Kharkiv

Kharkiv , or Kharkov (Russian: Ха́рьков; IPA: , is the second-largest city of Ukraine. Located in the north-east of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region. The city has a population of about 1.5 million people.

The city was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew out to a major centre of Ukrainian culture within the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine occupied by Soviet troops in December 1917. It functioned as the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic until January 1935, after which the capital relocated to Kiev. Kharkiv is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv district.

Kharkiv operates as a major cultural, scientific, educational, transport and industrial centre of Ukraine, with 60 scientific institutes, 30 establishments of higher education, 6 museums, 7 theatres and 80 libraries. Its industry specialises primarily in machinery and in electronics. There are hundreds of industrial companies in the city, including globally important giants like the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory (leaders in world tank production from the 1930s to the 1980s); Khartron (aerospace and nuclear electronics); and the Turboatom turbines producer.

Geography

Kharkiv and vicinities, LandSat-5 satellite image, near natural colors, 2011-06-18

Kharkiv is located in the north-eastern region of Ukraine. Historically, Kharkiv lies in the Sloboda Ukraine region (Slobozhanshchyna also known as Slobidshchyna), in which it is considered the main city. The city rests at the confluence of the Kharkiv, Lopan, and Udy rivers, where they flow into the Seversky Donets watershed.

History

Archeological evidence discovered in the area of present-day Kharkiv indicates that a local population has existed in that area since the second millennium BC. Cultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers. There is also evidence that the Chernyakhov culture flourished in the area from the second to the sixth centuries.

Establishment

The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654 (see Khmelnytsky Uprising). The years before the region was a sparsely populated part of the Cossack Hetmanate. The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where stood an abandoned settlement. Some sources indicate that the city may have been named after the Hunnic name for 'swan': kharka.[better source needed] Other sources offer that the city was named after its near-legendary founder, Kharko (a diminutive form of the name Kharyton, Ukrainian: Харитон). According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk.

At first the settlement was self-governed under the jurisdiction of a voivode from Chuhuiv that is located 40 kilometres (25 mi) to the east. The first appointed voivode from Moscow was Voyin Selifontov in 1656 who started to build a local ostrog (fort). At that time the population of Kharkiv was just over 1000, half of which were local cossacks, while Selifontov brought along a Moscow garrison of another 70 servicemen. The first Kharkiv voivode was replaced in two years after constantly complaining that locals refused to cooperate in building the fort. Kharkiv also became the centre of the local Sloboda cossack regiment as the area surrounding the Belgorod fortress was being heavily militarized. With the resettlement of the area by Ukrainians it came to be known as Sloboda Ukraine, most of which was included under the jurisdiction of the Razryad Prikaz (Military Appointment) headed by a district official from Belgorod. By 1657 the Kharkiv settlement already had a fortress with underground passageways.

In 1658 Ivan Ofrosimov was appointed as the new voivode, who worked on forcing locals to kiss the cross to show loyalty to the Moscow Tsar. The locals led by their otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk refused it. However, with the election of the new otaman Tymish Lavrynov the community (hromada) sent a request to the Tsar to establish a local Assumption market, signed by deans of Kharkiv churches (the Assumption Cathedral and parish churches of Annunciation and Trinity). Relationships with the neighboring Chuhuiv sometimes were non-friendly and often their arguments were pacified by force. With the appointment of the third voivode Vasiliy Sukhotin was completely finished the construction of the city fort.

Meanwhile, Kharkiv had become the centre of Sloboda Ukraine.

