Ukraine – Central-East (Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia) June 15-16, 2019
Byriuchyi Island is a spit (former island) in the northwestern part of the Azov Sea. Together with the narrow northern part of the Fedotova Spit, Byriuchyi Island forms the Utljuk Lyman separating it from the sea from the east. Until 1929, the current Spit was an island, separated from the northern part of the Fedotova Spit by a narrow strait. It belongs to Kherson Oblast of Ukraine. It has no direct land connection with the main territory of the Oblast — they are separated by the Utljuk Lyman.
Its length is about 11 nautical miles, the width is about 3 nautical miles, and its area is 27.92 square miles. On the northwestern and western shores of the Spit, there are several shallow bays and estuaries. Small vessels most often enter the bays of the southwestern edge of the Spit (Rybatska and Mayachna bays). Along the western and northwestern shore of the Spit, there is a large shoal, which is less than 5 meters deep.
Melitopop. In the NM “European Cities” series, I had a great pizza for €4, mooched their wifi and slept on the street outside to access the wifi (this is becoming common practice as there are few fast-food restaurants like McDonalds or KFC). An old guy pulled up behind me and slept in the front seat of his car. I imagine there are many poor elderly.
Archaeological Site “Stone Tomb”. A tentative WHS:(11/08/2006) about 15kms NE of Melitopop, this elaborate museum built into the sandstone hillside of the grave, has several dolmen, roughly carved figures and gravestones outside. The attraction is not the small tomb but the thousands of petroglyphs in 67 sites on the sandstone cliffs produced by the many civilizations inhabiting the area from 20,000 BC to the 10th to 12th centuries AD: Cimmerans (8th century BC), Scythians (Iranian speaking militaristic nomads 6th – 4th centuries BC known for their rich burial sites – the most famous is the Melitopol golden horde with 3500 intricate gold items including the “golden sheath for bow and arrows”. I have seen several pieces of this horde in a few museums in Europe), Sarmutians (3rd century BC Iraqi cattle breeders, Cumans (11th century AD nomadic group that produced most of the dolmens and stelae around the museum. The museum is an impressive brick structure with models of several of the petroglyphs. Many of the petroglyphs are zoomorphic plus several human feet.
On the drive to Zaporizhia, I passed the most amazing stream of constant vehicles for over 2 hours. On Saturday, June 15, these were Ukrainians headed to Black Sea resorts and Crimea. It was virtually impossible to pass any slow moving trucks or Ladas on the narrow two-lane highway.
ZAPORIZHIA World City and Popular Town
Zaporizhia (formerly Alexandrovsk is on the Dnieper River. It is the administrative centre of the Zaporizhia Oblast. The city population is the sixth largest in Ukraine.
Zaporizhia is known for its island of Khortytsia and Dnieper Hydroelectric Station. It is also important industrial centre producing steel, aluminium, aircraft engines, automobiles, transformers for substations, and other heavy industry goods.
History. The area has been inhabited by Scythians, Khazars, Pechenegs, Kuman, Tatars and Slavs. The trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks passed through the island of Khortytsia. These territories were called the “Wild Fields”, because they were not under the control of any state (it was the land between the highly eroded borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and the Ottoman Empire.
In 1552 wood-earth fortifications were built on the small island Little Khortytsia west of Khortytsia island. In 1770 the fortress of Aleksandrovskaya was erected part of the Dnieper Defence Line protecting the southern territories of Russian Empire from Crimean Tatar invasions. In 1775, Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed a treaty where the southern lands of the Russian Plain and Crimean peninsula became Russian-governed territories. As a result, the Aleksandrovskaya Fortress lost its military significance and converted into a small provincial rural town known from 1806 under the name Alexandrovsk. (Александровск).
