Ukraine, as an independent sovereign state, was proclaimed on August 24th, 1991, within the boundaries of the former Ukrainian SSR, which ceased to exist with the break-up of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has common borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Belarus and the Russian Federation.
Most of Ukraine’s territory lies on the Eastern-European Plain in a lace-work of river valleys. In the west and south the plains are gracefully outlined by the Ukrainian Carpathians and the Crimean Mountain Ridge, which make up to 5 per cent of the country’s territory.
Among European countries Ukraine is singled out by as many as 400 rivers, most of which flow into the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The main and the largest waterway of the country is the Dnipro River, which divides the country into the Right-bank and the Left-bank Ukraine.
A lucky combination of soils, including chernozem, damp forest, turf-podzolic, and meadow-marsh, accounts for the fertility of Ukraine’s arable lands, as well as the diversity of natural vegetation.
The earliest settlements in Ukraine’s territory date back to the Upper Paleolithic Era (ca 500,000—300,000 years ago), to which there is ample archeological evidence in Zakarpattia, Naddnistrianschyna and the Crimea. The remains of the Lower Paleolithic settlements (35,000— 10,000 years ago) can be found throughout the country. The Neolithic Age saw the arrival the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture, which thrived in the Pre-Dnipro area in 5,000— 3,000 BC.
A breakthrough in the development of the region should be attributed to the early Greek colonies in the Prychornomorya and Crimea in the 5th —7th c.c. BC. The early 1st millennium AD. saw the arrival of the Slavs, who by the 7th c. AD had formed such tribal units as the Polianians, Derevlianians, Syveryns, Volynians, and others. Towards the end of the 9th c. AD these principalities were united under Kyivan Rus, a mighty European power of the time, which stretched from the Baltic to the Black seas. Its capital, Kyiv, often referred to as the ‘the Mother of all Russian towns’, became the first Eastern-European city to adopt Orthodox Christianity as the state religion in 988. (more…)

Vinnytsia oblast, or Vinnychchyna, the largest administrative region of Central Ukraine, was formed in 1932. The terrain of the region stretches from the Pre-Dnipro Upland in the east to the Podillia, forming forested lands sloping down towards the Black Sea. The flatland was carved by the Dnistro (Dniester) and Pivdennyy (Southern) Buh Rivers, as well as their tributaries and rivulets. Truly breathtaking views await the traveller in the Dniester Valley as the Podillia Upland cascades down to it.
It was in these areas that many Paleolithic hunting settlements have been unearthed. In the lllh century, the Middle Pivdennyy Buh region was a part of the Kyivan Principality, while the Upper Dniester region joined the Principality of Halych. Later on almost the whole territory fell under the control of the Halych-Volyn.
After it was conquered by the Golden Horde in 1240, the Podillia for the following centuries was held under tribute to the Mongols, whose kosh was located in the Dyke Pole (Wild Field). In 1362, the Lithuanian Duke Olherd finally drove the Horde’s warriors out of Podillia.
Castles, built in the period of Rzeczpospolita in order to defend against belligerent nomads, were later used for the development of cities. Sporadic plundering raids by the Horde Mongols, followed by attacks by the militant Ottoman Empire and its vassals continued at intervals for more than three centuries to come.
During the 17th —18th c.c. the region suffered under an incessant power struggle between Rzeczpospolita and the Cossacks. Due to an uprising, the shlakhta lost control of the territory. In the course of a continual power struggle, the Polish szlykhta were weakened so much as to yield the Bractaw Voivodeship to Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1648—54) and some other territories to the Ottomans (1648—99). The 18th c. saw an intensive development of the area, with large estates of landlords thriving between 1760 and 1790.
After the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, the region was a part of the Russian Podolie Guberniya. In the years to come the Russian Crown drove out the remaining Polish landlords as well as the Catholic Church from their lands on the grounds of their alleged involvement in the Polish uprisings of 1830—32 and 1863. (more…)

The Volyn region in North-Eastern Ukraine was formed in 1939 after the re-unification of Ukrainian lands under the Ukrainian SSR. Historically, one of the oldest ethnically Ukrainian areas, it used to play a far more significant role in Northern and Western Ukraine and occupy more territory than the present day region of the same name.
The northern part of the region, known as the Polissia Lowland, is predominantly wooded moorland, whose surface has been flattened by glaciers and post-glacier rivers since the Ice Age. The Volyn Pasmo, which traverses the area from west to east, relieves an otherwise dull landscape.
The flatland landscape with scattered khutors (settlements) surrounded by forestland, makes up to 1/5 of the region’s area. Lake Shats constitutes part of the National Nature Reserve Park of the same name, Shatsky. The Volyn Upland in the south presents a more varied landscape and forms a natural causeway between the Polissia Lowland and the more impressive Podil Upland. The first known settlements in the late Paleolithic Era date back to about 15 thousand years ago. In the 1s’ millennium the area was populated by Eastern Slavic tribes of Dulibs, Buzhans, and Volynians. Within the boundaries of today’s Volyn region, more than 60 archeological sites, including early fortifications, settlements and burial mounds, indicate the Slavic presence in the area in the time of ancient Rus. In the early 5th c., Volyn became a bastion of Western Slavic independence. The region lived through times of small principalities at war with one another, then their unification and joint resistance to the rising power of Kyiv.
In 1199 Halych and Volyn joined together in one principality, continually in a state of war against local insurgents as well as Polish and Hungarian territorial ambitions, further exacerbated by devastating Golden Horde raids.
By mid-14th c., the Halych-Volyn principality was still in a state of conflict and 100 years later it ceased to exist, divided into small povits (administrative units) under the Great Duchy of Lithuania. However, in 15th —16th c.c. Volyn saw a rapid development in crafts and trade bringing Magdeburg Law to independent Volyn townships. In 1566, Volyn acquired the status of voyevodstvo (military region). Under the Lublin Treaty of 1569, which unified Lithuania and Poland into one state known as Rzeczpospolita, Volyn passed under its control. The Brest Unia recognized the supremacy of the Pope in Rome, which triggered off a lasting conflict between the Orthodox and Catholic churches in Ukraine. (more…)