Kharkiv Fortress

The Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was located at University Hill. It was situated between today's streets: vulytsia Kvitky-Osnovianenko, Constitution Square, Rose Luxemburg Square, Proletarian Square, and Cathedral Descent. The fortress had 10 towers: Chuhuivska Tower, Moskovska Tower, Vestovska Tower, Tainytska Tower, Lopanska Corner Tower, Kharkivska Corner Tower and others. The tallest tower was Vestovska some 16 metres (52 ft) tall, while the shortest one was Tainytska which, however, had a secret well 35 metres (115 ft) deep. The fortress had the Lopanski Gates. In 1689 the fortress was expanded and included the Saint-Pokrov Cathedral and Monastery which was baptized and became the center of local eparchy. Coincidentally in the same year in the vicinity of Kharkiv in Kolomak, Ivan Mazepa was announced the Hetman of Ukraine. Next to the Saint-Pokrov Cathedral was located the Kharkiv Collegiate that was transferred from Belgorod to Kharkiv in 1726.

Within the Russian Empire

In the course of the administrative reform carried out in 1708 by Peter the Great, the area was included into Kiev Governorate. Kharkiv is specifically mentioned as one of the towns making a part of the governorate. In 1727, Belgorod Governorate was split off, and Kharkiv moved to Belgoro Governorate. It was the center of a separate administrative unit, Kharkiv Sloboda Cossack regiment. The regiment at some point was detached from Belgorod Governorate, then attached to it again, until in 1765, Sloboda Ukraine Governorate was established with the seat in Kharkiv.

Kharkiv University was established in 1805 in the Palace of Governorate-General. Alexander Mikolajewicz Mickiewicz, brother of Adam Mickiewicz was a professor of law in the university, another celebrity Goethe searched for instructorial staff for the school. In 1906 Ivan Franko received here a doctorate in Russian linguistics.

The streets were first cobbled in the city centre in 1830. In 1844 the 90 metres (300 ft) tall Alexander Bell Tower was built next to the first Assumption Cathedral, which on November 16, 1924 was transformed into a radio tower. A system of running water was established in 1870. The Cathedral Descent at one time carried the name of another local trader Vasyl Ivanovych Pashchenko-Tryapkin as Pashchenko Descent. Pashchenko even leased a space to the city council (duma) and was the owner of the city "Old Passage", the city's biggest trade center. After his death in 1894 Pashchenko donated all his possessions to the city. In 1912 the first sewer system was built. Gas lighting was installed in 1890 and electric lighting in 1898. In 1869 the first railway station was constructed, and the first tram lines in 1906.

From 1800 to 1917 the population increased by 30 fold.

Kharkiv became a major industrial centre and with it a centre of Ukrainian culture. In 1812 the first Ukrainian newspaper was published there. One of the first Prosvitas in Eastern Ukraine was also established in Kharkiv. A powerful nationally aware political movement was also established there and the concept of an Independent Ukraine was first declared there by the lawyer Mykola Mikhnovsky in 1900.

Soon after the Crimean War, in 1860-61 number of hromada societies sprung up across the Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv. Among the most prominent hromada members in Kharkiv was Oleksandr Potebnia, a native of Sloboda Ukraine. Beside the old hromada, in Kharkiv also existed several student hromadas members of which were future political leaders of Ukraine such as Borys Martos, Dmytro Antonovych and many others. One of the University of Kharkiv graduates Oleksandr Kovalenko was one of initiators of the mutiny on Russian battleship Potemkin being the only officer who supported the in-rank sailors.

Soviet period

When the Tsentralna Rada announced the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic in November 1917 it envisioned the Sloboda Ukraine Governorate to be part of it. In December 1917 Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine occupied the by Soviet troops of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko. The Bolsheviks in the Tsentralna Rada moved to Kharkiv shortly after to make it their stronghold and formed their own Rada on 13 December 1917. By February 1918 Bolshevik forces had captured much of Ukraine. In February 1918 Kharkiv became the capital of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic; but this entity was disbanded six weeks later. In April 1918 the German army occupied Kharkiv. And according to the February 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Central Powers it became part of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Early January 1919 Bolshevik forces captured Kharkiv. Mid-June 1919 Anton Denikin's White movement Volunteer Army captured the city. In December 1919 the Bolshevik Red Army recaptured 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.

