Dnipro

Scholarship concerning the foundation of the city has been subject to political considerations and dispute.[27][28] In 1976, to have the bicentenary of the city coincide with the 70th anniversary of the birth of Soviet party leader, and regional native son, Leonid Brezhnev, the date of the city's foundation was moved back from the visit Russian Empress Catherine II in 1787, to 1776.[27]

Following Ukrainian independence, local historians began to promote the idea of a town emerging in the 17th century from Cossack settlements, an approach aimed at promoting the city's Ukrainian identity.[28][29] They cited the chronicler of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Dmytro Yavornytsky, whose History of the City of Ekaterinoslav completed in 1940 was authorised for publication only in 1989, the era of Glasnost.[30][29]

A part of the Cuman statue collection of the Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro

Human settlements in current Dnipropetrovsk Oblast date from the Paleolithic era.[31] According to archeological finds, in the Paleolithic period (7—3 thousand Anno Domini) human settlements appear near the Aptekarska brook in what is now Chechelivskyi District and on Monastyrskyi Island.[32] A Neolithic stonecrafter's house has been excavated in one of Dnipro's city parks.[31] In the Bronze Age the area was settled by diverse tribes.[31] Traces of Cimmerian settlements during the Bronze age have been found near today's Taras Shevchenko Park.[32] The area of modern Dnipro was part of the Scythian empire from approximately the 1th century BC until the 3rd century BC.[33][34] During the Migration Period (300–800) nomadic tribes of the Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, and Magyars passed through the lands of the Dnieper region, they came into contact with local agricultural East Slavs.[33]

The area of modern Dnipro was part of Kievan Rus' (882–1240).[33] The region witnessed fighting between the armies of Kievan Rus' and Khazars, Pechenegs, Tork people and Cumans.[33] In the 13th century the Dnieper region was devastated during the Mongol Empire conquering of Kievan Rus'.[33] The area of modern Dnipro city was incorporated into the Mongol's khanate Golden Horde.[35]

In the 14th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania laid claim to today's central Ukraine.[35] The area became part of the Kiev Voivodeship (1471–1565) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[35] Archeological finds in today's Dnipro's urban district Samarskyi District suggest that the important river crossing was a trading settlement from at least 1524.[27] In 1635, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth built the Kodak Fortress above the Dnieper Rapids at Kodaky on the south-eastern outskirts of modern Dnipro near the current Kaidatsky Bridge,[12] only to have it destroyed within months by the Cossacks of Ivan Sulyma.[36] Rebuilt in 1645,[12] it was captured by Zaporozhian Sich in 1648.[27]

Around the fortress a settlement emerged that became a town in Kodak Palanka (province) of the Zaporizhian Sich called New Kodak.[12] Cossacks often hid the true number of the population in order to reduce taxation and other obligations, but according to documentary evidence, it can be assumed that the population of New Kodak was at least 3,000 people.[12] The fortress became garrisoned by the Cossacks until the Sich, allied with the Ottoman Empire and their Tartar vassals, drove out the encroaching Tsardom of Russia when under the terms of the withdrawal of the Russian army—the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711—the Kodak fortress was demolished.[27][37] In the mid-1730s, the fortress and Russians returned, living in an uneasy cohabitation with local cossacks.[27]

The Zaporozhian sloboda (or "free settlement") of Polovytsia existed from the mid 18th century, located on the site of today's Central Terminal and the Ozyorka farmers market.[38][13] In the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), the Zaporozhian cossacks allied with Empress Catherine II. No sooner had they assisted the Russians to victory than they faced an imperial ultimatum to disband their confederation. The liquidation of the Sich destroyed their political autonomy and saw the incorporation of their lands into the new governates of Novorossiya.[39] After the 1784 order of Russian Empereres Catherine the great to found a new city called Katerynoslav (see below) from 1787 to 1791, New Kodak was called Katerynoslav in many local papers, even official ones.[12]

In 2001 the seal of Kodak Palanka became the central element of Dnipro's coat of arms and Dnipro's official flag.[12]

