequently, the Swedish army, which invaded the Commonwealth in 1655, came down to Lwów and laid siege to the city, and the King of the Confederation, John II Kazimierz Vasa, who was in crisis at the time , strengthened his will to defend the country by coronating the Black Virgin of Czestochowa as the protector and queen of Poland at the Lwów Latin Cathedral . Perhaps thanks to this determination, Lwów did not fall even after a year of siege, and the tide of the war turned, and the Federation began to drive out the Swedish army from various places.

The following year, Lvouf was attacked by the Principality of Erdei, but it did not fall either. In 1672, Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire invaded the Commonwealth, and Lvouf was also placed under siege, but held out until the end of the war. The Confederacy lost the war, but the city did not fall. Three years later, the Ottoman Empire, which judged the Union to be weakened, invaded Poland again, but Poland-Lithuania was crowned with a new Polish king, Jan III Sobieski , who had been elected in 1674 . The Ottoman Empire's army again besieged Lwów, but on August 24, 1675, John III defeated the Ottoman army with a much smaller force near the city, allowing the Ottoman army to retreat and recover some of the territory it had lost in the defeat three years earlier. Despite numerous sieges, the city remained loyal to the Union until the end and was never captured, so the city's new motto was Semper fidelis (Always loyal). However, in 1704, during the Great Northern War , the King of Sweden For the first time in history, it fell and was plundered by the Swedish army led by Charles XII .

Although the national fortunes of the Federation declined, Lebuf had little experience of being captured, and the city was still developing as many new buildings were built. When the decline of the Commonwealth accelerated and the First Partition of Poland took place in 1772, Lewow (Lemberg) was incorporated into the Habsburg Empire along with much of the Commonwealth's Galician territories .

Lemberg became the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia-Lodomeria, a constituent country of the Habsburg Empire. At first, the rule of the Habsburg monarchy was not coercive, and Lemberg's first newspaper was published in 1773. In 1784, the university, which had been closed for a while due to partition, reopened and lectures were conducted in Polish , Latin , and German . However, from the 19th century, Germanization of the city progressed, criticizing the incompetence of local nobles. Accordingly, educational institutions began to use only German, and as a significant number of Germans and Czechs immigrated to the city, the city was divided into Polish-Ukrainians and Germans around 1840. In the city, a policy favoring Germans was implemented. Due to these actions of the Habsburg royal family, Lemberg participated in the revolution that spread throughout Austria in 1848 and rebelled against Germanization. The surprised Habsburg royal family allowed Polish and Ukrainian language education to resume in Lemberg after the revolution subsided. During this period, due to the special circumstances of the city, the Lwów dialect, which can be called a Polish dialect, was created. Habsburg rule became increasingly loose, and in 1861 the Galician Council was created in the city.

In 1866, as the Austrian Empire suffered from a serious threat of nationalism after its defeat in the Prussian-Austrian War , Galicia, along with the lands of other conquered peoples of the empire, was granted extensive autonomy starting in 1867. Germanization was halted, Polish was again used as the city's main language, and censorship of the press was canceled. At the same time, the city was made beautiful. Many new buildings were built, and the Polish-Ukrainians of Galicia, who were not averse to the rule of the Habsburg Dynasty, also built many Austrian-style buildings. New buildings harmonized on the foundation of a prosperous city from the past to form an urban area. The atmosphere of the Belle Epoque that spread throughout Europe at the end of the 19th century spread to Lemberg as well, leading to great cultural development, with new theaters being opened in the city. Along with Cracow , also in Galicia, Lemberg functioned as a cultural and political center for Poles under Austrian rule. The city was a stronghold of not only Polish but also Ukrainian nationalists. Ukrainians also made up a significant portion of the city's population and preserved their culture. The Russian Empire , which occupied most of Ukraine, banned the Ukrainian language and did not grant autonomy and cultural freedom to Ukrainians, so many Ukrainian nationalists moved to Lemberg. In this way, Lemberg of the Austro-Hungarian Empire became the world's largest collection of Ukrainian cultural heritage. Additionally, Ukrainian nationalist organizations were established in various fields such as economy, culture, and politics. By this time, Jews also made up a significant portion of the city's population, and together with Cracow , it became the Jewish cultural center of Galicia. The world 's first Yiddish daily newspaper was published in Lemberg.

