Just below the pass that carries the road and railway from Uzhhorod into Galicia, the village of Uzhok keeps one of the finest wooden churches of the Carpathians. The tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael was built in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Boyko style, with three log chambers each topped by a tiered roof, rising in stages like a set of stacked hats, all covered in wooden shingles. It stands on a slope among old trees, with a separate bell tower nearby, and it is one of the sixteen wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine listed by UNESCO in 2013.
The Uzhok Pass itself, at 852 metres, has been a crossing point since medieval times, linking the Hungarian lowlands with Galicia, and it saw heavy fighting in the First World War, when the Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies battled for control of the Carpathian passes in the winter of 1914 and 1915. Military cemeteries from that war lie scattered through these mountains. The pass also marks the boundary between the Zakarpattia and Lviv regions, and nearby the borders of Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia meet, with the protected beech forests of the region stretching across all three countries.
The road over the pass is one of the quieter routes through the Ukrainian Carpathians, with long climbs through beech and spruce forests, gentle hairpins and views over rolling ridges. The surface has historically been uneven, with potholes and patched sections, and conditions change from year to year, so it is worth asking locally. Snow covers the pass in winter, and fog and rain are common in spring and autumn.
It has to be said plainly: Ukraine is at war, and the situation affects travel throughout the country, including the western regions, even though they are far from the front line. Martial law is in force, there are restrictions on movement, and border crossings may be busy or limited. Anyone thinking of riding here should check the latest official travel advice. When peace allows, this is a beautiful and welcoming region, with villages where wooden churches, old traditions and simple mountain food, mushrooms, cheese, potatoes and smoked meats, are still part of daily life. The nearest larger towns are Turka on the Galician side and Velykyi Bereznyi in Zakarpattia.