In 1789, Mennonites from Danzig (Prussia) accepted the invitation from Catherine the Great to settle several colonies in the area of the modern city. The island of Khortitza was gifted to them for “perpetual possession” by the Russian government. In 1914, the Mennonites sold the island back to the city. The Mennonites built mills and agricultural factories in Alexandrovsk. During the Russian Revolution and especially by World War II most of the Mennonites had fled to North and South America as well as being forcfully relocated to eastern Russia. At present, few Mennonites live in Zaporizhia.
In 1829, a cable ferry operated across the Dnieper and in 1904 was replaced by the Kichkas Bridge, which was built in the narrowest part of the river called “Wolf Throat”, near to the northern part of the Khortytsia Island. The 336m long bridge carries a double-track railway line on the upper level,
The Kichkas Bridge was of strategic importance during the Russian Civil War, and carried troops, ammunition, the wounded and medical supplies. Because of this bridge, Alexandrovsk and its environs was the scene of fierce fighting from 1918 to 1921 between the Red Army and the White armies and German-Austrian troops.
Google Maps had a difficult time finding things here. I drove all over the place, and discovered I had not downloaded maps to continue north to Dnipro, but found a McDonalds and got maps for all of Ukraine.
Khortytsia is the largest island in the River Dnieper, and is 12.5 kilometres (7.77 miles) long and up to 2.5 kilometres (1.55 miles) wide. The island forms part of the Khortytsya National Park. This historic site is located within the city limits of Zaporizhia.
The island has played an important role in the history of Ukraine, specially in the history of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The island has unique flora and fauna, including oak groves, spruce woods, meadows, and steppe. The northern part of the island is very rocky and high (rising 30 m (98 ft) above the river bed) in comparison to the southern part, which is low, and often flooded by the waters of the Dnieper.
Museum of Zaporizhian Cossacks. The major part of the reserve on Khortytsia covers the Zaporizhian Cossack Museum that includes the Cossack horse show. The museum building is modern, nestling low in the landscape with dramatic views of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station to the north. The museum was built in 1983 as the Museum of Zaporizhia History. The open-air museum portrays: Khortytsia in ancient times, history of Zaporizhian Cossacks, history of Zaporizhia at times of construction of socialism. There also existed four dioramas: “Battle of Sviatoslav at rapids”, “Uprising of the impoverished cossacks at Zaporizhian Sich in 1768”, “Construction of Dnieper HES”, “Night storm of Zaporizhia city in October 1943”. Part of the museum became also the Zaporizhian Oak located at the Upper Khortytsia. The museum contains exhibits dating from the Stone Age through the Scythian period (c.750 – 250 BC) down to the 20th century.
Jump From 126 Meter Tube Pipe. One of the most popular places in Ukraine is this bunny jump from the arched bridge in Zaporozhye , which connects the right-bank part of the city with the island of Khortytsya . This road bridge, with a length of 320 meters, width – 20 meters, height above water – 40 meters. There are different types of jumps, such as the-wei, jumping tandem with fastening legs or in whole grid system. A scenic rocky shores Hortitsa give even more pleasure from such an extreme.
Faeton Retro Cars Museum. Tanks, a helicopter and military vehicles are outside. Inside are mostly Soviet era cars that mostly look the same and several Soviet military vehicles although there was a unique Skoda, a 75 VW transporter and several Russian limousines. Of most interest to me were the American cars and there were some classic vehicles: 57 Chev truck, 57 Chev car, Cadillac Eldorado and Del Ray Police Department car. There were also several toy cars and one could purchase many models. 60 UAH
DNIPRO (pop 1 million)
Dnipro (Dnipropetrovsk until May 2016) is Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, 391kms southeast of Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central part of Ukraine. The first fortified town in what is now Dnipro was probably built in the mid-16th century. Known as Ekaterinoslav until 1925, the city was formally inaugurated by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great in 1787 as the administrative centre of the newly acquired vast territories of imperial New Russia, including those ceded to Russia by the Ottoman Empire in 1774. The city was originally envisioned as the Russian Empire’s third capital city, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Renamed Dnipropetrovsk in 1926, it became a vital industrial centre of Soviet Ukraine, and was one of the key centres of the nuclear, arms, and space industries of the Soviet Union. In particular, it is home to the Yuzhmash, a major space and ballistic missile design bureau and manufacturer. Because of its military industry, it was a closed city until the 1990s. On 19 May 2016 the official name of the city was changed from Dnipropetrovsk to Dnipro.