However, apart from cultural growth, the city was suffering a major economic blow. At the time, Austrian Galicia was one of the poorest regions in Europe. Even after the division of Poland, the power of the nobility and landowners was still strong, so various waves of reform did not reach this area, education for farmers was not well provided, and the area itself was so barren that farming was not successful. Due to the failure to build a transportation network connecting the center of the empire and Galicia, Galicia became increasingly isolated and the benefits of trade diminished. The Austrian government was unable to show much interest in industrialization due to various domestic problems, and Galicia did not receive even that little attention. Poverty in Galicia, which had previously been chronic due to poor land, reached its peak at the end of the 19th century.

As a result, more and more Galician peasants flocked to Lemberg, and the city's population increased greatly for this unfavorable reason. It had a population of about 30,000 at the time of the partition, but by 1910 it had grown to 196,000, making it the fourth largest city in the empire after Vienna , Prague and Budapest . However, the city was not given the opportunity for industrialization and lost the title of trade center. Unlike Warsaw , which was ruled by the Russian Empire , and Posen , which was ruled by the German Empire , which grew economically through industrialization, the Poles of Lemberg were struggling economically instead of gaining autonomy, freedom, and their culture.

In September 1914, Russia, which was pushing Austria during World War I, occupied Lemberg. However, in June of the following year, Austria recaptured the city and succeeded in defending it during the Brusilov Offensive . When the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire became certain, local Ukrainians became independent on November 1, 1918, creating the Western Ukrainian People's Republic and making Lemberg its capital. On January 22, 1919, the Zluky Agreement (Акт Злуки) was signed with the Ukrainian People's Republic, which governed central Ukraine, and merged with each other.

However, there were problems with the independence process. The Poles, who made up the majority of the city, also tried to secure the city and eastern Galicia and attach themselves to the new Poland, which soon led to conflict with the Ukrainians. However, Ukrainians who had a military organization took control of the city, and the city became the territory of Western Ukraine. Shocked Poles staged an armed uprising on the day of Western Ukraine's independence. The Ukrainian garrison of 1,400 men, mostly teenage peasant children, was unable to stop the uprising, and the Poles took control of most of the city and massacred about 340 Ukrainians and Jews who supported them. He then implemented oppressive rule, including shutting down and arresting all Ukrainian organizations. Meanwhile, on February 14, 1919, the new Polish Army invaded Western Ukraine to aid the Poles of Lviv. Western Ukraine requested Ukraine's support, but Ukraine responded lukewarmly because it viewed Soviet Russia as its main enemy rather than Poland. Above all, Ukraine was also invaded by Soviet Russia on January 7th and the capital Kiev was occupied on February 5th, so it was not in a situation to support Western Ukraine. Even in this situation, Western Ukraine, which had the strongest military among the Ukrainian armed forces at the time,[12] It showed its ability to withstand Poland for nearly nine months, but in the end, all of eastern Galicia and Lviv were occupied and virtually destroyed. The Western Ukrainian government defected to the Ukrainian People's Republic on July 16.

However, Ukraine, which was on the verge of destruction due to the invasion of Soviet Russia, tried to get help from Poland in the Great Soviet War, and Eastern Galicia became a victim of the trade between Poland and Ukraine. On April 21, 1920, the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic signed the Warsaw Treaty with the government of the Republic of Poland , recognizing eastern Galicia as Polish territory and receiving military aid from Poland in return.[13] Poland's intervention in Ukraine served as an opportunity for the Soviet-Polish war to escalate from a common border dispute to a full-scale war between Poland and Soviet Russia. Belarus, where the conflict had been fought before, was a poor, barely developed wasteland, while Ukraine was a region with relatively advanced development, fertile land, and industrialization centered on the east compared to Belarus. And Poland aimed for Ukraine's independence, and Russia was never willing to tolerate Ukraine's separation.[14] The Polish-Ukrainian alliance recaptured Kiev in May 1920, but was soon forced back west by Soviet Russia's counteroffensive, and Lviv, a city that Joseph Stalin coveted for his military service , came under attack by Soviet Russian forces commanded by Alexander Yegorov and Semyon Budyny starting in July 1920 . However, as Soviet Russia's Western Front Army was destroyed in the Battle of Warsaw in mid-August, the power to attack Lviv weakened, and the Soviet Russian army attacking Lviv was also defeated by a counterattack by the Polish army in late August and withdrew.

