Kharkov
Kharkov is the administrative center of the Kharkov region, located in the north-eastern part of Ukraine. Kharkov is the second largest city in Ukraine after Kiev and has over 1,460,000 inhabitants. The territory of the city is nearly 300 square kilometers but well developed transportation system makes any part of the city easily accessible. Kharkov
is one of the greenest cities of Ukraine with more then 12,000 hectares of parks, alleys and gardens.
History
Kharkov was founded in the 17th century. According to a legend, the city was named after the first settler, a Cossack called Kharek. Originally, there was a fortress to defend the area from the raids of Tatars. In the early years of the Soviet Union, Kharkov was the capital of Ukraine and was a military stronghold to protect Russia's southern borderlands. Kharkov lost its military significance since and became a trade and industrial center instead but there is quite a violent history nevertheless.
In the1930s, the Ukrainian famine drove many people from the countryside to Kharkov in search for food. Many of them died and were secretly buried at one of the city's cemeteries. During April and May 1940 about 3,800 Polish prisoners were killed in the Kharkov NKVD building and later buried in a nearby forest. During World War II Kharkov was the site of several military engagements. The city was captured by Nazi Germany and its military allies, recaptured by the Red Army, then occupied by the Nazis twice again and finally liberated on August 23, 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed.
Nowadays, Kharkov is one of the main industrial, cultural and educational centers of Ukraine. There are hundreds of industrial companies in the city that specialize primarily in arms production and machinery.
As one of the country’s largest cities, Kharkov features a well developed transport infrastructure. There are buses, trolleybuses, tramways, marshrutkas, railway trains and
elektrichkas (regional electric trains). Kharkov also has its own subway with 35 km
of tracks, 3 lines and 28 stations in total. There is an international airport with some 200 flights a day. Flights to Kiev are available daily. The air carrier that operates and offers flights to seven countries of the world from the Kharkov Airport is the Kharkov
Airlines. The other one, Kharkov North Airport, is a factory airfield and was a major
production facility for the well known Tupolev aircrafts.
Sightseeing
Kharkov is not much of a tourist city really. It is an industrial area and trade center of Ukraine. At the same time, visitors who come to the city on business trips usually like it. They admit that the city has beautiful parks, squares and gardens. Some sights worth visiting include for example the city's main square is - the largest square in Ukraine and
one of the largest in Europe. It is the venue of festivals, concerts, fairs, rallies, meetings, and other public events. The State Industry Building located here is a unique architectural construction. It was built in 1925-1928 to become the first high-rise building in the country. The following figures indicate the scope of the structure: total site area occupies 11,000 square meters and the facade length is 300 meters.
The historical heritage of the city is comprised of a large number of monuments from different centuries. The city is especially rich in architectural places of interest of nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but there are also outstanding buildings of an earlier period.The Pokrovsky Cathedral is the oldest one of them - from 1689. It is a typical Ukrainian three-domed church. The cathedral was severely during the Second World War but was restored in early 1990s.
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