Bird's Eye Views of the Ukraine

Take an aerial tour of the Eastern European nation of Ukraine in this phenomenal reel by Tempostudios.  You will be carried along for bird's eye views of some of the most spectacular sights of this fascinating country.  Highlights include some amazing shots of the capital city Kiev and some of its great cultural and historical treasures such as St. Andrews Church and the massive Rodina Mat statue, as well as some aerials of the fabled Ukrainian countryside.  This film was a Drone Video of the Week nominee in March, 2019.

While the Eastern European nation of the Ukraine has many cultural and historical ties to Russia, both the landscape of the country and its people are quite distinct.  It is a country of large cities like Kiev, spectacular peaks of the Carpathian Mountain range in the southwestern part of the countries, and gorgeous Black Sea coastlines in its far south.  Contributor Anthony Esteban Gonsales does an outstanding job of using a drone to create a deeply moving aerial portrait of this amazing country.

The most prominent landmark in the Ukrainian capital Kiev is the Rodina Mat, a giant steel monument overlooking the Dneiper River.  The statue commemorates the USSR's victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 against Nazi Germany.  While recent laws have required many Soviet era monuments to be destroyed, World War II monuments are exempted.  Here is Tempostudio's drone video of the immense statue, which is now seen as recognition of Ukraine's immense contribution to the Soviet victory.

Behold this aerial video of one of the most well known castles in the Ukraine.  Contributor Martini flew a drone over Pidhirtsi Castle, which is situated in the oblast (province) of Lviv in the western part of this giant Eastern European country.  The castle was constructed in the 17th century, at a time when the western part of what is now Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  The castle was near the front during much of World War I, and shortly thereafter saw fighting during the Polish Civil War.

Kharkiv (Kharkov) is the second-largest Ukrainian city after Kiev, and the largest in its eastern half.  A relatively young city by European standards, Kharkiv is the country's largest industrial center.  You can take an aerial tour of the great city of the Donets River Basin in this excellent drone video by SlavBrovko; highlights include the ferris wheel of the Gorky Central Park at the :20 mark, the Palace of Industry building (Derzhprom) on Freedom Square (:50), the Dormition Cathedral (1:20), and more.

The Ukrainian capital Kiev is closely tied to the Dneiper River on which it sits.   Kiev sits roughly midway down the 2.2k km (1.36k mi.) river, Europe's fourth longest .  The Dneiper rises near Smolensk in western Russia and empties into the Black Sea to the south.  Along the way, it provides enough hydropower to generate about 10% of the Ukraine's electricity needs.  In this video, you'll get a nice bird's eye view of the mighty river in winter, compliments of contributor Anthony Esteban Gonsales.

Upon gaining its independence (again) following in the early 1990's, Ukraine became one of the largest countries in Europe, comparable to France in both population and geographic extent.  It's a land of large cities, countless smaller towns, and diverse natural scenery.  Contributor Vasylkevych flew a drone over the length and width of this amazing country to create a remarkable aerial portrait of the Ukraine, which was produced in connection with an article in a major travel magazine and website.

Berdyansk is a Ukrainian port the Sea of Azov, a large and extremely shallow body of water which is considered to be an extension of the Black Sea.  While not as large as the port of Odessa further to the west, Berdyansk is nevertheless an important shipping center in the southern Ukraine, which otherwise lacks access to the sea.  In this video, contributor and pilot Daniilsamoilenko uses a DJI Phantom 3 drone to do an epic selfie pull out shot revealing the red sand beach and the blue sea water behind it.  

The great Carpathian Mountain range of Central and Eastern/Southeastern Europe faintly resembles top part of a "?" shape, beginning just east of Vienna (Austria), serving as the border between Poland and Slovakia, then "looping around" through the southwestern corner of Ukraine before heading south into Romania.  In this drone video by Tempostudio, you'll get a bird's eye view of Carpathian Ukraine, which features a landscape in vivid contrast to other parts of this vast East European country. 

The Carpathian Mountains of Central and Eastern Europe form an arc which juts eastward starting around the Austrian capital city of Vienna.  The portion of the arc where the range turns southward (towards Romania) sits in the southwestern portion of the Ukraine.   The mountains make this one of the most visually distinctive region of this Eastern European country.  This is the area which you'll see in this marvelous aerial video by contributor and drone pilot Antonio Esteban Gonzales, specifically the area from Yasinya to Lake Dogyaska.