Afterwards, with the Treaty of Riga ending the war with Polish victory, Lwów, along with eastern Galicia, again became Polish territory and became the capital of Lwów County. During the interwar period, Lwów was the second most important economic center after the capital Warsaw.[15] A major trade fair spanning Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union, Targi Wschodnie (Eastern Fair), has been held in Lwów every year since 1921. By 1931, the city's population reached 310,000, of whom 63% were Polish, 24% Jewish, and 11% Ukrainian. The Polish government discriminated against Ukrainian citizens. Ukrainian schools were closed and there were no Ukrainians on the city council. Perhaps in an attempt to provoke Ukrainians, the city council held a parade to commemorate the Poles' victory over Ukrainians in the war of 1918-1920. Ukrainians did not sit still. The Ukrainian nationalist group (Організація Українських Націоналістів, ОУН) , founded in Vienna in 1929, also had influence in Lwów, where it assassinated the city's Polish police chief. This was the beginning of tragedy in the city during World War II.

In fact, Lwów during the Second Polish Republic was a very poor area. This is because the Austro-Hungarian Empire neglected the development of Galicia because its internal circumstances were complex enough to make internal development difficult. Moreover, Lwów was located near the border between the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Therefore, the Habsburg royal family further neglected Lwów. For this reason, Lwów in the Second Polish Republic was the poorest region in Poland, along with Lublin , despite the Polish government's efforts to develop it. At that time, Poland was divided by the Vistula River into the 'rich regions west of the Vistula River, called 'Poland A' (representatively Gniezno , Katowice , Warsaw , Krakow , Łódź , Poznań , etc.) and the 'poor regions, east of the Vistula River, called 'Poland B' (Lwów, Lublin , Wilno , Brzeszcz , Białystok , etc.). Lwów was the largest city in 'Poland B'. Therefore, the city of Lwów was the largest target for the Polish Peasant Party, which called for socialist land reform at the time. The Polish Peasant Party received support from Jews and Poles, but insisted on discriminating against Ukrainians. Józef Piłsudski , a centrist anti- communist and federalist, drew a line with the Peasant Party. Piłsudski also tried to lead the Ukrainians and Germans in Lwów, but Piłsudski was not very popular in Lwów.

Lwów was attacked by the German 1st Mountain Division on September 12. At the time, Lwów was a gateway to the border between Poland and Romania, so the Polish command ordered Lwów to be held until the end to allow the Polish army to withdraw from Romania. Accordingly, Lwów was attacked by the German army for over a week, and on September 20, the Soviet army , which arrived in Lwów , took over the position from the German army and attacked Lwów. Finally, on September 21, the city surrendered to Soviet forces. Lwów became part of the Ukrainian People's Republic after the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland along the Curzon Line . The Soviet army occupying Lvouv used the justification of protecting Ukrainians in the city, and for this reason, Ukrainians welcomed the Soviet army's occupation of Lvov. However, the Soviet Union oppressed both Poles and Ukrainians, and in 1940 alone, about 30,000 Poles and Ukrainians were driven out of the cities and transported to the interior of the Soviet Union.

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Lviv experienced great hardships. At first, Ukrainians welcomed the German invasion. They recalled the days of Austrian rule and believed that Germany would provide the same tolerant policies and liberate them from Polish and Soviet rule. After the city fell to Germany on June 30, the OUN declared the restoration of the Ukrainian national government in Lviv , along with a unilateral declaration (in their own words) "to cooperate with Hitler 's Nazi Germany in creating a new order in Europe." However, the Nazis wanted the Ukrainian National Mission in Lebensraum , and were not interested in the liberation of Ukrainians. Instead, in September, they arrested all high-ranking OUN officials, such as Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stechko, and sent them to concentration camps. Going underground, the OUN became more extreme and formed the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which began fighting against both Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. Nazi and nationalist forces were harsh on both Poles and Ukrainians, including the execution of Polish intellectuals and random roundups. This was a much more systematic and barbaric ' genocide ', or genocide, than the Soviet rule.

