Abbey launches Ukrainian-language multimedia guide tour
Tuesday, 19th August 2025
Westminster Abbey's multimedia guide has been updated to include a Ukrainian-language tour of the church for the first time.
The guide, which is already available in 13 languages plus British Sign Language, is included in the price of admission and allows visitors to explore the Abbey at their own pace.
It features highlights such as:
- The Grave of the Unknown Warrior - one of the most poignant memorials in the Abbey and a tribute to the fallen of the two World Wars and more recent conflicts
- The Quire - from where the Abbey choir sings the daily choral services
- Poets' Corner - a place of pilgrimage for literature lovers and home to memorials to more than a hundred of our greatest writers
- Royal tombs - including those of Elizabeth I and Mary I, Henry V, and Henry VII
- The Lady Chapel - once described as 'the wonder of the world' and a glorious example of late medieval architecture
Visitors are offered a multimedia device on arrival at the Abbey or can download an app version of the guide to their own mobile or tablet.
Bonds of friendship
The addition of the Ukrainian-language tour strengthens the Abbey’s longstanding friendship with the people of Ukraine. The guide is supported by First Lady Olena Zelenska as part of her cultural diplomacy initiative.
In 2020, President Volodymyr Zelensky and Mrs Zelenska visited the Abbey during their governmental visit to the UK. Together, they laid a wreath at the Innocent Victims’ Memorial, which honours all victims of war, oppression and violence.
Since the start of the war in the country, prayers have regularly been said in the Abbey for Ukraine and its people. In 2022, the Abbey joined churches across the UK to pray for Ukraine, for an end to the conflict, and for peace in the world.
Later that year, a fundraising concert for the DEC’s (Disasters Emergency Committee) Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal was held in St Margaret's Church.
The first anniversary of the war in 2023 was marked at Evensong attended by the Embassy of Ukraine, when diplomats laid flowers at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior. Music included the anthem A Prayer for Ukraine, which was sung in Ukrainian by the Abbey Choir.