Dnipro is a powerhouse of Ukraine’s business and politics and is the native city of many of the country’s most important figures.
Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour. In a park, this church has 6 large doric columns on the front. Inside its single nave has gilt rosettes on the dome and barrel vaulted roof and lots of gilt framed icons and iconoclast. They were spreading hay all over the parquet floor.
Art-Kvartira. This small art gallery hangs shows by local artists.. They were just putting up a new
Labyrinth. This night club/bar has live music on weekends. It is downtown.
Aquarium of Freshwater Fish. On Monastic island in the middle of the Dneiper and established in 1986, it is unique in Europe with 20 huge aquarium inhabited by freshwater fish species in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Africa, Indonesia, and the Dnieper basin. The center is located on the tunnel aquarium 100 thousand liters of water bodies inhabited by representatives of Ukraine.
Dnipro Planetarium. This doesn’t look like it has been open for decades. Surrounded by metal cladding, it is not accessible. The metal casing around the roof is hanging off all over the place.
KHARKIV (pop 1,440,000)
Kharkiv is the second-largest city in Ukraine. In the northeast of the country, it was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew to be a major centre of Ukrainian industry, trade and culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934, after which the capital relocated to Kiev.
Presently, Kharkiv is a major cultural, scientific, educational, transport and industrial centre of Ukraine, with numerous museums, theatres and libraries. Its industry specializes primarily in machinery and in electronics. There are hundreds of industrial companies in the city, including the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory (leaders in world tank production from the 1930s to the 1980s); Khartron (aerospace and nuclear power plants automation electronics); the Turboatom (turbines for hydro-, thermal- and nuclear-power plants), and Antonov (the multipurpose aircraft manufacturing plant).
Annunciation Cathedral. This is an impressive church – yellow with alternating red brick bands and a 7-tiered bell tower. The wood carved portal is grand. It is triple naved, has mostly geometrics on the arches and ceiling, many gilt/red framed icons and one tomb that got a lot of attention. It was packed on a Saturday evening at 6 – mostly women in kerchiefs, long lines waiting for cubes of bread then to get crossed with a paintbrush on their forehead then kiss the back of the priests hand. A small choir of women were singing. There are few frescoes but many large framed paintings and some nice stained glass. Lots of small framed icons on stands, coffins and crosses to kiss and cross yourself three times at every one. Free
Dormition Cathedral. Plain white on the outside, smaller, more light filled, simpler and a lot less crowded, this has simple blue/white triangle ceiling designs, yellow/red marble columns. A choir was leading the hymn and grass/flowers covered the floor giving it a nice barn smell. Free
Kharkiv Botanical Garden. This small garden is part of large park also containing the zoo. Mostly mature trees and shrubs. 30 UAH
Kharkiv Zoo. In the large park in the centre of town, this zoo is a typical Ukranian zoo, more of an amusement park than a zoo.
Derzhprom (State Industry Building). A tentative WHS and in the NM “Modern Architecture” series, Derzhprom (Gosprom) building is a constructivist structure located in Freedom Square. Its name is an abbreviation of two words that, taken together, mean State Industry. In English the structure is known as the State Industry Building or the Palace of Industry.
The building was one of a few showcase projects designed when Kharkiv was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR. It was to become the tallest structure in Europe for its time. The building also became the most spacious single structure in the world by the year of its completion in 1928 to be surpassed by New York’s skyscrapers in 1930s. Its unique feature is its symmetry seen best from the centre of the square.
