Kharkov/Miscellaneous

From Wikia Travel

[edit] 500 years old Kharkov

Thinking about the city of Kharkov, its history and people, takes one to a journey of more than 500 years. Over these five centuries, the city which was just a fort once upon a time, spilled beyond the confines of the fort and emerged as the second largest city of Ukraine. The important years in the city of Kharkov are indicated below:

• 1665: First mention of its name in any existing document.

• 1656: A wooden fort is built by Cossacks.

• 1689: A Monastery named thehe Pokrovska (Protection) was built.

• 1726: A Church School, later named the Collegium of Kharkiv), is founded.

• 1765: Kharkov is made the capital of the Slobidska Ukraine Province by an edict of Catherine the Second, Queen of Russia.

• 1791: Kharkov gets its first theater.

• 1805: The Kharkov University, the first in Ukraine, and the third in the Russian empire, is established.

• 1812: The city gets its first newspaper named "Kharkovsky Yezhenedelnik" (Kharkiv Weekly).

• 1869: The first railway line connecting Kursk, Kharkov and Azovsk becomes operational.

• 1870: The city gets its first ironworks. This heralded establishment of large industrial complexes over the years.

• 1886: The city gets a public library, the first one in the Ukraine as well as in the entire Russian empire.

• 1918-1934: The city remained the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

• 1928: Completion of the Derzhprom (House of State Industry), the most remarkable building in Kharkio of that time.

• 1930: The city gets its first airport.

• 1932: The city scientists at the Ukrainian Technical Institute of Physics construct a proton accelerator and effect the first artificial nuclear fission reaction in Europe.

• 1941-1943: The city remained under occupation of the Nazis during World War II.

• August 23, 1943: The city is liberated by the Red Army of the former USSR.

• 1962: The city's population crosses a million.

• 1975: The underground railways' first track becomes operational.

• 1995: The city airport gets international status.

The purpose of giving the time lines is that the business and leisure tourists understand that they are privileged to experience the sight and sound of a city with a long history. Though a large portion of the city was destroyed during the Nazi occupation, the city continues to maintain a cultural aura of bygone days, and one is reminded of the fact that once upon a time, just a few centuries before, the city was "positioned at the crossroads of trade routes connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg with Kyiv (Kiev in Russian), the Crimea and the Caucasus, naturally provided for direct trade ties with the countries of Western Europe, the Near East and the Balkan peninsula."