The Kirovohrad Oblast, established in 1939 out of the periphery areas of the Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Mykolayiv, Odcsa, and Poltava regions of the Ukrainian SSR, is located almost in the centre of the Ukrainian Shield rich in minerals.
The territory of the region occupies the lands between the Dnipro and the Southern (Pivdennyy) Buh, a part of the Dnipro Upland. It is an elevated gently sloping valley with lots of forests, cut from the North to the South by the well-shaped valleys of the Dripro, Southern Buh, Inhul, Inhulets, Syniukha and Synytsia rivers. Their random tributaries (rivulets, gullies and ravines) cover the map of the region with a lace of valleys, which brings a playful variety to the unpretentious landscapes of the Kirovohrad province.
The earliest human settlements on the territory of the province date back to the Lower Paleolithic era (over 20,000 years ago). In the Princely times, only a small part of the Dnipro valley region was inhabited. In the late 12th c., the fortress town of Krylov was founded in the estuary of the Tiasmyn River, but in 1240 it was destroyed by the Batu Khan Hordes to rise again only in the 16th c. and to become the site of almost constant confrontation of Poland, Muscovy and local Cossacks.
At the end of Middle Ages the territory of the present-day Kirovohrad region was the Right-bank extension of the Wild Field (Dyke Pole), a neutral zone controlled by neither the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, nor by Tatars and Turks, nor by the Tsardom of Muscovy. The Right-bank part of the Dyke Pole started to be intensively settled down only in the mid-18th c. After the 1735 — 39 Russo-Turkish war, the Russian Empire attempting to defend its new Southern borders set up the first fortresses of New Serbia (northern part of the present-day Kirovohrad region), initiated in 1751 by Serbs. New Serbia corresponded to a 30-kilometer buffer zone stretching for 200 km along the border with Poland (from the Dnipro River to the Syniukha River). During the 1768—74 Russo-Turkish War the Russian Empire conquered the lower reaches of the Dnipro and the Southern Buh River; therefore, New Serbia lost its military importance as a borderland. (more…)

This easternmost oblast of Ukraine, bordering on the Russian Federation, was created in 1938. In the North Luhanschyna occupies the lowhilled loess plain spurs of Serednyorusska Upland. In the South of the region lies Donetska Upland, an undulated loess plain, which is the location of the monument of Mohyla-Mechetna (367 meters), Left-bank Ukraine’s highest point. Rich in fossil fuels, Donetska Upland stretches across the eastern regions of Ukraine, Donetschyna and Luhanschyna to the Rostov Oblast of Russia. The main waterway of Luhanschyna is the Siversky Donets River with its left tributaries Krasna, Aidar and Derkul.
The earliest settlements located along the Siversky Donets date back to the Late Paleolithic Era (40,000—12,000 years ago). In the 9th —1З’th с.с. Luhanschyna was inhabited by the nomadic tribes of Turk origin, such as the Pechenegs, the Tvks and for the longest period — the Cumans (Polovcts). The evidence in support of their lasting dominance in the region are numerous carved-stone idols, so-called Polovetski Baby, which their descendants mention to have encountered throughout Luhanschyna.
The Tartar-Mongol yoke of the 13th с. brought forth devastation to the land between the Dnipro and the Don, which became known as the Wild Field and eventually buffered Muscovy from the Crimean Khanate. In the 15th —16th c.c. escaped serfs began to settle on these fertile lands. However, they were defenceless against the Tartar raids. In 1640 Cossacks from the Don set up a chain of outposts in the North of the region.
A rapid resettlement into the area began with the 1648—54 Liberation War, as it eased the way for refugees from the Polish controlled Right-bank Ukraine to migrate here, fleeing from the horrors of war. During the Russo-Swedish War this area became the hotbed to a popular peasant and Cossack insurgency of 1707—08 led by Kindrat Bulavin, ruthlessly suppressed by the Russian Crown.
In 1721, a well-known Russian mineralogist Grygoryi Kapustin discovered coal deposits of what later became the Donets Basin (Donbas) in the lower waters of the Siversky Donets, an event that was bound to have an impact on the development of the area seventy years later. (more…)

The Lviv region, the largest in western Ukraine, was formed in 1939. It was reunited with the rest of Ukraine as part of the Molotov—Ribbentrop pact between the Soviet Union and Germany. Due to its geographic features, the area, which borders on Poland in the west, produces a remarkable diversity of weather conditions. The plains of Male (Ukr. Little) Polissia in the north rise towards the undulating surface of the Podillia Upland and Roztochchia in the south-west, which grows into the Pre-Carpathian spurs and finally the Carpathians. The absolute altitudes in that direction gradually grow to reach a four-fold difference.
A special natural attraction of the area is the Roztochchia, Europe’s key water divide, which is the source of rivers flowing either into the Black Sea in the south or the Baltic Sea in the north. It is here that one of the most important waterways of the country, the Dniester, starts. The beauty of the Dniester River valley can only be rivalled by the spellbinding landscapes of the other rivers of the area, the Zakhidnyy (Western) Buh, Stryi and Styr.
The first known settlements on the Zakhidnyy Buh appeared in Later Paleolithic era (ca 20,000 years ago). The 9th—10th c.c. saw the formation of the Halych Principality, and, in 1199, the Halych-Volyn Principality. After the devastating Mongol invasions in the 13th с., the principality had to accept suzerainty to the Golden Horde and was held under tribute.
In the 14th c., the battle for the control over these lands among Lithuania, Hungary and Poland was finally won by Poland, which governed for almost 4 centuries to come. After the 1772 Partition of Poland the area passed to Austria. Between the two world wars, the region was once again under the re-emergent Poland until it passed to Ukraine in 1939. Lvivschyna is abundant in architectural relics of all times and styles. It retains the castles of Rzeczpospolita Kings, homes of the nobility, alongside an array of the 16th—20th c.c. Catholic, Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Jewish temples.
Lviv lies on the Poltva and Zubr rivers. It was founded on the Roztochchia Ridge in mid-1200s by Prince Danylo of Halych, who gave it his son’s name. Atop the hill stands an old fortress known as Vysoky Zamok (High Castle). The first record of the settlement dates back to 1256, and it became the principality’s capital in 1272. These events are commemorated in the ruins of the castle and the city’s oldest 13th-c. St. Nicholas Church. (more…)