The first written mention of a town in the Russian Empire called Yekaterinoslav can be found in a report from Azov Governor Vasily Chertkov to Grigory Potemkin on 23 April 1776. He wrote "The provincial city called Yekaterinoslav should be the best convenience on the right side of the Dnieper River near Kaydak..." (Which referred to New Kodak). In 1777 a town, named Yekaterinoslav in honour of Saint Catherine,[10] was built to the north of the present-day city at the confluence of the Samara and Kilchen rivers. The site was badly chosen – spring waters transformed the city into a bog.[38][13] The surviving settlement was later renamed Novomoskovsk.[12][40]

The territory of modern Dnipro, despite the modern-day city's size, still has not expanded to encompass the territory of (Chertkov's) Yekaterinoslav of 1776.[27] On 22 January 1784 Russian Empereres Catherine the great signed an Imperial Ukase directing that "the gubernatorial city under name of Yekaterinoslav" be moved to the right bank of Dnieper near Kodak". The new city would serve Grigory Potemkin as a Viceregal seat for the combined Novorossiya and Azov Governorates.[13]

On 20 May [O.S. 9 May] 1787, in the course of her celebrated Crimean journey., the Empress laid the foundation stone of the Transfiguration Cathedral in the presence of Austrian Emperor Joseph II, Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski, and the French and English ambassadors.[41][42] Potemkin's grandiose plans for a third Russian imperial capital alongside Moscow and Saint Petersburg included a viceregal palace, a university (Potemkin envisioned Yekaterinoslav as the 'Athens of southern Russia'[43]), courts of law and a botanical garden,[44] were frustrated by a renewal of the Russo-Turkish war in 1787, by bureaucratic procrastination, defective workmanship, and theft, Potemkin's death in 1791 and that of his imperial patroness five years later.[43]

In 1815 a government official described the town as "more like some Dutch [Mennonite] colony then a provincial administrative centre".[45] The cathedral, much reduced in size, was completed in 1835.[13]

A map of Ekaterinoslav, 1885[nb 3]

The Main Post Office, 1870

Catherine the Great monument in Ekaterinoslav (1840–1920). This monument that stood in front of the Mining Institute was replaced by Soviet authorities with one of Russian academic Mikhail Lomonosov.[46]

While into the late nineteenth the principal business of the town remained the processing of agricultural raw materials,[13] there was an early state-sponsored effort to promote manufacture. In 1794 the government supported two factories: a textile factory that was transferred from the town of Dubrovny Mogilev Governorate and a silk-stockings factory that was brought from the village of Kupavna near Moscow. In 1797 the textile factory employed 819 permanent workers, 378 of whom were women and 115 children. The silk stocking workers, the majority being women, were serfs bought at an auction for 16,000 rubles. Conditions, as Potemkin himself was forced to admit, were harsh, with many of the workers dying from malnutrition and exhaustion.[13]

From 1797 to 1802, while serving under the Emperor Paul I as the administrative centre of a centre of the Novorossiya Governorate, the settlement was officially known as Novorossiysk.[47][13]

Despite the bridging of the Dnieper in 1796 and commerce was slow to develop. 1832 saw the establishment of the small Zaslavsky iron-casting factory, the town's first metallurgical enterprise.[13] Industrialisation gathered a pace in the 1880s with the establishment of the first railway connections.[48] Rail construction responded to the enterprise of two men: John Hughes, a Welsh businessman who built an iron works at what is now Donetsk (then Yuzovka) in 1869–72, and developed the Donetsk coal deposits;[38] and the Russian geologist Alexander Pol, who in 1866 had discovered the Kryvyi Rih iron ore basin, Kryvbas, during archaeological research.[38]

In 1884, a railway to supply pig iron foundries in Kryvyi Rih with Donetsk coal crossed the Dnieper at Yekaterinoslav.[47] It proved a spur to further industrial development[47] and to the creation of the new suburbs of Amur and Nyzhnodniprovsk.

