Kryvorivnya, located on the territory of Ivano-Frankivsk region, is not afraid of oblivion or depression, which affected other Ukrainian villages lost between the Carpathian ridges. The village is distant by a distance of exactly 7 «sacral» kilometers from Verkhovina, and it is divided into equal parts by Black Cheremosh, the beloved child of Cheremosh and Prut, paying their water tribute to the Black Sea itself.
Kryvorivnia was founded in the XVII century by the Hutsuls, the most colorful Carpathian ethnos. The village got its name because it follows all the curves of the Black Cheremosh valley, but this village gained its fame and status of the unofficial capital of the Hutsul region thanks to its special atmosphere. Its good energy attracted here the best representatives of the Ukrainian people, starting from the leader of the oprishki Oleksa Dovbush and ending with the first president of the UNR — Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Therefore, the appearance of Ivan Frank — the Great Kamenyar in these parts was only a matter of time.
The house, where Ivan Franko lived in Kryvorivna and hosted the whole color of Ukrainian intelligentsia of the beginning of the XX century, has no address. First of all, you should look for it in the village Moskalivka, and secondly, every local resident will be honored to show or guide your guest to this Carpathian landmark. Don’t forget that you are in Ivano-Frankivsk region, in the fiefdom of the main Ukrainian revolutionary Kamenyar.
Frank’s house-museum has the status of a literary-memorial museum. It is a wooden hut, a reconstructed house of Vasil Yakibyuk. Ivan Yakovlevich rented a room from him for 10 years during the summer period, restoring his health in Kryvorivna from the exhausting work in the Lviv edition of «Pravda» and participation in the activities of the National Democratic Party. During his summer relaxation, Pan Dzhejalik, one of the poet’s pseudonyms, explored the surrounding area, visited the fortress «Tustan», went around all the surrounding ridges, in search of legends, but found only hard metaphors, urging the people to chop the rock, throwing off the fetters of power.
Bearing in mind the friendly relations that connected the best and most progressive minds of Western Ukraine, the creators of the state history and heroes of today’s school textbooks: Lesya Ukrainka and Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Volodymyr Shukhevych and Mykhailo Kotsyubinsky came to visit Frank and his wife Olga Khorunzhynska. Having never regained his health, Velyky Kamenyar died in 1916. And in 1960, this literary memorial was created in the house, in the village that gave him temporary peace and respite, on the initiative of Platonida Hotkevich and Mr. Lazarenok, the rector of the University of Frankivske.
Five rooms of the museum are dedicated to the memory of Ivan Frank and his friends. When you come to Kryvorivna, you will see a bed, a desk, a Hutsul axe and personal belongings of the poet. Many exhibits of this museum were used in the filming of the movie «Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors» by Sergei Parajanov, who also «celebrated» in Kryvorivna. One of the most interesting exhibits in the museum is a stove created in 1874 and covered with author’s tiles by the master Oleksa Bakhmatyuk.
Since the museum is a literary museum, no one found it shameful to give the sixth room of the house to the works of a local resident — Paraska Plitka Horytsvet, who collected manuscripts, illustrated and bound books.
The Ivan Frank House Museum is one of the most important cultural attractions of the Carpathians. It regularly hosts poetry readings of works by Ukrainian revolutionaries and excursions for schoolchildren visiting the Carpathians. Let the strong energy of Kamenyar, local molfars, ancestral spirits and the nervous lines of Ukrainian poets sublimated in the valley of the Black Cheremosh pull you from vacation in Verkhovina and show you the best of what the Ukrainian land is rich in!