Don't leave town until you've seen this amazing cemetery only a short ride on tram 7 from the centre. This is the Père Lachaise of Eastern Europe, with the same sort of overgrown grounds and Gothic aura as the famous Parisian necropolis (but containing less-well-known people). Laid out in the late 18th century, it's packed full of west Ukraine's great and good. Pride of place goes to the grave of revered nationalist poet Ivan Franko.
Other tombs belong to Soviet gymnastics legend Viktor Chukarin, early 20th-century opera star Solomiya Krushelnytska, and some 2000 Poles who died fighting Ukrainians and Bolsheviks from 1918 to 1920. There's also a memorial to the Ukrainian insurgent army (UPA), who fought for independence against both the Nazis and Soviets and a section for the victims of Stalin's famine in the 1930s. However the most moving part of the cemetery are the fresh graves of local soldiers and volunteers killed in the war with Russian-backed terrorists in Ukraine's east, many bearing the photos of their often youthful occupants.
A good strategy is to combine a trip to the cemetery and the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life. The cemetery is one tram stop past the stop for the open-air museum.