The Mykolayiv Oblast was formed in 1937.
It is distinguished by a moderately continental climate with an exceptionally mild winter with little if any snow and a hot, often droughty summer. The region lies on a flat loess plain slightly tilted southwards. Towards the north it transcends into the Podillial and Pre-Dnipro Uplands densely cut by river valleys, gorges and gullies. The Pivdenny Buh, Arbuzynka, Mertvovid, Hnylyy Yelanets and other fast rivers in this terrain offer breathtaking landscapes as they carve their way through the hard crystalline rock of the Ukrainian Shield.
The vast plain of the Northern Prychornomorya descends to the coastal strand in 30-m high steep cliffs exacerbated by sudden slides, forming a wildly beautiful but deadly dangerous and unsteady coastline. For its beauty the area also owes a lot to so-called lemans, river-estuary lagoons partially or completely cut off the sea.
The first Paleolithic settlements to have appeared in the area 20,000 years ago seem to have clung to the Pivdenny Buh and Inhul rivers. The early human presence in the steppe is put down to the Iranian-speaking Scythian nomads who arrived from the east in the 7th to 2nd с. ВС. In the same span of time the ancient Greeks started to actively colonize the accessible southern lands they could reach by sea. The earliest Greek settlement of the time was unearthed on Island Berezan., whereas by far the largest, Olviya founded in the 6th с. ВС is the most acclaimed archeological site in today’s Mykolayiv-schyna. The 1st—3rd c.c. AD saw the arrival of the Romans, who were ousted by the the Ostrogoths in the late 3rd c. AD, who in their turn were swept by the Huns migrating from the East in the 4th c. About at the same time, the northern parts of the area were inhabited by the early Slavs of the so-called Cherniakhiv culture (2nd—6th c.c. BC), who suffered greatly from the nomadic Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Magyars.
The vast area between the Dnipro and the Dnistro rivers was the domain of the Pechenegs from the 10th to 13іthсс. when they were driven from their lands by the Mongol invasion. For the next two centuries the area passed to the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, in the 15thc., the Crimean Khanate. Under the Crimean Khanate, which was in vassal to the Ottoman Empire, the whole area lay virtually barren for hundreds of kilometres, which is why the Slavs called it the ‘Wild Field’. (more…)

Formed in 1932 in the south-west of the country, the Odesa region borders on Romania, Moldova and the unrecognized Pre-Dniester Republic. The terrain is mostly steppe or forested plains that constitute the Prychornomorya Lowland, slanting south-westward by about 150 m and carved by rivers and estuaries.
Along the coastline, as the Prychornomorya plain meets the sea. Odeschyna is also known for its lemans, usually oblong lakes with slanting banks, which are common in the coastal steppe and liven the otherwise dull landscapes.
The first settlements in the area appeared in late Paleolithic era (40—13 thousand years ago). From 5th—2nd c.c. BC, the Prychornomorya steppes were populated by the tribal Scythians.
The бth с. ВС saw the arrival of the Greeks, who founded several townships, e.g. Tyras and Nikony, located on the opposite banks of the Dniester Leman. In the 1st—3rd c.c. AD, the northwest Prychornomorya was conquered by the Romans, followed by the Hots (3th c. AD) and Huns (4′h c. AD).
In the 7thc., the area between the Danube and Dniester was home to Alan and Bulgar tribes, which were partly driven away and partly assimilated by the Slavs during the Princely times. In the 8th c. the area fell to the Tartar-Mongols, whose raids soon turned the populated northern Prychornomorya into the wilderness.
With the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate gained control of the territory between the Dniester and the Pivdenny Buh, whereas the Transdniester lands fell under the Moldovan Principality, which in the 15th c. was later absorbed by the rapidly expanding Turkish Empire. In 1475 the Crimean Khanate became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, with its territories used as a bridgehead for devastating inland raids into Cossack and Russian towns.
The three Russo-Turkish wars of 1768—74, 1787—91 and 1806—12 brought victory to Russia, ousting the Turks out of Eastern Europe altogether. On the newly-liberated lands, the Russian government initiated an intensive port maritime build-up, making Odessa (after the Greeks’ colony Odessos) its main Black Sea gateway. The territories of what was known as the Wild Barren Land under Tatar-Mongols and the Crimean Khanate were proclaimed free for relocation. Lucrative from the North contracts were promised to immigrants from Western Europe. In 1916 the south-western part of the region between the Dniester, Danube and Prut passed to Romania, under which it remained until 1940. (more…)