Cultural heritage of the Cherkassy region as a tourist resource

Abstract

The article is about historico-cultural reserves of the Cherkassy region that are considered as the main centers of the cultural heritage. It is about general and specific problems related to applying of the cultural heritage in tourism, and about the ways of their solution.

Cultural heritage of the Cherkassy region is mainly seen in terms of its protection and preservation. At the same time, problems and possibilities of its involvement in tourism activities are often overlooked.

Cultural heritage of the Cherkassy region can be divided into three main groups: the objects, which are involved into tourism processes, and are protected by the state law (the first group); historical and cultural objects that are untapped into tourism processes, but are in good condition and have large chances to become a touristic object (the second group); objects of historic or cultural value, which are under the threat of destruction, and are unknown to the general public (the third group). This article takes up the reserves of the Cherkassy region as the main centers of the cultural heritage of the region, as well as the ability to engage this heritage in tourism. So the article is about cultural objects of the first group.

The most famous cultural sites of Cherkassy region belong to the state and national historico-cultural reserves. There are eight historico-cultural reserves in the Cherkassy region: five of them are state reserves and the other three are national reserves. The negative aspect is that the main focus of reserves is aimed at the protection and preservation of cultural heritage, rather than on their popularization and engagement in the touristic sphere.

The general problems of historico-cultural reserves which, complicate the development of tourism, are: lack of developed hotel infrastructure, poor condition of the roads (that prevents the reserves from becoming the objects for tourism, and make of them good objects just for excursions); lack of proper attention to the cultural heritage sites as touristic objects. The reserves serve just as a place for protection and preservation and they lack the touristic activities; no general advertising of these reserves. Their presentations occur only twice a year in Kiev; lack of young experienced guides; wooden architecture of Cherkassy region is not popularized enough; lack of the unified brand concept of Cherkassy region on the Ukrainian and world touristic market, which could reflect the originality, uniqueness and holistic picture of the region (emblem, logo, name); poor development of event tourism. The cultural heritage sites needs reviving through animation activity, event tourism, insufficient amount of animation programs; closing of the state program "Golden Horseshoe of the Cherkassy region", failure to comply the revival of the historical and cultural centers of Cherkassy region. The current regional program "Tourism Development Program of the Cherkassy region for 2012-2020 years" has a narrowed strategy; lack of funding from the national treasury reserves; lack of proper supervision of foreign guides, restrains filling of the local budget.

After this, the article reveals specific problems of each of the reserves of the Cherkassy region: National historico-cultural reserve "Chigirin", State historico-architectural reserve "Stara Uman", State historico-cultural reserve "Trakhtemiriv", "Kamianka State historico-cultural reserve", "Korsun State historico-cultural reserve", State historico-cultural reserve "Trypillian culture", Shevchenko National reserve, National reserve "Taras Shevchenko’s Homeland".

The development of the "cultural tourism" or "heritage tourism" should be the solution of those problems. Cultural heritage should become the core of tourism in the Cherkassy region, because this area is relatively depressed for the development of the other types of tourism, which requires strong logistics and health resort infrastructure.

On the other hand, the absence of such a large-scale architecture, as in the western Ukraine and Kiev can be compensated by untouched nature of the area. This peculiarity of the area can be turned into an advantage through the development of "green" tourism or ecotourism. For example, creation of the network of small hotels (40 rooms) in places which have a cluster of objects of cultural heritage. This way cultural heritage, its natural surroundings and hotel infrastructure will combine. The last is principal to the development of tourism in the region. The banal reason for the backwardness of the economy in the region, which has a strong cultural heritage, is that tourists do not leave money in the places they visit, as they do not stay there for the night.

The region has all the resources and conditions for the development of "event" tourism, which is still underdeveloped. Doroshenko’s Bastion and Posolskaya street in Chihirin, Trypillians housing in Legedzino, old houses of "Shevchenko’s places" – all of which can be and should be used in the spectacular views of tourism, to "revitalize" heritage, in order to make it attractive.

As practice shows, the local lack of initiative of tourism development is the main problem (not a lack of financial allocation of state or local budgets). Engaging of local art groups staging, musical accompaniment, organization of various activities, events and competitions – all these requires relatively small efforts of local communities and lead to a revaluation of the cultural heritage, its "revival" and to the growth of interest in it by the native and foreign tourists.