However, they did not suffer as much as the Jews. Lwów is the third-largest Jewish community in Poland after Warsaw and Łódź, and the city's Jewish population swelled to about 110,000 just before the war. After Germany occupied Poland, many Jews from western Poland escaped to Lwów, and the Jewish population just before German occupation reached a whopping 220,000. However, when even Lwów was occupied by Germany, a terrible fate awaited these Jews. The SS commander stationed in Lwów was an SS group leader who was one of the most notorious killers.[16] It was Fritz Katzmann . Germany, which occupied the city, first incited that Jews had cooperated with the NKVD when it carried out massacres in political prison camps and that most of the victims were Ukrainians. Of course, in reality, Soviets, Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews were all victims of the NKVD genocide. However, Ukrainian nationalists, swayed by the instigation, began killing Polish, Jewish, Russian, Belarusian people in Lwów, Ukrainians with mixed blood, and Ukrainians who opposed the massacre. The massacre was carried out using all the weapons available to the locals, including guns, clubs, and knives. At the same time, the Einsatzgruppen also massacred the city's Jews, killing about 10,000 Jews in less than a month. History refers to this as the Lviv pogroms , and unlike the massacre of Jews in other parts of Poland, it was differentiated in that local people mainly committed genocide.

On November 8, a ghetto was created in the Zamarstiniv district, a suburb of Lwów, and approximately 120,000 Jews were housed in the ghetto. To move to the ghetto, Jews had to cross the Pełtewna Bridge, and the SS on this bridge shot the elderly and disabled people who walked slowly on the spot, and it is said that about 5,000 Jews died on this bridge. As in other ghettos, conditions in the Lwów ghetto were extremely dire, and the Jews in the ghetto received only 10% of the German food rations and many died of starvation. In the four months leading up to the first transfer to the extermination camp, 10,000 people died from disease and starvation. The Lwów ghetto was one of the ghettos with the fastest rate of deportation to the extermination camp, and in March 1942, 15,000 Jews were deported to the Belzec extermination camp . Then, in August, about 50,000 more Jews were deported to the Beuzec concentration camp, and in January 1943, under the orders of Fritz Katzmann, about 20,000 Jews and all Jewish police officers were shot to death near the city. In June 1943, the Nazis decided to abolish the ghetto, but the remaining 12,000 Jews hid in shelters hidden within the ghetto, and some put up fierce resistance. The Nazis massacred them indiscriminately and burned their hiding places, burning many Jews alive. Only a very small number succeeded in escaping through the sewers, and only 823 Jews survived the Lwów ghetto until the end of the war, according to data from the Lwów Provisional Jewish Committee.

In June 1944, the Soviet Union's Bagration started to collapse all the German troops from Poland. As the Soviet troops entered the Polish territory, the Polish exile government in the UK is to recapture major polish cities before the Soviet army and establish a Polish independent state. Ordered to cause an uprising. As a result, Lebuf also had armed uprisings on July 21, 1944, with the PPP's flagship Polish domestic troops (ARMIA Krajowa (Sokkim)), and after the four -day battle, the domestic troops succeeded in liberating the city. Thus, the tragedy of the Nazi and the nationalist in Lebio ended.

Despite postwar British and Polish restoration efforts,[17] The city became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. All of the city's Poles were expelled, and the exiles settled mainly in Poland's newly acquired German territories.[18] After the war, Lvov, like other regions of Ukraine, underwent coercive Russification, but after Stalin's death, this policy was relaxed and Lviv resumed its function as the cultural center of western Ukraine. During the 1950s and 1960s, the city's population increased significantly again as numerous factories and power plants were built in the city. Among these was the Lvov Automobile Plant , which employed as many as 30,000 workers and produced most of the buses supplied to the Soviet Union. Industrialization gave the city economic power, but it erased some of the city's Western flavor. In the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union implemented reform and opening policies, Lviv became the center of the Ukrainian People's Movement (Народний Рух України, Рух), which demanded Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union. In this process, Ukrainians became the majority of Lvov's population.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Lviv returned to the embrace of Ukrainians after about 600 years as a city of independent Ukraine. The city remains a major cultural center in Ukraine and has a Western-style downtown with Polish and Austrian influences while preserving Ukrainian culture. In 1998, UNESCO designated the entire Old Town of Lviv as a World Cultural Heritage site, recognizing that the cultures of Eastern and Western Europe harmoniously blended together and that this city has historically been a cultural center for many peoples. When the eastern part of the country, including Kiev, was plunged into chaos by the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Lviv was largely unaffected due to its location far to the west and its overwhelming Ukrainian population.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Lviv was subjected to Russian air raids and turned into a battlefield. Lviv has many Ukrainian nationalists and is also a place with strong antipathy toward Russia, as western Ukraine itself was under Russian (Soviet) rule for a short period of time. Still, because this area was relatively backward, missions such as recruiting reserve forces and volunteer troops were being carried out, and if Kiiu fell, there was a high possibility that it would become the temporary capital.

