The building of Verkhovna Rada, which hosts the main legislative body of Ukraine, is not only a place where the decisions of high importance are adopted, but also a landmark of our country. Each Ukrainian knows how it looks like from the outside and has an opportunity to discover it from inside by participating in guided tours. It was 20 years ago when the Parliament, built by architect Vladimir Zabolotny in 1939, opened its doors for visitors. Such kind of transparency (openness) is available in many parliaments across the world.
For example, guided tours for visitors are present in the UK (Westminster Palace), in the German Bundestag, in the parliaments of Hungary, Canada and in the US Capitol. In 1997, the national parliament of Ukraine followed the Western example and in February welcomed its first twenty-five guests. First visitors saw the Parliament from inside, heard about uniqueness and historical significance of the building, visited the plenary room – a place, where history of Ukraine is created: the adoption of the Act of Declaration of Independence and the Constitution being the examples.
Overall, over past 20 years nearly 180 thousand people visited Verkhovna Rada. Each year a number of requests to visit the Parliament keeps growing.
In 2014, to ensure safety of visitors, guided tours had to be suspended and parliament’s leadership introduced special measures for the protection of building of national significance.
Later the Verkhovna Rada reopened its doors and last year organized a special event, where the doors of the Parliament were open to some 667 visitors in two days alone. “There were 33 tours in two days (August 23-24) – National Flag Day and Independence Day celebrations, tells Elena Nekrasova, Head of the division of the information resources and public activities of the Information Department of Verkhovna Rada.
With the return of guided tours the number of visitors had increased. In addition, number of foreign visitors has been increasing as well. Seven thousand international guests have attended parliament’s guided tours in English language.
Currently, parliamentary specialists are also working on developing new methods and approaches for organizing guided tours. Namely, new tour topics are being developed and new multilingual specialists are being engaged in tours implementation. Moreover, the museum of Ukrainian parliamentary tradition is being created inside the parliament building.
During the guided tour, visitors get acquainted with the work of the Parliament; they have a chance to see the plenary hall from the 3rd floor balcony and visit the press point, where Members of Parliament have their press briefings, walk around the hallways, see and take photos in front of the “Derzhavotvorennya” (from UA: “Formation of the State”) painting.