The use of concrete in its construction and the system of overhead walkways and individual interlinked towers made it extremely innovative. It was rated by Reyner Banham as one of the major architectural achievements of the 1920s in his Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and comparable in scale only to the Dessau Bauhaus and the Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam. This allowed the structure to fully survive any destruction attempts during the Second World War.
The building’s notability was overshadowed following the 1934 move of the Ukrainian capital to Kiev, the later denunciation of Constructivism by Stalinist Architecture and the Second World War. More recently one of its towers was used as a television centre and a TV relay tower was built on its roof.
The height of the Derzhprom building is 63 m. With the television tower added in 1955 it was 108 m. The office area of the Derzhprom building is 60 000 m², the areas of the base is 10760 m². The cost of the buildings construction was 9 million rubles. Initially the building was built by hand using primitive instruments such as shovels, wheelbarrows etc. By the time it was finished the construction techniques employed were mechanized 80%. 5000 workers were involved in its construction working in three shifts. At the time of its completion it was the largest “skyscraper” in the USSR and the second in Europe. 1315 carriages of cement, 9000 tonnes of metal, 2700 cars of granite and 40000 m² of glass were used. The interior walls, windows, door handles etc. were decorated with an exclusive relief of the letters DHP (ДГП) standing for Derzhprom. By the recommendation of the Kharkiv department of Hygiene, all of the door handles were made of copper which was thought at that time and is now known to have antibacterial characteristics to kill microbes. 7 of the 12 original elevators still function without being replaced since 1928. The length of the bridges that unite the 3 sections of the buildings is 26 metres. The reconstruction and renovation of the Derzhprom building took more time (7 years) than the construction of the building itself (3 years).
Taras Shevchenko Monument. Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko.(1814 – 1861) was an Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, as well as folklorist and ethnographer. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language. Shevchenko is also known for many masterpieces as a painter and an illustrator. He was a member of the Sts Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1847 Shevchenko was politically convicted for writing in the Ukrainian language, promoting the independence of Ukraine and ridiculing the members of the Russian Imperial House.
On 22 March 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts granted Shevchenko the title of a non-classed artist. He again travelled to Ukraine where he met members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a clandestine society also known as Ukrainian-Slavic society and dedicated to the political liberalization of the Empire and its transformation into a federation-like polity of Slavic nations. Upon the society’s suppression by the authorities, Shevchenko’s wrote a poem “Dream”, that was confiscated from the society’s members and became one of the major issues of the scandal.
Shevchenko was arrested along with other members of the society on 5 April 1847. Tsar Nicholas read Shevchenko’s poem, “Dream”. Vissarion Belinsky wrote in his memoirs that, Nicholas I, knowing Ukrainian very well, laughed and chuckled whilst reading the section about himself, but his mood quickly turned to bitter hatred when he read about his wife. Shevchenko had mocked her frumpy appearance and facial tics, which she had developed fearing the Decembrist Uprising and its plans to kill her family. After reading this section the Tsar indignantly stated “I suppose he had reasons not to be on terms with me, but what has she done to deserve this?” He was accused in using “Little-Russian language”[8] (archaic Russian name for Ukrainian language) of outrageous content instead of being grateful to be redeemed out of serfdom and it was claimed that Shevchenko was expressing a cry over alleged enslavement and disaster of Ukraine, glorified the Hetman Administration (Cossack Hetmanate) and Cossack liberties and “with incredible audacity poured slander and bile on persons of Imperial House”.
After being convicted, he was exiled as a private to the Russian military garrison in at Orsk, near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I, confirming his sentence, added to it, “Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write or paint.”
He was subsequently sent on a forced march from Saint Petersburg to Orenburg and assigned to the first scientific expedition of the Aral Sea on the ship “Konstantin”. Although officially a common sailor, Shevchenko was tasked to sketch various landscapes around the coast of the Aral Sea, including the local Kazakhs nomads, and was effectively treated as an equal by the other members of the expedition. After 18-month voyage (1848–49) Shevchenko returned with his album of drawings and paintings but Shevchenko’s punishment was increased to imprisonment. He was then sent to one of the worst penal settlements, the remote fortress of Novopetrovsk in the mouth of the Syr Darya, where he spent six terrible years of mental and physical torment.
