Poltava

The present name of the city is traditionally connected to the settlement Ltava which is mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1174.[6][7] According to the chronicle, on Saint Peter's Day (12 July) of 1182, Igor Sviatoslavich, chasing hordes of the Cuman khans Konchak and Kobiak, crossed the Vorskla River near Ltava and moved towards Pereiaslav), where Igor's army was victorious over the Cumans.[6] During the Mongol invasion of Rus' in 1238–39 many cities of the middle Dnipro region were destroyed, possibly including Ltava.[6]

In the mid-14th century the region was part of the Duchy of Kyiv, which was a vassal of the Algirdas' Grand Duchy of Lithuania.[6] According to the Russian historian Aleksandr Shennikov, the region around modern Poltava was a Cuman Duchy belonging to Mansur, who was a son of Mamai.[8] Shennikov also claims that the Mansur Duchy joined the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an associated state rather than a vassal state, and that the city of Poltava already existed at that time.[8] In 1399, Mansur's army assisted the Grand Ducal Lithuanian Army in the battle of the Vorskla River, while a legend says that after the battle, the Cossack Mamay helped Vytautas to escape his death.[8]

The city is mentioned for the first time under the name of Poltava no later than 1430.[6] Supposedly, in 1430 the Lithuanian duke Vytautas gave the city, along with Glinsk (today a village near the city of Romny) and Glinitsa, to Murza Olexa (Loxada Mansurxanovich), who moved to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the Golden Horde.[6] In 1430 Murza Olexa was baptized as Alexander Glinsky, who was a progenitor of the Glinsky family.[6] According to Shenninkov, Alexander Glinsky must have been baptized in 1390 by Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kyiv, who had just regained his title of Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Russia (rather than the Metropolitan of Russia Minor and Lithuania) and on 6 March 1390 permanently moved to Muscovy.[8]

In 1482, Poltava was razed by the Crimean Khan Mengli I Giray.[6]

The Column of Glory commemorates the centenary of the Battle of Poltava (1709)

In 1537 Ografena Vasylivna Glinska (Baibuza) passed Poltava to her son-in-law Mykhailo Ivanovych Hrybunov-Baibuza.[6]

After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the territory around Poltava became part of the Crown of Poland. In 1630 Poltava was passed to a Polish magnate, Bartholomew Obalkowski.[6] In 1641 it changed ownership again, to Alexander Koniecpolski.[6] In 1646 Poltava became part of Wiśniowiecki Ordynatsia (a large Wiśniowiecki estate in Left-bank Ukraine centered in Lubny), governed by the Ruthenian-Polish magnate Jeremi Wiśniowiecki (1612–51).[6]

In 1648, the city became the base of a distinguished regiment of Ukrainian Cossacks, and served as a Cossack stronghold during the Khmelnytsky Uprising.[6] In 1650, to commemorate a victory of the Cossack Host over the Polish army at the Poltavka River, the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Sylvester Kossov, ordered the establishment of the monastery of the Exaltation of the Cross in Poltava. The project was financed by a number of prominent local residents, including Martyn Pushkar, Ivan Iskra, Ivan Kramar and many others.[6]

During the 1654 Pereyaslav Council, the Poltava city delegates pledged their allegiance to the Czar of Muscovy, after which stolnik Andrei Spasitelev arrived in Poltava and recorded 1,335 residents who had pledged their allegiance.[6] In 1658 Poltava became a center of anti-government revolt led by Martyn Pushkar, who contested the legitimacy of Ivan Vyhovsky's election to the post of Hetman of Zaporizhian Host.[6] The uprising was extinguished with the help of Crimean Tatars.[6]

On the issue boyar Vasily Borisovich Sheremetev wrote to Alexei Mikhailovich on 8 June 1658: "... the Cherkas [Cossack] city of Poltava is ravaged and burned to the ground and only if the Great Sovereign orders to rebuilt on the Tatar Sokma (pathway) of Bakeyev Route and protect many his sovereign cities from Tatar visits. And if the Great Sovereign allows to place a voivode in the city and rebuilt the city until the fall that in Plotava Cherkasy [Cossacks] and residents built their houses and stock-piled their food".[6] With the signing of the 1667 truce of Andrusovo, the city was finally subjected to the Tsardom of Muscovy, while remaining part of the Cossack Hetmanate.

