The city's history museum found itself encased in a giant glassy structure as the result of an unfinished reconstruction, which hasn't touched upon the building itself. But the changing wind of history can be felt in the musty halls, where exhibitions have been updated to reflect the Maidan revolution and the war in the east.

　　Outside the museum, which looms over the vast pl Konstitutsiyi, you'll find a rare British WWI tank which took part in the Russian Civil War (1918–21). On the other side of the building, a winged statue officially known as Flying Ukraine has replaced a Soviet-era revolutionary monument, which tongue-in-cheek Kharkivites used to call ‘five men carrying a fridge’.