Simplistically, the economic georgraphy of Ukraine is an agricultural western half and an industrial eastern half.  The Donbas region of eastern Ukraine is home to vast coal reserves, and while coal production has declined steeply since the demise of the USSR the region still has maintained a strong industrial base which in large measure evolved from its coal production.  Arsen Poshotian created this beautiful drone video from the heart of the Donbas, which is named for the Donets River which flows through it.  

Vinnitsa (Vinnytsia) is a mid-sized city in the Podillia region of north central Ukraine.  It's part of the Ukraine which has, at various times in its history, been part of neighboring Poland.  In this video, contributor and pilot Alpa Karagulle used a drone to capture the water tower which figures prominently in the cityscape of Vinnitsa.  The highly stylized video provides a great look at not only the tower but also the town itself, a very well preserved example of a medium sized Eastern European city. 

Berdyansk is a port city in the southeastern Ukraine.  It sits on the Sea of Azov, a shallow body of water which is an extension of the Black Sea.  In this highly cinematic video, content creator and drone pilot Antonio Esteban Gonsales flew a DJI drone over a lighthouse on the sea during the depth of winter.  The highly stylized video does an impressive job of capturing the bleak but beautiful expanse of this semi frozen inland sea, part of what was once the most important waterway in the world.

The southwestern corner of the Ukraine presents a radically different landscape from most of the rest of the country.  Here the Carpathian Mountains swing from an east-west axis to a north-south orientation, in the process covering three of the country's oblasts (provinces) with its gentle peaks.  The heart of this area is Bukovel, which features some of the country's most spectacular scenery as well as its busiest ski resort.  Check it out from this beautiful drone video, taken during the golden Autumn.  

Ivana Kupala is an ancient Eastern European festival held in mid-summer.  The annual celebration is observed in many areas of the region, namely in parts of the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Russia.  Tied to the summer solstice, Ivana Kupala occurs the night of July 6th/7th on the Eastern Orthodox calendar, which correspondes to June 23rd/24th on the Gregorian calendar. Contributor and pilot Valerii Iavtushenko flew a drone over an Ivana Kupula celebration in the Ukraine to make this amazing aerial video.  

Here's a bird's eye look at what is generally considered to be the Ukraine's most famous castle.  Palanok Castles (also called Mukachevo Castle) is situated in the Zakarpattia oblast, the southwesternmost province of the country.  Sitting atop a volcanic hill near the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, the castle dates to the 14th century.  Fortified in several stages, it was used as a pan-European prison following the fall of the Bastille in Paris during the early days of the French Revolution. 

Check out this haunting but fascinating drone video from the scene of one of history's greatest industrial accidents, compliments of David.Haring.  The northern Ukrainian city of Pripyat was built in the 1970's in connection with the construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.  When the plant's #4 reactor core exploded on April 26, 1986, the city's 50,000 inhabitants were evacuated.  The disaster is credited with thousands of cancer deaths and contributed to the downfall of the USSR in 1991.

Lviv is the largest city in the western part of the Ukraine, and the seventh largest overall in this Eastern European country.  Prior to World War II, Lviv was part of Poland, whose borders were shifted to the west as part of the postwar settlement putting Lviv in what was then the USSR.  While the inhabitants of the city suffered untold horrors during the war, the city center itself was left largely intact.  In this video by YoungPilot, you'll get a great bird's eye view of this important cultural city.  

While much of the Ukraine is part of the Eurasian Steppe, its southwestern corner is covered by a portion of the Carpathian Mountains range.  These graceful forested mountains provide some of the most spectacular scenery of Eastern Europe.  In this video by Jdjdjdjdjddj, you'll get a bird's eye view of the area around Dzembroyna.  The beautiful town enjoys the distinction of being the highest village in the entire country.  It's in the Ivano-Frankivsk province, not far from the Romanian border.  

Content creator and pilot IvanUA made the most of an unplanned detour to create this beautiful drone video of the Zhytomyr Oblast in the Ukraine.  This province sits in the north central part of the Eastern European country, along the border with Belarus to the north.  The oblast (province) was the subject of ongoing (and frequently bloody) struggles between the Russian and Polish/Lithuanian Empires before Poland was eventually partitioned out of existence at the end of the 18th century.  

While most of the Ukraine is flat, its southwestern corner of this large Eastern European country is covered in medium sized mountains.   Here can be found the country's tallest mountain: Mt. Hoverla, which stands 2,060 meters (almost 6.8k ft.) above sea level.  Hoverla is part of the Beskids Mountains, a subrange of the great Carpathian chain which extends across portions of central, eastern, and southeastern Europe.  In this video, you'll get a bird's eye view of Mt. Hoverla, compliments of contributor Nebomriy.