In 1857 Shevchenko finally returned from exile after receiving amnesty and in 1859, returned to Ukraine but was again arrested on a charge of blasphemy, but then released and ordered to return to St. Petersburg.
Taras Shevchenko spent the last years of his life working on new poetry, paintings, and engravings, as well as editing his older works, however after difficult years in exile his illnesses took too much. Shevchenko died in Saint Petersburg in 1861, the day after his 47th birthday.
He was first buried at the Smolensk Cemetery in Saint Petersburg but fulfilling his wishes, was re-buried on 8 May on the Chernecha hora (Monk’s Hill; today Taras Hill) near the Dnipro River and Kaniv. A tall mound was erected over his grave, now a memorial part of the Kaniv Museum-Preserve.
Dogged by terrible misfortune in love and life, the poet died seven days before the Emancipation of Serfs was announced. His works and life are revered by Ukrainians throughout the world and his impact on Ukrainian literature is immense.
The great man in a long frock coat stands atop a black polished granite trapezoid. On several levels are 16 figures: a woman holding a baby, a young peasant woman, a miner, a soldier of the Red Army, a partisan, a man holding his hat aloft, farmer with the millstones on the shoulders, a chained Zaporizhzhya Cossack, a serf with hands tied, a woman farmer carrying a rake, , a man holding a large scimitar/spear, a young lad with a scythe in his hand.
French Boulevard. This new 4-story mall has a T shape with an open atrium over the end of the T. It has the usual stores and I ate at the food court on the 4th floor.
Kharkiv Art Museum
Kharkiv Historical Museum.
Cultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers.
The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654. At that time the population of Kharkiv was just over 1000, half of whom were local cossacks. The Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral.
Kharkiv University was established in 1805. In 1844 the 90 metres (300 ft) tall Alexander Bell Tower was built next to the first Assumption Cathedral. Kharkiv became a major industrial centre and with it a centre of Ukrainian culture. In 1812, the first Ukrainian newspaper was published there. A powerful nationally aware political movement was also established there and the concept of an Independent Ukraine was first declared there. Soviet period. When the Ukrainian People’s Republic was declared in November 1917 and in December 1917 Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine occupied by the Soviet troops. By February 1918 Bolshevik forces had captured much of Ukraine. In April 1918 the German army occupied Kharkiv and in January 1919 Bolshevik forces captured Kharkiv. Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, Bolsheviks established Kharkiv as the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (from 1919 to 1934) in opposition to the Ukrainian People’s Republic with its capital of Kiev.
As the country’s capital, it underwent intense expansion with the construction of buildings to house the newly established Ukrainian Soviet government and administration. Derzhprom was the second tallest building in Europe and the tallest in the Soviet Union at the time with a height of 63 metres (207 ft).
In the early 1930s, the Holodomor famine drove many people off the land into the cities, and to Kharkiv in particular, in search of food. Many people died and were secretly buried in mass graves in the cemeteries surrounding the city.
In 1934 hundreds of Ukrainian writers, intellectuals and cultural workers were arrested and executed in the attempt to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism in Art. The purges continued into 1938.
During April and May 1940 about 3,900 Polish prisoners of Starobelsk camp were executed in the Kharkiv NKVD building, later secretly buried on the grounds of an NKVD pansionat in Pyatykhatky forest (part of the Katyn massacre) on the outskirts of Kharkiv. The site also contains the numerous bodies of Ukrainian cultural workers who were arrested and shot in the 1937–38 Stalinist purges.