Perhaps because it serves as an accumulation point for Western supplies, Russia is persistently attacking the city with missile attacks, and with civilian casualties occurring, it is difficult to say that the city has escaped the effects of war. Similar to Busan during the Korean War , many easterners immigrated to Lviv from the war zone in the east to escape the war, causing problems as the population expanded beyond the city's infrastructure. Easterners also have a different language from westerners.[19] I'm in trouble.

Even so, since it is still the last resort , it cannot be denied that Lviv was one of the most peaceful Ukrainian regions during the Russian-Ukrainian war after the Russian army withdrew from Kiev in April . The video in question is truly ironic, considering that at the moment when Lviv was enjoying the peace of everyday life, the Ukrainian and Russian troops were engaged in a bloody battle over Severodonetsk and Lyschansk in the east. In this way, it can be said that the situation is sharply different between western Ukraine, including Galicia , which was the center of anti-Russia but, conversely , was located in the far rear and enjoyed peace when attacked by Russia, and eastern and southern Ukraine, which were the center of pro-Russia but were betrayed by Russia and became a living hell.

As the war continues, Ukraine's economic center is gradually moving to Lviv. # The Russian POW camp is also located here.

On July 6, 2023, the Russian military launched a large-scale missile attack, killing and injuring more than 40 people and partially destroying historical buildings in the buffer zone in the old town of Lviv.

On March 24, 2024, when the Ukrainian military's large-scale re-infiltration of Belgorod during the Russian presidential election ended in complete failure and an air strike was launched on the Crimean Peninsula, about 14 Tu-95MS launched cruise missiles at Lviv in retaliation, and were attacked by about 20 cruise missiles and 7 Shahed suicide drones. #

In September, the Russian army again occurred, and there was a tragedy of four families, including mothers and three daughters, except their father. #

On March 24, 2026, a Russian Shahed drone attacked the World Heritage Site Bernardine Church in Lviv, causing significant damage. #

Lviv is a city whose old town and cultural heritage are so well preserved that it has been listed as a World Heritage Site. The modern city center of Lviv retains much of the old town, making it convenient for short-term sightseeing. Two days and one night is enough to see the major tourist attractions. Lviv has historically been greatly influenced by Poland and Austria, so it has a similar atmosphere to Krakow, the ancient capital of Poland. It is recommended that you include a ballet viewing in your tourist course. At the Lviv Opera and Ballet Theater, you can see high-quality ballet with admission fees ranging from 3,000 won in Korean currency to around 20,000 won for the best seats. However, like other theaters in Europe, there is no performance schedule from mid-July to mid-August.

Compared to Kiiu, overall prices, including lodging, are much cheaper. As of January 2019, lunch sets at city hotel restaurants cost only about 100 hryvnia (4,000 won). The city's security is generally stable, and pickpockets are rare.[20] You don't have to worry too much about the language because English is spoken in retail stores and restaurants targeting tourists.

Compared to its historical importance, Lviv is relatively less well-known. This is because Ukraine is a relatively unfamiliar country to Koreans and the political landscape is unstable, so it is not in the spotlight as a tourist destination. Therefore, although there were a certain number of European tourists in Lviv, it was very difficult to find Asian tourists, including Koreans. And when the Donbas War broke out in eastern Ukraine , the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs designated the entire Ukraine as a travel restriction zone, but did not classify the western part, including Lviv, which is quite far from eastern Ukraine, even though the impact of the war was relatively small.[21] Because of this, obtaining travel insurance has become quite difficult, and most travel insurance companies no longer accept applications for travel insurance for the entire Ukraine. Ultimately, with the outbreak of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a travel ban was imposed on the entire Ukraine, making it nearly impossible for Koreans to travel to Lviv at the moment. It will likely take a considerable amount of time for the true value of Lviv to become known to Korean tourists.

