THE KRYVCHYTSKY MASSIF OF LVIV: IT’S SOCIO-HISTORICAL AND GEO-TOURISTICAL ATTRACTIONS, PROSPECTS OF COGNITIVE EXCURSIONS

The article describes the tourist potential of the Kryvchytsy microdistrict, located near the densely populated city of Lviv. Possibilities of combining socio-historical and natural-geographical tourist attractions in tour routes have been clarified. Socio-historical attractions related to medieval and modern sacred architecture, archeological artifacts, places of residence of famous people, the Holocaust monuments have been explored. A part of the socio-historical attractions of Kryvchytsy is connected with the heritage of the railway industry of the beginning-middle of the XX century. This is a serpentine-shaped railway, which shortly overcomes a 100 meters’ tall path that goes on top of arched bridges, through a car highway, near river flows that started their existence in the Austrian period in Lviv, some railway bridges that were built in the Polish period and the huge iron bridge that was constructed in the Soviet period. The high bridge-like structure is also valuable as a good spectating point of landscapes. The authors believe that the resumption of railway traffic on this branch of the track for tourist needs would be economically viable if we implemented appropriate advertising, gastronomic, entertainment and other attractions. We explored the natural-geographical monuments that have the value of the geo-heritage objects, compositions of geo-sites and geo-morphosites. They illustrate the geological history of the territory (a typical section of the Cretaceous-Neogene rocks), geomorphological features of the hills-remnants and varieties of modern geomorphological processes. Along with geo-tourism objects, the islands of unique phyto- and zoo-cenoses were described as a place that started it’s existence only because of the conditions of the urban region, as well as a good source of drinking water. There were also shown the needs of learning and exploring the geo-touristical objects. On the basis of the conducted scientific researches of social-historical and geo-touristical attractions two cognitive and local lore routes are formed by the Kryvchytsy massif which unites the modern traditions and tendencies of development of the local lore in excursion activity. Authors have developed a map with a trek of sightseeing tour routes for guides from Lviv to use it. A lot of attention is paid to the greening of tourism, the balance of socio-historical and natural objects of excursions, the health component of the organization of the tourist process.Key words: socio-historical attractions; geo-heritage; geo-sites; geo-morphosites; the Kryvchytsia microdistrict in Lviv.