Dnepropetrovsk

Dnipropetrovsk

Dnipropetrovsk (Ukrainian: Дніпропетро́вськ [dnʲiprope̝trou̯sʲk]; Russian: Днепропетро́вск, Dnepropetrovsk; formerly Yekaterinoslav, Екатериносла́в and Sicheslav, Січеслав) is Ukraine's third largest city with 1.1 million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev (Kyiv) on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country. Dnipropetrovsk is the administrative center of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (province). Within the Dnipropetrovsk Metropolitan area there are 1,860,000 people (2001).

A vital industrial center of Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk was one of the key centers of the nuclear, arms, and space industries of the former Soviet Union. In particular, it is home to Yuzhmash, a major space and ballistic missile designer and manufacturer. Because of its military industry, the city was a closed city until the 1990s.

Dnipropetrovsk has a highly-developed public transportation system, including the Dnipropetrovsk Metro, which consists of one metro line with a total of 6 stations.

The first people appeared in the area somewhere about 150,000 years ago. The settlements of these early people were found in the outskirts of the city and on Monastyrsky Island. This unique island appears throughout the history of Prydniprovye, as a consistent center of events as well as the ancient nucleus of the city.

After the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago) the settling of the Prydniprovye area began more intensely. In c.3500-2700 BC the first farmers lived here (the so-called Cucuteni-Trypillia culture people).

The mighty, broad Dnieper River (Greeks called it the Borysthenes, 'Borisphen' in local pronunciation) with its picturesque islands and peaceful backwaters, lush flood-meadows and shadowy oak woods stretches along river valleys and ravines. Abundant game and fish in local forests and waters are a result of good climate and vast fertile land... All this attracted hunters, fishers, cattle-breeders and land-tillers to these parts.

The Cimmerians, ancient equestrian nomads who bred cattle, occupied the North Pontic steppe zone including Prydniprovye; their culture and civilization flourished between about 1000 and 800 B.C.E. The Cimmerians were driven out by the nomadic Scythians (700 BC), who in turn were overcome by the Sarmatians from the East (200 BC).

Most inhabitants of the city and visitors know and like the distinctive features of the small square near the Museum of History, the place where the 'Stony Women' stay (which actually are not females... and are shown in the photo above). The visitors are amazed with the centuries-old natives and their oval forms. They were creations of a steppe nomadic people called the Cumans or Kipchaks and are a modular collection from neighboring barrows. In the past they served as the index points for the steppe inhabitants.

The first century of the new era was marked by fast inhabitation of the Dnieper River banks by Slavic tribes. The rocks of Monastyrsky Island remember well the first time Slavs floated down the Dnieper River to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. On this island in the IX century the Monastery was founded by Byzantine monks (from it the island received its name). It existed until 1240 when it was destroyed by Tatars. The Dnieper River has for many centuries served as a border between East and West and its banks have served as arena of struggle between the Slavs and the Asian nomads.

This situation continued for many centuries until the XV century when there appeared a new force - the free people - Cossacks - Zaporiz'ki Kazaky (Zaporizhya - the lands south of Prydniprovye, translate as "The Land After the Weirs [Rapids]")...

The first fortified town in what is now Dnipropetrovsk were probably built in the mid-16th century. In 1635, the Polish Government built the Kodak fortress above the Dnieper Rapids at Kodaky (on the outskirts of modern Dnipropetrovsk), partly as a result of rivalry in the region of Poland, Turkey and Russia, and partly to maintain control over Cossack activity. On the night of 3/4 August 1635, the Cossacks of Ivan Sulyma captured the fort by surprise, burning it down and butchering the garrison of about 200 West European mercenaries under Jean Marion. The fort was rebuilt by French engineer Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan for the Polish Government in 1638, and had a mercenary garrison. Kodak was captured by Zaporozhian Cossacks on 1 October 1648, and was garrisoned by the Cossacks until its demolition in accordance with the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711.

The Zaporozhian village of Polovytsia was founded in the late-1760s, between the settlements of Stari (Old) and Novi (New) Kodaky, territorially was eastern remote part of Novi Kojdaky. It was located at the present central part of the city (downtown) to the West to district of Central terminal and farmer market Ozyorka. Uptown, which was built up later as a official center district by Ivan Starov's development plan of Katerynoslav, at cossack era was empty steppe hill place with lack of water source.

During the German occupation of Ukraine in World War II, the city gave its name to one of the six generalbezirke in which a Nazi Generalkommissar was in charge under the authority of the Reichskommissar in Kiev. Dnipropetrovsk was an important center of Jewish life, and 80,000 Jews lived in the city before the Holocaust, but soon after the Nazis conquered the city on October 12, 1941, 11,000 were shot; in the end only 15 Jews of Dnipropetrovsk survived at the end of the war.

During the past century, the economic activity of the city has defined its political importance. Dnipropetrovsk and the surrounding oblast are the birthplace of the "Dnipropetrovsk Faction", an influential informal political group inside the CPSU, members of whom were the industrial and party elite. Leonid Brezhnev, a native of the nearby city of Dniprodzerzhyns'k and later the Communist Party General Secretary, assured members of this group of a prominent place in Soviet society and politics. Members of this group are believed by many political scientists to have ruled not only the Ukrainian SSR but also the entire Soviet Union up to the accession of Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of CPSU General Secretary and President of the Soviet Union.

In June 1990, the women’s department of Dnipropetrovsk preliminary prison was destroyed in prison riots. In the ten years that followed, women under investigation (i.e. not convicted) in Dnipropetrovsk oblast were either held in Preliminary Prison 4 in Krivoy Rog or in "detention blocks" in Dnipropetrovsk; this contravened Ukrainian Law "On preliminary incarceration". Journeys from Krivoy Rog took up to six hours in special railway carriages with grated windows. Some prisoners had to do this 14 or 15 times. After complaints by the ombudsman (Nina Karpacheva) the head of the State prison department of Ukraine (Vladimir Levochkin) arranged that finances were given for the provision of women cells in Dnipropetrovsk Preliminary Prison, making the lives of the 15,000 unconvicted women-detainees easier from August 2000.

In 2005, the most powerful representative of the "Dnipropetrovsk Faction" in Ukrainian politics was Leonid Kuchma, the former President of Ukraine and former senior manager of Yuzhmash.

In June and July 2007, Dnipropetrovsk experienced a wave of serial killings that were dubbed by the media as the work of the Dnipropetrovsk maniacs. In February 2009, three youths were sentenced for their part in 21 murders.