Brygidky, Lviv
The oldest working prison in Lviv: a convent from 1614, a prison since 1785, NKVD shootings in June 1941.
The convent of Saint Brigid was founded in 1614 with money from its patrons Anna Fastkovska and Anna Poradovska; a school for noble girls worked beside it. After the house was dissolved in 1782 the Austrian authorities turned it into a men's prison from 1785 — hence the name. In 1875 it held 1,468 inmates, nearly two hundred of them for murder; after the 1902 revolt the regime was eased and prisoners nicknamed Brygidky "America". On 10 June 1941 there were 706 prisoners here, and on 24–28 June, as it retreated, the NKVD shot at least 324 people according to the documents; the unidentified were buried in a common grave at Yaniv cemetery, field 55. It was in Brygidky that Osyp Mashchak composed the Prayer of a Ukrainian Nationalist: NV dates this to 1934, the historian Vladyslav Dutchak to 1936, the time of the Lviv trial. The story that the opening lines were written in his own blood remains a story. Today it houses a pre-trial detention centre, Lviv penal institution No. 19.
20 Horodotska St (Telegraf, 02.02.2026). It still operates as a pre-trial detention centre, so there is no way inside — it can only be seen from outside.