The Cossacks are a semi-nomadic people from southern Russia and the southeastern portion of the Ukraine, in the valleys of the great rivers of the region.  There is a fair amount of disagreement as to their origins in about the 13th-14th centuries; the areas from which they emerged were invasion zones from the Eurasian steppe for centuries and there had been much ethnic intermixing as a result.  In this video, contributor Bezha27 uses a drone to tell a story about the origins of these proud people.  

Check out these lovely aerial views from the western Ukraine, compliments of contributor martini.  The area filmed is a rural area in the Lviv Oblast, the westernmost of Ukraine's 24 regular provinces.  The watchtower here is indicative of the strategic importance of the region, which is considered the gateway to the Carpathian Mountains and which has changed hands many times.  It became part of the Ukraine when Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union at the outset of World War II. 

The Motherland Monument (Rodina Mat) is an immense statue in Kiev, Ukraine.  Part of the Museum of the History of the Ukraine in World War II, the statue is a memorial to the many millions of Ukrainians who died during the Great Patriotic War (as World War II is generally known in the former Soviet Union).  In this video, contributor and pilot Alp Karagulle used a drone to create a stunning aerial perspective of this monument, which is still standing after most Soviet-era statues have been removed.  

St. Andrews Church is one of the most important in Kiev, a city known in part for its churches and monasteries.  It was constructed atop a prominent hill in the middle of the 18th century.  The church commemorates St. Andrew, who is alleged to have visited the site of the city on the Dneiper River in the first century AD.  It continued to hold services even during the worst period of Stalinist religious repression in the 1930's.  Today the church is considered one of the top 2-3 tourist spots in the city.  

Odessa is the main seaport of Ukraine, and one of the largest on the Black Sea.  It's spread out over a length of coastline of the country's third-largest city, on the west side of Odessa Bay.  Together with its satellite ports, it's the largest Black Sea port for handing liquid and dry bulk cargo; it's also home to one of the seas's largest passenger terminals.  In this drone video by smakozawr, you'll get an aerial tour of the port, with a focus on its most modern facility: its containerized cargo terminal.  

Contributor Valerii Iavtushenko created this beautiful drone video of the important Ukrainian city of Poltava.  The capital of the eponymously named province, it's situated in the east-central part of the country.  The city is situated on the Vorskla River, a major tributary of the mighty Dneiper River.  Poltava dates to the 12th century.  The city was the site of a decisive victory in 1709 by Tsar Peter the Great's forces over Sweden during the Great Northern War, clearing the way for Russian domination of Eastern Europe.   

Contributor Drozd used a DJI Mavic Pro drone to create this stunning early-morning aerial video of a Ukrainian Castle.  Svirzh Castle is a structure which originally dates to the 15th century.  It is situated in the Lviv Oblast (province), which is in the far western part of the country.  This is the part of Ukraine which historically was part of Poland and was ceded to the Ukraine (then part of the USSR) after World War II.  The castle spent several centuries in a ruined state before being restored in the 20th century.  

The Sea of Azov is a northeastern extension of the Black Sea, shared by the Ukraine and Russia.  Fed by two of the most important rivers in Eastern Europe (the Don and Kuban), the Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world - its average depth is only 1-14 meters (3-45 ft.) depending on the season and river intake.  In this video, you will get a bird's eye view of the frozen Azov Sea, compliments of contributor and pilot danielsamoilenko.  The video was filmed around the Ukrainian port of Berdyansk.  

Contributor and drone pilot Tempostudio created this drone video of Dnipro, the fourth largest city of the Ukraine.  As the name suggests, the city lies on the banks of the Dneiper River, the country's most important waterway.  It is situated in the great eastern bend of the river, about 400 km (around 240 mi.) southeast of Kiev.  The city became critical to the military-industrial complex of the USSR during Soviet rule, and continues to be one the country's most important manufacturing centers. 

Check out this very creative dronie from a wheat field in the Ukraine, compliments of contributor Energy Butterfly.  Once known as the Breadbasket of Europe, the Ukraine suffered massive declines in agricultural productivity during Soviet times.  In the past couple of decades though Ukrainian wheat production has staged an amazing comeback: in recent years, its annual exports have been approaching 20 million tons.  The country is now amongst the world's top half-dozen wheat exporters.  