Lviv is a place in Ukraine where Ukrainian nationalism is the strongest and anti-Russian sentiment is also one of the strongest places in Ukraine.[22] This is because , unlike other regions of Ukraine such as Kiev , Kharkiv , Donetsk , and Odessa , western Ukraine, including Lviv , was never under Russian rule until 1939. So, before annexation by the Soviet Union, there was no history of living together with Russians or speaking Russian. Since the period of Russian rule was not long, even now, if you move a little to the outskirts of the city, Russian is not spoken.

Likewise, Russia also feels some kinship with the people in the central and eastern regions of Ukraine, which it has ruled for a long time, but regards the people in the western regions as completely strangers. In fact, while invading Ukraine, they even offered an appeasement measure by saying that Poland would be given control of western Ukraine. From a Russian perspective, there is a prejudice that the western region is pro-Poland, but Ukrainian nationalists are not friendly towards Poland either. This is because they were treated poorly even when they were under Polish rule.

Svoboda, a far-right political party with anti-Polish and anti -Russian tendencies , has high approval ratings, and former Polish President Bronisław Komorowski was attacked by a far-right youth while visiting western Ukraine.

In particular , after the Euromaidan Revolution, regional political parties such as the Ukrainian Galician Party emerged.

When Volodymyr Zelensky swept the entire country of Ukraine in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election runoff , it was one of the few regions where Petro Poroshenko won along with overseas nationals. Because of Ukrainian nationalist tendencies, they did not like President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was of Jewish descent and whose mother tongue was Russian. However, President Zelensky's approval rating rose significantly as he showed his determination to fight without taking refuge even in a situation where Kiev was about to fall immediately after the Russian army invaded in 2022 .

It is not easy to get. If you take a train, there is a route from Krakuf and Budapest to a direct line. The train departing from Krakuf is about 7 hours and a half, including a border check, which runs around 4 am every day. There are two trains departing from Budapest in the morning and arriving in the evening, and the night trains that arrive in the early evening and arrive the next morning. Of course, in other cities in Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, you can check your timetable and transfer properly, but you should only write a day. As a result, Krakupal route is the best, but even the cheapest price is about 50,000 won. There is also a much cheaper night bus from Krakuk. Of course, the traffic schedule changes slightly every year, so you need to find out before departure.

If you visit Labiu City by flight , Turkiye It is recommended to go to Lebiu City by direct flight to Turkish flights through Istanbul Airport . Although there is a Pegasus flight that flights directly flights to Lebiu at Istanbulsabihachen International Airport, it is a bit embarrassing to use Sabiha Chen Airport for Koreans.[23] There is also a way to move from Barsawa to Lot from Lot to Lebio. In addition, if you are heading to Le Biu City by flights in other countries and other cities, it is also a good idea to move via Kiyu through Ukrainian International Airlines .[24]

It takes about 17 minutes to take a taxi when you move to the city center from the airport. If you don't want to spend more than five times the taxi fare, you must catch a taxi with Uber or Yandex app.[25] Taxi drivers in Ukrainians say that Ukraine or Russian tourists and English -speaking tourists are seen as Hugu, and even many writers who follow the body of foreign female passengers in a taxi alone.[26]

Donetsk -based FC Shakhtar Donetsk has been playing its home games in Lviv instead of Donetsk since the eastern Donbass region has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014 due to the Donbass war in the aftermath of Euromaidan .

Due to the characteristics of western Ukraine, where industry is not developed and agriculture is the main industry, university students from all over western Ukraine flock to Lviv. Even if you don't know any Ukrainian , you can communicate in the city center using only English . It is said that there is a perception that Lviv is a den of hipsters as its citizens have a strong pro-European tendency and it is the center of the IT industry in Ukraine. #

Classic actor Paul Muni , film director Andrey Julski , and writer Leopold von Zamazoch was born here.

As it is the center of western Ukraine, many countries moved their embassies to Lviv when the 2021-2022 Ukraine war crisis erupted. Countries confirmed to have moved diplomatic activities to date include the United States , the Netherlands , Australia , Germany , the United Kingdom and Canada . Korea also opened a temporary embassy office in Lviv, but withdrew as the situation worsened. The Korean Embassy returned to Kiiwu on April 30. #