A Place Like No Other in Ukraine: Welcome to Vyhoda Narrow Gauge Railway Heritage Centre

The Tourist Association of Ivano-Frankivsk Region developed the tourist attraction that might change the future life of the local communities around it.

The oldest narrow gauge railway in Ukraine located in the Vyhoda village in Dolyna District, Ivano-Frankivsk Region, is the local communities’ pride and a wonderful occasion for tourists to visit Vyhoda and the area around it, to explore the local nature and culture and enjoy active recreation. A several-hour tour on the Carpathian Tram has been the favourite pastime for tourist groups for a long time already. However, this unique local attraction did not become a key tool for the development of the local communities (villages of Vyhoda, Staryi Mizun, Novyi Mizun, Vyshkiv and others). To ensure tourism development in the area around Vyhoda, the narrow gauge railway visitors should be encouraged to stay here for at least one day, to be accommodated in the local B&Bs, to taste traditional local food, to pay for the services of local guides, experts in forests, bogs and Boykos’ traditions. Such visitors usually plan their tours independently (families, individual tourists or small groups) and have nothing to do with organized groups that come to Vyhoda in separate buses and leave it in the same organized way on the same day. As a rule, they are already accommodated in health resorts or recreation centres quite far away.

So how can one encourage tourists to stay in Vyhoda? What can become an additional reason for them to come here, besides the Carpathian Tram? What resources does the local community have to create new tourism products? These and many other questions were faced by the TAIF team when some enthusiasts from Vyhoda asked them for help in planning the prospects for the development of Vyhoda Narrow-Gauge Railway…

Our team studied the situation in Vyhoda and came across a surprising discovery. With a unique building built as early as 1855 – a former residence of the Vyhoda Narrow Gauge Railway founder, the Austrian baron Leopold von Popper, – the community actually possessed a significant resource that was till then unused. Not so long ago it was a forsaken building in a deplorable condition. In Soviet times the house was turned into a mass culture club. Such transformation was harmful to the building, half of which stood empty for 30 years. The other half still belongs to the town library. It was only in 2008 that the two rooms were repaired and transferred to the local police department. Yet, the building was not much used even after that and by 2013 it was falling apart.

The building was constructed like to organize there a heritage centre of the oldest operating narrow gauge railway in the Carpathians and thus, eventually, to achieve the desired community tourism development. Establishment of the Heritage Centre has become one of the objectives of the project ‘Carpathian Heritage Railways’ implemented by the Tourist Association of Ivano-Frankivsk Region in November 2013 – December 2015 with the support of European Union in partnership with Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration, Vyhoda Village Council and Maramures Mountain Nature Park Administration, which sucsessfully manages the old Mocanita Steam Train running through the narrow gauge railway in the mountain Carpathian village of Viseu de Sus.

Thus began the history of the interactive interpretative visitor center – Vyhoda Narrow Gauge Railway Heritage Centre – in the small village of Vyhoda that day by day is becoming more known among visitors and more necessary and important for the target and neighboring communities.

The project carried out the reconstruction of the building, development of the conceptual design for interpretative exposition, prodused interactive stands for the Centre devoted to the Vyhoda nature, history and cultural heritage of local narrow gauge railway – a ‘must visit’ on the itinerary of all visitors to Ivano-Frankivsk Region.

An integral part of the exhibition is a unique film specially prodused, translated and recordered within the project in 5 languages. The film is being broadcasted in the modern cinema hall. Only in the Centre visitors can see this 30-minute film that takes a viewer through the entire process of the area development from prehistory to the present day.

Центр може надавати усю необхідну інформацію про місцеві атракції, допомагати у бронюванні житла чи орендувати спорядження для активного туризму. У крамниці центру можна придбати мапи, іншу інтерпретаційну літературу, автентичні карпатські сувеніри. При центрі навіть створена природнича школа для юних відвідувачів, щоб його діяльність не припинялася у період міжсезоння.

Within the project framework, the TAIF experts developed a business plan for the Heritage Centre, conducted a market research to promote the attraction and held training for the local providers of tourism services and the Centre personnel. In the business plan they identified the main services for visitors, calculated the maximum load and the economic effect for the community of Vyhoda. It was the business plan that helped the Heritage Centre team to have a successful start and gain the desired economic effect already in the first three month of work.

Once this attraction had come into being, it encouraged the local community to create new tourism products: Vyhoda State Forestry soon opened an alley of fairy-tale characters in the park opposite to the Heritage Centre, Vyhoda Village Council resurfaced the embankment of the local rivers of Mizunka and Svicha. Tourists accommodated in the local cottages spend at least a day of their stay to visit the Heritage Centre and thus to use the tourist services in local communities longer. Owing to the Centre, new tourist routes will appear in the future. The Centre has also become an example of a successful private and public partnership that may be followed in other communities in the future, and not only in Ukraine.

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