Kharkiv

Kharkiv is a city in northeastern Ukraine in Slobozhanshchyna, the scientific center of Ukraine, the administrative center of the Kharkiv region. The second most populous city in Ukraine with a population of 1 million 421,125 inhabitants. The area of ​​the city is 370 km2. Together with the surrounding cities and districts, it forms the Kharkiv agglomeration with a population of more than 2 million people. From December 19, 1919 to June 24, 1934, Kharkiv was the first capital of Soviet Ukraine, hence the name "first capital". It was the great scientific, cultural, industrial and transportation center of Ukraine, it was the third industrial center of the former USSR. The coat of arms of the province of Sloboda-Ukraine, which also served as the coat of arms of the city of Kharkiv, was designed in 1775 by Heraldmeister Prince Mykhailo Shcherbatov and approved by Catherine II on September 21, 1781 as the coat of arms of Kharkiv weapons. governorate In tsarist and Soviet times the city did not have its own flags. However, from 1651 to 1765 Kharkiv was the center of the Kharkiv Sloboda Cossack regiment, which had its own flag. During the Soviet era, Kharkiv was awarded the Order of Lenin (by decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet of December 4, 1970) and the Order of the October Revolution (August 22, 1983). The name of the city probably comes from the Kharkiv River. From the beginning of the 17th century, the lands of modern Kharkiv nominally belonged to the Moscow state, but until 1650 there was no settled population. At the same time, Ukrainian colonization in the neighboring Hetmanate began. During the Cossack times, Kharkiv became the center of the Kharkiv Sloboda Cossack regiment. The city had a fortress with towers and underground passages. In the 1670s, the fortress fell into disrepair and became known as the Old City, and the fort was called a new fortification, built under the rulers of Sukhotin. Kharkiv grew around the fortress, and its urban territory in the early 18th century extended beyond the Lopan and Kharkiv rivers. An important event was the founding of Kharkiv University in 1805, which gave a powerful impetus to the transformation of a provincial city with a population of about 10,000 people into a major educational and scientific center of eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv's population grew steadily, from 1800 to 1917 it increased 30 times. At the end of November 1917, Red Guards from Russia and, for the most part, sailors from the Baltic region arrived in Kharkiv. On December 23, 1917, Kharkiv was captured by the Bolsheviks. After the Peace of Brest in 1918, the Ukrainian troops (among others, the Zaporizhzhya Regiment led by Peter Bolbochan) in alliance with the German army on April 19, 1918 liberated Kharkiv from the Bolsheviks. In November 1918, the Ukrainian government was briefly re-established in Kharkiv when troops from the UPR Directorate entered the city, but the Bolsheviks reoccupied the city on January 3, 1919, and the Ukrainian Soviet government operated there until June 25 to December 11, 1919. After the victory of the Reds over Denikin, the third Ukrainian Soviet government returned to Kharkiv, and it became the capital of Soviet Ukraine.