Monument to the persecuted kobzars in Kharkiv

According to linguist George Shevelov, in the early 1920s the share of secondary schools teaching in the Ukrainian language was lower than the share of the Kharkiv Oblasts ethnic Ukrainian population, even though the Soviet Union had ordered that all schools in the Ukrainian SSR should be Ukrainian speaking (as part of its Ukrainization policy).

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 1920s, a 150 metres (490 ft) wooden radio tower was built on top of the building. During the interwar period the city saw the spread of architectural constructivism. One of the best representatives of it was the already mentioned Derzhprom, the Building of the Red Army, the Ukrainian Polytechnic Institute of Distance Learning (UZPI), the City Council building, with its massive asymmetric tower, the central department store that was opened on the 15th Anniversary of the October Revolution. The same year on November 7, 1932 the building of Noblemen Assembly was transformed into the building of All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.

In 1928, the SVU (Union for the Freedom of Ukraine) process was initiated and court sessions were staged in the Kharkiv Opera (now the Philharmonia) building. Hundreds of Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested and deported.

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.

Memorial to the thousands of Polish officers executed by the NKVD in Kharkiv as part of the Katyn massacre

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. Blind Ukrainian street musicians were also gathered in Kharkiv and murdered by the NKVD. In January 1935 the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved from Kharkiv to Kiev.

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.

German occupation

During World War II, Kharkiv was the site of several military engagements (see below). 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 liberated 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.

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 Drobitsky Yar.

During World War II, four battles took place for control of the city:

• First Battle of Kharkov
• Second Battle of Kharkov
• Third Battle of Kharkov
• Fourth Battle of Kharkov (

Before the occupation, Kharkiv's tank industries were evacuated to the Urals with all their equipment, and became the heart of Red Army's tank programs (particularly, producing the T-34 tank earlier designed in Kharkiv). These enterprises returned to Kharkiv after the war, and continue to produce tanks.

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 War

In the post-war period 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.

Gas lines were installed for heating in government and later private homes. 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).

In independent Ukraine

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.

By its territorial expansion on September 6, 2012 the city increased its area from about 310 to 350 square kilometres (120 to 140 sq mi).

There is an underground rapid-transit system (metro) with about 38.1 km (24 mi) of track and 29 stations. 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.

Kharkiv was a host city for the UEFA Euro 2012, and hosted three group matches in Metalist Stadium.

2014-2015 pro-Russian unrest in Kharkiv

The 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine affected Kharkiv but to a lesser extent than in neighbouring Donbass, where tensions would lead to the War in Donbass. On 2 March 2014, a Russian "tourist" from Moscow replaced the Ukrainian flag with a Russian flag on the Kharkiv regional state administration building. Five days later, pro-Russian protestors occupied the building and unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine as the "Kharkov People's Republic". The next day, the building was retaken by Ukrainian special forces. Doubts arose about the local origin of the protestors after they initially stormed an opera and ballet theatre believing it was the city hall. On 13 April, some pro-Russian protesters again made it inside the Kharkiv regional state administration building. Later on 13 April the building returned permanently to full Ukrainian control. Violent clashes resulted in the severe beating of at least 50 pro-Ukrainian protesters in attacks by pro-Russian protesters.

Kharkiv returned to relative calm by 30 April. Relatively peaceful demonstrations continued to be held, with "pro-Russian" rallies gradually diminishing and "pro-Ukrainian unity" demonstrations growing in numbers. On 28 September, activists dismantled Ukraine's largest monument to Lenin at a pro-Ukrainian rally in the central square. Polls conducted from September to December 2014 found little support in Kharkiv for joining Russia.

From early November until mid-December, Kharkiv was struck by seven non-lethal bomb blasts. Targets of these attacks included a rock pub known for raising money for Ukrainian forces, a hospital for Ukrainian forces, a military recruiting centre, and a National Guard base. According to SBU investigator Vasyliy Vovk, Russian covert forces were behind the attacks, and had intended to destabilize the otherwise calm city of Kharkiv.

