Water Museum in Kyiv: Water Information Center

The Water Information Center, or the Water Museum as Kyivans call it, is a one-of-a-kind attraction where visitors can learn about the Earth's water resources and how to use them wisely, because water is, above all, life. The museum's main mission is to tell people about the Earth's hydrosphere, Ukraine's water resources, their vulnerability and importance for life, the technologies used to prepare safe drinking water in centralized water supply systems, sewerage and wastewater treatment, and sensible ways to use water.

The Water Information Center opened on May 24, 2003, on the initiative of the Kyiv City State Administration and with support from the Danish government. The museum occupies the restored buildings of Kyiv's first centralized waterworks, built in 1872–1876 to a design by the well-known architect Alexander Schille.

The tower that houses the museum entrance was built in 1876 and reconstructed in 2003 according to the original drawings, including the restoration of its fire lookout.

The main exhibition is housed in a former underground clean-water reservoir built in 1909. It was designed by Danish designer Carsten Møller. The exhibition is located underground and features huge aquariums, an elevator in the vaults, a working model of an artesian well, a giant toilet, a sewer collector and a fairy-tale grotto with a waterfall and even a real thunderstorm with rain, thunder and lightning.

You can also learn the story of the city's centralized water supply, launched in 1872, and the history of Kyiv's water supply as a whole, which operated in Podil from at least 1636.

The Water Museum is divided into seven themed exhibition zones:

1. "Nature on the Earth's Surface." Here you can learn about the water resources of the Earth and Ukraine and how human activity pollutes them. Everything is presented on display boards with photographs and text, along with models and an aquarium.
2. "Nature Underground." Here visitors can learn about the structure of soil layers and their role in purifying water, the age and movement of groundwater, and old and modern methods of finding and extracting artesian water.
3. "Water Intake, Treatment and Transportation." This exhibition introduces the history of water supply systems in the world and in Ukraine, Kyiv's water sources, the process of treating surface water, and how water travels from the treatment plant to a consumer's apartment.
4. "Water Use." At the entrance, visitors are greeted by a chart comparing daily water consumption per person in different countries. Here you can also compare Ukraine's sanitary standards for water quality with those of the World Health Organization.
5. "Plumbing." This zone displays examples of modern toilets and cisterns and shows a map of the city's main sewer collectors, with information on the length of Kyiv's sewer network.
6. "Wastewater Treatment." Here visitors can learn how wastewater is treated.
7. "The World of Water." This zone presents the many forms water takes on our planet: glaciers, geysers, waterfalls, rain, rivers, lakes, groundwater and more. The landscape in the exhibition is not imaginary: it recreates a real landscape near one of the caves of Crimea.

Children will enjoy the play area, where they can make giant soap bubbles, test their strength on a water pump and meet some fairy-tale fish, Japanese koi.

If you want to learn all about the Earth's water system and how to protect it, the Water Museum offers both education and entertainment. Save water, because water is life.

Address: Kyiv, 1V Hrushevskoho Street.