Check out these stunning aerial views of a well-known park in the Ukraine, compliments of contributor and drone pilot Dann.  It's called Sofiyvka Park, and it located on the outskirts of Uman, a medium-sized city in the Cherkasy Oblast in the central part of the country.  The park is one of the most popular attractions in the region, attracting about 500k visitors annually.  Established in 1796, the park is home to about 2,000 species of trees and brush.  It's considered one of the leading parks of its kind.    

Content creator and pilot Vasylkevych created this stunning drone video of a now-abandoned military base in the Carpathian Mountains of southwestern Ukraine.  "Pamirs" served as an air-defense base for the Soviet Union, of which the Ukraine was part for most of the 20th century.  The base is located atop Hutyn Tomnatyk, a 2k meter (about 6.6k ft.) peak of the Chornohora region.  Upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, hundreds of military bases in the former Soviet Republics were similarly abandoned.  

Check out this drone video of a well-known castle in the western Ukraine.  It's called Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle, and it's located in the historical region of Podolia that covered parts of western modern-day Ukraine and parts of Moldova.  The castle was built in the 14th century, when the region (indeed much of Eastern Europe) was under the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.  It later became important to the outer defenses of the successor prot-state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Take a look at this excellent 60 second drone video showing the landscapes of the heart of the Ukraine.  Apart from the corner of the country which is covered by the Carpathian Mountains, most of this giant land is covered by the great Eastern European Plain.  This great flat expanse is interrupted by the great cities which dot this country of over 40 million, as well as areas of forests and lakes.  Much of it though is under agricultural cultivation, giving rise to the Ukraine's nickname: the Breadbasket of Europe.  

Contributor and drone pilot ukrainian created this aerial film of the churches of Kozelets, a town in the northern Ukraine.  Kozelets is part of the Chernihiv Oblast, which covers much of the north-central part of this Eastern European country.  The town dates to the 11th century and was once an important Cossack outpost.  The video features the town's main attraction, the 18th century Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin church, as well as Saint Michael's Church (built in 1784) and Ascension Church (1866).

Ukraine's Donbas Region is named after the Donets River, a major Don tributary which runs through the eastern part of the country.  The Donbas is closely associated with a single commodity: coal.  At their peak in the 1970's, the Donbas coal mines produced over 200 million tons of coal annually.  Due to a combination of political and economic factors, Donbas coal production is now less than 20% of its peak.  In this drone video by smakozawr, you'll get a bird's eye view of this legacy: an abandoned coal mine and its giant excavators.  

For a first upload to AirVuz, Travel Highlights brings us this excellent mini aerial tour of the Carpathian region of the Ukraine.  The great mountain range covers the southwestern corner of this large Eastern European country, covering parts of four oblasts (provinces): Zakarpattia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Chernivtsi.  Covering only a very small percentage of the country's land area of over 600k square km (just over 200k square mi.), Carpathian Ukraine is generally considered the most beautiful region of the country.

Check out this amazing aerial view of a shipwreck in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, compliments of AirVuz contributor and drone pilot Iafar.  Odessa is major seaport on the northern side of the Black Sea.  The largest city in the southern Ukraine, it's sometimes called the Pearl of the Black Sea for its beauty.  Once the most important body of water in the world, the Black Sea is home to countless shipwrecks. This one is unusual in that it occurred so close to shore; most of the ships which have sunk in the Black Sea have never been found.  

Here's a haunting yet fascinating aerial tour of the site of one of history's great industrial disasters: the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the town of Pripyat in the Ukraine.  Commissioned in 1977, the giant plant's No. 4 reactor exploded in 1986, spewing a huge cloud of radioactive material across the western part of the then-Soviet Union and all the way into Western Europe.  The town of Pripyat, which had a population of 50k, was permanently evacuated and will likely never be re-occupied.    

4K Aerial Photography created this beautiful drone video of Kharkov, the second largest city in the Ukraine.  Lying more or less due east from the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev, Kharkov is the most important industrial city in the country.  Founded as a fortress, the city was the site of multiple bloody battles in World War II (the Great Patriotic War) and it saw thousands of its citizens starve to death.  In this video, you'll get a bird's eye view of the great city in the depths of the Ukrainian winter.  

In this chilling yet thorough aerial tour of the Chernobyl disaster site - courtesy of drone pilot Smakozawr - remnants from the nuclear accident on April 26, 1986 are seen in the plain light of day. The video shows many facets of the destruction, including the abandoned city of Pripyet, founded solely to serve the plant, the plant's train station, which was instead used for rescue and evacation in the days after the accident, and a car cemetary, the only conceivable method for disposing vehicles forever tainted by radioactivity.