The city suffered from the Great Turkish War when in 1695 Petro Ivanenko led an anti-Muscovite uprising with the help of Crimean Tatars, who ravaged the local monastery.[6] The same year the Poltava Regiment actively participated in the Azov campaigns which resulted in the taking of the Turkish fortress of Kyzy-Kermen (today the city of Beryslav, Kherson Oblast).[6] On 8 July (New Style) or 27 June (Old Style) 1709 the Battle of Poltava took place near the city during the Great Northern War. The battle ended in a decisive victory of Peter I of Russia over the Swedish forces and had great historical importance for the Russians.[6] In 1710 there was a plague in the city and its surrounding area.[6] In the mid-18th century the Kolomak Woods near Poltava became a base of haidamaks (Cossack paramilitary bands).[6]

By 1770, Poltava had several brick factories, a regimental doctor, and a pharmacy; that same year the city conducted four fairs.[6] In 1775 it became a city of Novorossiysk Governorate, guarded by the 8th Company of the Dnieper Pike Regiment headquartered in Kobeliaky.[6] In 1775 Poltava's Monastery of the Exaltation of the Cross (Russian: Крестовоздвиженский монастырь, Krestovozdvizhensky Monastyr) became the seat of bishops of the newly created Eparchy (Diocese) of Slaviansk and Kherson. This large new diocese included the lands of the Novorossiya Governorate and the Azov Governorate north of the Black Sea.[9][10]

Since much of that area had only recently been seized from the Ottoman Empire by Russia, and a large number of Orthodox Greek settlers had been invited to settle in the region, the imperial government selected a renowned Greek scholar, Eugenios Voulgaris, to preside over the new diocese. After his retirement in 1779, he was replaced by another Greek theologian, Nikephoros Theotokis.[9][10]

Alexander Square in 1850

In 1779 the city established the Poltava county school, which became its first secular educational institution.[6] In 1787 Catherine the Great stopped in Poltava on the way from Crimea, escorted by Grigori Potemkin, Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov.[6] In Poltava, on 7 June 1787, before another Russo-Turkish War, Potemkin received his title "Prince of Taurida", while Suvorov received a snuffbox with monogram.[6] In 1802 the city became the seat of the newly established Poltava Governorate.[6] The city's population in 1802 consisted of some 8,000 residents.[6] That same year Poltava opened a government-funded hospital of 20 beds.[6]

Map of Poltava 1857

The 200th Anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Poltava in June 1909

On 2 February 1808, the Poltava Male Gymnasium was established.[6] On 20 June 1808 some 54 families of craftsmen were invited to the city from German principalities and settled in the newly established German Sloboda neighborhood with about 50 clay-made houses.[6] In 1810 there were 8,328 people living in Poltava;[6] that same year, the city's first theater was built.[6] In August 1812, on orders of Little Russia Governor General Lobanov-Rostovsky, the famed Ukrainian writer and statesman Ivan Kotlyarevsky formed the 5th Poltava Cavalry Cossack Regiment.[6]

By 1860, Poltava had around 30,000 inhabitants, a district school, a gymnasium, an Institute for Noble Maidens, a spiritual academy, a cadet corps, a library and a number of schools. In 1870 a railway station was opened, leading to rapid economic growth in the region. However, by 1914 the Population of Poltava (around 60,000) was mostly working in small enterprises. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Poltava became an important cultural centre, where many representatives of Ukrainian national revival were active.

The Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation

During the events of 1917–1920, Poltava was under the rule of a number of governments, including the Central Rada, Hetmanate, Ukrainian People's Republic, White Movement and Bolsheviks. From 1918 to 1919 there was Occupation of Poltava by the Bolsheviks. After becoming a part of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Poltava experienced accelerated industrial growth, and its population increased to 130,000 by 1939.

In World War II, the Nazi Wehrmacht occupied Poltava from 18 September 1941 until 23 September 1943, when it was retaken during the Chernigov-Poltava Strategic Offensive of the Battle of the Dnieper. During the Nazi occupation the Jewish population (9.9% of the total population in 1939) was imprisoned in a ghetto before being murdered during mass executions perpetrated by an Einsatzgruppe and buried in mass graves in the area.[11]

By the summer of 1944, the United States Army Air Forces conducted a number of shuttle bombing raids against Nazi Germany under the name of Operation Frantic. Poltava Air Base, as well as Myrhorod Air Base, were used as eastern locations for landing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers involved in those operations.

The post-war restoration of Poltava continued in the 1950s and 1960s. The city became an important centre of military education in the Soviet Union, where missile and communications officers were prepared, and was also home to a Soviet Air Force division of heavy bombers.

Until 18 July 2020, Poltava was designated as a city of oblast significance and did not belong to Poltava Raion even though it was the center of the raion. As part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Poltava Oblast to four, the city was merged into Poltava Raion.[12][13]

Distribution of the population by native language according to the 2001 census:[14]

According to a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in April-May 2023, 75 % of the city's population spoke Ukrainian at home, and 12 % spoke Russian.[15]

Poltava has a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb), with four distinct seasons, it is one of the coldest cities in Ukraine. The annual precipitation is fairly evenly distributed, with the highest concentration in summer, and which falls as snow in winter.[16][17][18]

The most popular sport is football (soccer). Two professional football teams are based in the city: Vorskla Poltava in the Ukrainian Premier League and FC Poltava in the Second League. There are 3 stadiums in Poltava: Butovsky Vorskla Stadium (main city stadium), Dynamo Stadium are situated in the city centre and Lokomotiv Stadium which is situated in Podil district.

Ruslan Rotan, 2016

• Leonid Bartenyev (1933–2021) a 100 metre team silver medallist at the 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympics
• Sergei Diyev (born 1958) a Russian football manager and former player with over 600 club caps
• Serhiy Konovalov (born 1972) a football coach and former footballer with 270 club caps and 22 for Ukraine
• Oleksandr Melaschenko (born 1978) a football striker with over 320 club caps and 16 for Ukraine
• Ruslan Rotan (born 1981) a former professional footballer with 382 club caps and 100 for Ukraine; now manager of the Ukraine national under-21 football team
• Ivan Shariy (born 1957) is a former Soviet and Ukrainian footballer with over 500 club caps

The Kyivskyi Vokzal, the city's main railway station.

Poltava's transportation infrastructure consists of two major train stations with railway links to Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kremenchuk. Poltava's Kyiv line is electrified and is used by the Poltava Express. The electrification of the Poltava-Kharkiv line was completed in August 2008.[33]

The Avtovokzal serves as the city's intercity bus station. Buses for local municipal routes depart from "AC-2" (autostation No. 2 – along Shevchenko street) and "AC-3" (Zinkivska street). Local municipal routes are parked along the Taras Shevchenko Street. Marshrutka minibuses serve areas where regular bus access is unavailable; however, they are privately owned and cost more per ride. In addition, a 10-route trolleybus network of 72.6 kilometres (45.1 mi) runs throughout the city. On the routes of the city go more than 50 units of trolleybuses.

Poltava is also served by an International Airport, situated outside the city limits near the village of Ivashky. The international highway M03, linking Poltava with Kyiv and Kharkiv, passes through the southern outskirts of the city. There is also a regional highway P-17 crossing Poltava and linking it with Kremenchuk and Sumy.[34]