Poltava

Infobox Settlement
official_name = Poltava
native_name = Полтава
nickname =


imagesize = 250px
image_caption =


imagesize = 250px
image_caption =

---

image_shield = Poltava_coat.svg
image_coa = Poltav s.gif
nickname =
motto =

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mapsize = 250px
map_caption = Map of Ukraine with Poltava highlighted.
subdivision_type = Country
Oblast
Raion
subdivision_name =
established_title = Founded
established_date = 899¹
established_title1 =
established_date1 =
leader_title = Mayor
leader_name = Andriy Matkovsky
area_magnitude =
area_total_km2 = 103.0
area_land_km2 =
area_water_km2 =
population_as_of = 2005
population_note =
population_total = 308509
population_metro =
population_density_km2 = 2995
latd=49 |latm=35 |lats=22 |latNS=N
longd=34 |longm=33 |longs=05 |longEW=E
elevation_m = 132
postal_code = 36000—36499
postal_code_type=Postal code
dialing_code = +380 532
website = [http://www.meria.poltava.ua/foreign/ Official website in English]
footnotes = ¹The previously believed foundation date was 1174.

Poltava ( _uk. Полтава; _pl. Połtawa) is a city in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast (province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Poltavskyi Raion (district) within the oblast. The city itself is also designated as its own separate raion within the oblast. The current estimated population is 313,400 (as of 2004).

History

It is still unknown when the city was founded. Baltavar Kubrat's grave was found in its vicinity, and its name derives from the title he, his predecessors and his successors bore. Though the town was not attested before 1174, municipal authorities chose to celebrate the town's 1100th anniversary in 1999, for reasons unknown. The settlement is indeed an old one, as archeologists unearthed a Paleolithic dwelling as well as Scythian remains within the city limits.

The present name of the city is traditionally connected to the settlement Ltava which is mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1174. The region belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 14th century. The Polish administration took over in 1569. In 1648 Poltava was captured by the Ruthenian-Polish magnate Jeremi Wiśniowiecki (1612-51). Poltava was the base of a distinguished regiment of the Ukrainian Cossacks. In 1667 the town passed to the Russian Empire.

In the Battle of Poltava on June 27, 1709 (Old Style), or 8 July (New Style), tsar Peter the First, commanding 45,000 troops, defeated at Poltava a Swedish army of 17,000 troops led by Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld (who had received the command of the army after the wounding of the Swedish king Charles XII on June 17). "Like a Swede at Poltava" remains a simile for "completely defeated" in Russian. The battle marked the end of Sweden as a great power and the rise of Russia as one.

Sights

The centre of the old city is a semicircular Neoclassical square with the Tuscan column of cast iron (1805-11), commemorating the centenary of the Battle of Poltava and featuring 18 Swedish cannons captured in that battle. As Peter the Great celebrated his victory in the Saviour church, this 17th-century wooden shrine was carefully preserved to this day. The five-domed city cathedral, dedicated to the Exaltation of the Cross, is a superb monument of Cossack Baroque, built between 1699 and 1709. As a whole, the cathedral presents a unity which even the Neoclassical belltower has failed to mar. Another frothy Baroque church, dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos, was destroyed in 1934 and rebuilt in the 1990s.

Territorial division

# Leninski district
# Oktiabrski district
# Kyivski districtVillage Rozsoshenci is officialy considered to be outside the city, but actually constitutes a part of Poltava agglomeration

Transport and infrastructure

Transportation in Poltava is well-developed. The city has two major train stations, and rail links with the cities of Kiev, Kharkiv, and Kremenchuk. The line towards Kiev is electrified and is used by the Poltava Express, a regular service with comfortable carriages. Electrification of the Poltava-Kharkiv line was completed in August 2008. [cite web | title=Poltava-Kharkiv rail line | url=http://gortransport.kharkov.ua/news/news.php?news_id=7022 | accessdate=September 21 | accessyear=2008] Avtovokzal is the city's intercity bus station. Buses for local municipal routes park along Shevchenko street.

City transportation is represented by the following:
* trolleybuses with fifteen routes and a network of 72.6 km;
* buses, including a ringroad route;
* marshrutkas on all bus routes.

Poltava has a domestic airport, situated outside the city limits near the village of Ivashki. The international highway M 03 linking Poltava with Kiev and Kharkiv passes through the southern outskirts of Poltava city. There is also a regional highway P-17 crossing Poltava and linking it with Kremenchuk and Sumy. [Полтава - План Схема. Киевская Военно-Картографическая Фабрика]

Famous people from Poltava and its region

* Marie Bashkirtseff — 19th c. Parisian painter, memoirist
* Yitzhak Ben-Zvi — a historian, Labor Zionist leader, and the second and longest serving Israeli president.
* Hanka Bielicka - Polish actress
* Andriy Danylko — Ukrainian singer
* Nikolai Gogol — writer and playwrighter
* Alexander Gavrilovitch Gurvitch — Russian physician and biologist
* Ivan Kotlyarevsky — Ukrainian writer, poet and playwright
* Anatoliy Vasilievich Lunacharsky — Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Soviet People's Commissar of Enlightenment responsible for culture and education
* Ivan Paskevich — Ukrainian military leader in the Russian service
* David Peikoff — Canadian-U.S. Deaf Rights advocate, born on March 21, 1900, in Yanoschina, Poltava Province — former Russia.
* Zhanna Prokhorenko — Ukrainian actress
* Sasha Putrya — Ukrainian artist
* Nikolai Yaroshenko — Ukrainian painter
* Maria Tarnowska (born Maria Nikolaevna O'Rourke), famous femme fatale, whose trial for murder (Venice, 1910) attracted worldwide media attention.
* Vera Kholodnaya - an outstanding Ukrainian actress, the first star of Russian silent cinema
* Yuri Kondratyuk — a pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight who, in the early twentieth century, foresaw ways of reaching the moon.
* Panas Mirniy (born Panas Yakovych Rudchenko) - Ukrainian writer
* Mikhail Vasilievich Ostrogradsky - Ukrainian mathematician, mechanician and physicist.
* Hryhorii Skovoroda - Ukrainian poet, philosopher and composer.
* Symon Petliura - Ukrainian politician and statesman, a leader of Ukraine's fight for independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917.
* Nikolai Yaroshenko - Russian painter of Ukrainian origin.
* Svetlana Kopchikova - Ukrainian swimmer and 200 m medley champion at the 1985 Summer Universiade.

Sports

The most popular sport is football. Two football clubs are based here: Vorskla Poltava in the Ukrainian Premier League and FC Poltava in the Druha Liha.

Honors

A minor planet 2983 Poltava discovered in 1981 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after the city. [cite book | last = Schmadel | first = Lutz D. | coauthors = | title = Dictionary of Minor Planet Names | pages = p. 246 | edition = 5th | year = 2003 | publisher = Springer Verlag | location = New York | url = http://books.google.com/books?q=2983+Poltava+RW2 | id = ISBN 3540002383]

References

External links

* [http://www.poltava.ws "Poltava portal"] (news of Poltava, events, weather, all in Ukrainian language)
* [http://www.forum.poltava.ws "Poltava Forum"] (community of Poltava, has English section)
* [http://www.meria.poltava.ua/ meria.poltava.ua] — Official website of Poltava
* [http://www.museum.poltava.ua/ Virtual museum of Poltava] in Russian language