On 8 January 2015 five men wearing balaclavas broke into an office of (the volunteer group aiding refugees from Donbass) Station Kharkiv. Simultaneously with physical threats the men demanded to hear the political position of Station Kharkiv. After being given an answer the men apologized and left.

On Sunday 22 February 2015, there was a terrorist bomb attack on a march to commemorate people who died in the Euromaidan protests in 2014. The bomb killed two, and wounded nine. The authorities have launched an anti-terrorist operation. The terrorists claim that it was a false flag attack. Kharkiv experienced more non-lethal small bombings since 22 February 2015 targeting army fuel tanks, an unoccupied passenger train and a Ukrainian flag in the city centre.

On 23 September 2015, 200 people in balaclavas and camouflage picketed the house of former governor Mykhailo Dobkin, and then went to Kharkiv town hall, where they tried to force their way through the police cordon. At least one tear gas grenade was used. The rioters asked the mayor, Hennadiy Kernes, to come out. Russia Today blamed the Azov battalion.

Culture

Kharkiv is one of the main cultural centres in Ukraine. It is home of 20 museums, over 10 theaters and a number of picture galleries. Large music and cinema festivals are hosted in Kharkiv almost every year.

Music

Kharkiv sponsors the prestigious Hnat Khotkevych International Music Competition of Performers of Ukrainian Folk Instruments which takes place every three years. Since 1997 four tri-annual competitions have taken place. The 2010 competition was cancelled by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture two days before its opening. The Kharkiv Conservatory is in the city.

Landmarks

National holiday's fireworks on Freedom Square

Of the many attractions of the Kharkiv city are the: Derzhprom building, Memorial Complex, Freedom Square, Taras Shevchenko Monument, Mirror Stream, Dormition Cathedral, Historical Museum, Choral Synagogue, Annunciation Cathedral, T. Shevchenko Gardens, Zoo, Children's narrow-gauge railroad, World War I Tank Mk V and many more.

After the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea the monument to Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny in Sevastopol was removed and handed over to Kharkiv.

Transport

The city of Kharkiv is one of the largest transportation centres in Ukraine, which is connected to numerous cities of the world by air, rail and road traffic. The city has many transportation methods, including: public transport, taxis, railways, and air traffic. There are about 250 thousand cars in the city.

Local transport

Being an important transportation centre of Ukraine, many different means of transportation are available in Kharkiv. Kharkiv's Metro is the city's rapid transit system operating since 1975. It includes three different lines with 29 stations in total. The Kharkiv buses carry about 12 million passengers annually. Trolleybuses, tramways (which celebrated its 100 years of service in 2006), and marshrutkas (private minibuses) are also important means of transportation in the city.

Railways

The first railway connection of Kharkiv was opened in 1869. The first train to arrive in Kharkiv came from the north on 22 May 1869, and on 6 June 1869, traffic was opened on the Kursk–Kharkiv–Azov line. Kharkiv's passenger railway station was reconstructed and expanded in 1901, to be later destroyed in the Second World War. A new railway station was built in 1952.

Kharkiv is connected with all main cities in Ukraine and abroad by regular railway trains. Regional trains known as elektrichkas connect Kharkiv with nearby towns and villages.

Air travel

Kharkiv is served by an international airport which used to have about 200 flights a day, almost all of them being passenger flights. The Kharkiv International Airport has been granted international status. The airport is not large and is situated within the city boundaries, south from the city centre. Flights to Kiev and Moscow are scheduled daily. There are regular flights to Vienna and Istanbul, and several other destinations. Charter flights are also available. The former largest carrier of the Kharkiv Airport — Aeromost-Kharkiv — is not serving any regular destinations as of 2007. The Kharkiv North Airport is a factory airfield and was a major production facility for Antonov aircraft company.