During World War II, Kharkiv was the site of several military engagements. The city was captured and recaptured by Nazi Germany on 24 October 1941; there was a disastrous Red Army offensive that failed to capture the city in May 1942; the city was successfully retaken by the Soviets on 16 February 1943, captured for a second time by the Germans on 15 March 1943 and then finally retaken on 23 August 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. Kharkiv, the third largest city in the Soviet Union, was the most populous city in the Soviet Union captured by the Germans, since in the years preceding World War II, Kiev was by population the smaller of the two. Of the population of 700,000 that Kharkiv had before the start of World War II, 120,000 became Ost-Arbeiter (slave worker) in Germany, 30,000 were executed and 80,000 starved to death during the war.
Post-World War II. Many of the destroyed homes and factories were rebuilt. From the constructivism the city was planned to be rebuilt in the style of Stalinist Classicism. An airport was built in 1954. Following the war Kharkiv was the third largest scientific-industrial centre in the former USSR (after Moscow and Leningrad).
A well-known landmark of Kharkiv is the Freedom Square (Ploshcha Svobody formerly known as Dzerzhinsky Square), which is the sixth largest city square in Europe, and the 12th largest square in the world.
There is an underground metro with about 38.1 km (24 mi) of track and 29 stations. The new “Victory” underground station (no. 30) was opened in Kharkiv on 19 August 2016. All the underground stations have very special distinctive architectures. In 2007, the Vietnamese minority in Kharkiv built the largest Buddhist temple in Europe on a 1 hectare plot with a monument to Ho Chi Minh.
In a grand yellow building with a new glass façade on one side, it has two Soviet tanks and a monument of an angle on a globe around it. The museum is separated into: archaeology, 9th-18th century, 19th century, 1917-1940 and 1941-44 (WW II). 60 HAH
Kharkiv Holocaust Museum. In the NM “Dark Side” series, the significant Jewish population of Kharkiv (Kharkiv’s Jewish community prided itself with the second largest synagogue in Europe) suffered greatly during the war. Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people (slightly more than half Jewish) were killed and buried in a mass grave by the Germans in a ravine outside of town named Drobytsky Yar.
It was then a fast 140kms to Poltava. The highway was good and the traffic light. But there were many police doing road checks and using radar. Go to North East Ukraine.
NOMAD MANIA Ukraine – Central-East (Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia)
Tentative WHS: Archaeological Site “Stone Tomb” (11/08/2006)
Borders:
Russia-Ukraine
Ukraine (sea border/port)
World of Nature: Azov-Syvash
European Cities
BERDIANSK
MELITOPOP
NIKOPOL
PAVLOHRAD
DNIPRO World Cities and Popular Towns
Airports: Dnipro (DNK)
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Dnipro Metro, Dnipro trams
Religious Temples: Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour
Entertainment/Things to do:
Art-Kvartira
Labyrinth
Neizvestny Petrovsky
Aquariums: Aquarium of Freshwater Fish
Planetariums: Dnipro Planetarium
KAMIANSKE
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Kamianske Trams
KHARLIV World Cities and Popular Towns
Museums:
Kharkiv Art Museum
Kharkiv Historical Museum
Religious Temples:
Annunciation Cathedral
Formation Cathedral
Botanical Gardens: Kharkiv Botanical Garden.
Modern Architecture: Derzhprom (State Industry Building).
Monuments: Taras Shevchenko Monument.
Shopping Malls, Department stores: French Boulevard.
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: xxKharkiv Air Ropeway, Kharkiv Metro, Kharkiv Trams
Zoos: Kharkiv Zoo.
Vehicle Museums: History Museum of the Southern Railway
The Dark Side: Kharkiv Holocaust Museum.
KRYVYI RIH
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Kryvyi Rih Metrotram
ZAPORIZHIA World Cities and Popular Towns
Islands: Khortytsia (Zaporizhia)
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Zaporizhia Trams
Entertainment/Things to do: Zaporizhia: Jump from 126 meter tube pipe
Open-Air Museums: Museum of Zaporizhian Cossacks
Railway Museums: Faeton Retro Cars Museum
KYRYLIVKA
Theme Parks: Kyrylivka: Treasure Island Water Park
Beaches: Kyrylivka Beach