Black grave (Chorna mohyla) Archeological monument.

This massive 10th-century pagan burial mound stands as a rare, surviving fragment of the early medieval funerary landscape, remarkably preserved right in the middle of modern Chernihiv. As the largest kurgan from the Kievan Rus era, the earthwork rises over ten meters high near the Yeletsky Monastery. Legend links the mound to Prince Chorny (Black), the mythical founder of the city, though excavations in the 1870s revealed a more complex history: the cremated remains of high-status Norse-linked warriors buried alongside weapons, armor, and sacrificial animals. Today, a memorial obelisk tops the grassy mound. It is less of a manicured park and more of a raw, physical trace of Chernihiv’s earliest power structures, offering a atmospheric stop for anyone tracing the city's ancient roots.