The Dnipropetrovsk oblast, the largest in Central Ukraine, was formed in 1932. In the middle the region is divided in two by the 270-km long Dnipro valley, which accounts for the name of the region’s capital. The natural river scheme, however, was destroyed for the construction of two large water reserves, the Dnipro (1932) and the Dniprodzerzhynsk (1964).
Most of the region is undulating countryside with sloping hills in the grid of small rivers, gullies and ravines. On the Dnipro’s right bank is the Pre-Dnipro Upland, which gradually slants towards the south-east, while the left bank is predominantly the Pre-Dnipro Lowland, sloping into the Pre-Azov Upland.
A peculiar geographical feature of the area is the intricate latticework of the Dnipro tributaries, i.e. the Orel, Samara, Vbvcha, Mokra Sura, Bazavluk, Inhulets, Saksahan and others, which contribute to the natural beauty of the landscape.
According to archeological finds, some parts of the region have been inhabited since prehistoric times, middle Paleolithic period approximately 100 thousand years ago. In the 7th— 8th c.c. BC the area was inhabited by Scythian tribes: cattle breeding nomads. Numerous burial mounds of the Scythian nobility, the most known of which are Chortomlyk and Tovsta Mohyla (attr to the 4th с. ВС) near Nikopol, testify to the high level of applied arts with the nomads.
During the Princely times, the Dnipro was a popular trade route known as ‘from the Varangians to the Greeks’. In the mid-15th c., the Dnipro Rapids became favoured by free Cossacks who settled down in the area. The ‘over the rapids’ settlements gave birth to the freedom-loving Zaporozka Sich.
The end of the second Russo-Turkish war (1768—74) gave impetus to the rapid development of the area. As Russia gained control of the lower waters of the Dnipro, the Black Sea and Azov coastlines, as well as the Crimea, it eliminated the risk of the Ottomans raids.
With the advent of capitalism, the image of the area began to change. The discovery of iron ore in near Kryvy Rih (1881) and the newly built railway that connected the area with the coal-producing Donbas (1884), made the area the industrial heart of Ukraine. (more…)

The Donetsk oblast was formed in 1932. A low-hill terrain with intermittent small-river valleys, ravines and gorges, the north-western Donetsk Upland gradually slides down to the Pre-Dnipro Lowland in the west, and ascends to the Pre-Azov Upland in the south-west.
The most important water-way in the region, the Siversky Donets, spans across Northern Donechchyna, whereas other rivers, such as the Kazennyy Torets, Bakhmut, Mokri Yaly and Kalmius form beautiful river-basins of their own.
Many people believe that the Donetsk region is anything but beautiful, with mine-works and factory chimneys dominating the skyline, and gigantic factories marring the landscape. But visitors to the area find themselves pleasantly surprised by little nooks of undisturbed nature, especially along smaller rivers.
The earliest settlements in the region area date back to the middle Paleolithic times, 140—300 thousand years ago. The evidence discovered in the Pre-Azov Upland are now on display in Amvrosiyivka Natural Science Museum. Later Paleolithic period artifacts are found in hundreds along the Siversky Donets and its tributaries.
The late 9th c. saw the arrival of nomadic cattle-breeding tribes of the Pechenihy, followed by the Torks, who settled here in the early llth c. Before long, they were ousted by the Cumans (Polovets), who in the boundless steppe left hundreds of stone idols.
In the mid-14th c., much of the sparsely populated Donets lands were part of the Crimean Khanate. The 1648—54 Liberation War led to an influx of refugees from Right-bank Ukraine. An important factor in the population pattern of the area was the policy of Muscovy: setting up military outposts to bring them step by step closer to the sea. The 1th Cossack settlement of the kind appeared in what are now Sviatohirsk and Bakhmut with the subsequent penetration up to the mouth of the river Kalmius. In the pursuit of its colonization policies, Muscovy allocated free land to its own subjects, Crimean Christians and German colonists, in order for them to work in agriculture.
In the 1st half of the 19th c. most of the territories of the Donetsk region were divided among the Russian Katerinoslav guberniya and Sloboda Ukrainian Guberniya (Kharkiv Gu-berniya from 1835), with the south-eastern part under the Don military Command. In 1800 the local residents extracted coal for their own needs. By the 1850s mining had already been put on an industrial scale, turning the rural area into the largest industrial and mining zone in the Russian Empire. In 1938 the Donetsk region was divided again into the Stalino and Voroshylovgrad (now Luhansk) regions to commemorate the Soviet leaders of the time. The division is still preserved, but the regions have regained their historical names. (more…)