In 1897, Yekaterinoslav became the third city in the Russian Empire to have electric trams. The Yekaterinoslav Higher Mining School, today's Dnipro Polytechnic, was founded in 1899.[49] Within twenty years the population had more than tripled, reaching 157,000 in 1904.[50] The immigrants flowing into the city were mainly ethnic or cultural Russians and Jews, with the Ukrainian population remaining rural in this stage of the industrial revolution.[51]

From 1792 Yekaterinoslav was within the Pale of Settlement, the former Polish-Lithuanian territories in which Catherine and her successors enforced no limitation on the movement and residency of their Jewish subjects.[52] Within less than a century, a largely Yiddish-speaking Jewish community of 40,000 constituted more than a third of the city's population, and contributed a considerable share of its business capital and industrial workforce.[53]

Such apparent strength did not protect the community—members of whom had had the unpopular task of collecting government taxes and recruiting young men for the army[54]— from communal violence.[55] In 1883, three days of rioting destroyed Jewish business, and persuaded many to temporarily leave the city. There was a return of anti–Semitic incitement among the Christian public in 1904, but attacks on community were, at that time, suppressed on the order of a liberal governor.[54]

In the widespread social unrest that followed the 1905 defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the political life of the city was dominated by the revolutionary opposition (including the Jewish Workers Socialist Party and the Bund)[54] and by the insurrectionary spirit of the nascent labor movement. The local czarist authorities were able to ride out the wave political protests and strikes, in part by playing on division between Jewish workers who predominated as clerks and artisans in the city, and Russian workers employed in the large suburban factories.[56] There was a wave of anti-Semitic attacks. With the army intervening against Jewish defense groups, about 100 Jews were killed and two hundred wounded.[54]

According to local historian Andrii Portnov, 40% of the local Yekaterinoslav population was Jewish in the years leading up to World War I.[57]

Monument in Dnipro of an armored train that was built by the workers of Yekaterinoslav's Bryansk plant in 1918, which was employed by the Red Army in its conquest of Ukraine and the Volga region.

In June 1917, four months after the Russian February revolution, a Central Council (Tsentralna Rada) of Ukrainian parties in Kyiv declared Yekaterinoslav to be within the territory of the autonomous Ukrainian People's Republic.[47] On 10 November 1917 a parade of Ukrainian troops was held, organized by the Yekaterinoslav Ukrainian Military Council in support of the Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council, the proclaiming the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic.[47] On 29 December 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power in Yekaterinoslav and were able to keep it under their control until 4 April 1918.[47]

In the November 2017 elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly the Bolshevik had secured just under 18 percent of the vote in the Governorate, compared to 46 percent for the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries and their allies.[58] The Bolsheviks declared the city part of a Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic. In the March 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the Bolsheviks conceded their Ukrainian held territory to the German-controlled Ukrainian State. From 9 April to 29 April 1918 the Ukrainian People's Republic was in charge in the city[47].[59] After German and Austro-Hungarian forces withdrew west in November 1918[60] the city from 20 November to 30 December 1918 was controlled by the Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic.[47]

On 27 December the the anarchist Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (the Makhnovshchina) with a force of 600 insurgents took control of the city on behalf of the Bolsheviks, after days to clear out the remaining forces loyal to the Ukrainian People's Republic.[61][62] Because the Makhnovshchina held control of the city, the Bolsheviks abandoned their military positions and this allowed the Ukrainian People's Republic to gain control of the city.[63] Many Makhnovshchina soldiers died. [63] From 1 January until 26 January the Ukrainian People's Republic was able to keep the city under their control.[47] In January 1920 the Bolshevik Red Army was in full control of Yekaterinoslav.[60]

The city's Comedy and Drama Theatre was constructed during the Stalinist period.

In 1922 the region was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. In 1922 the Soviet government ordered that "all nationalized enterprises with names related to the Company or the Surname of the old owners must be renamed in memory of revolutionary events, in memory of the international, all-Russian or local leaders of the proletarian revolution."[64] In 1922 and 1923 the factories were renamed, as well as dozens of streets, alleys, driveways, squares and parks.[64] In 1923 the city council adopted a resolution to organize a competition to rename the city itself.[64]

In 1924 a Provincial Congress of Soviets adopted a resolution on renaming the city of Yekaterinoslav to the city of Krasnodniprovsk (and Yekaterinoslav Province to Krasnodniprovsk). Following this, many organizations and institutions began to name Yekaterinoslav Krasnodniprovsk in official documents, only to be reminded in the press that the renaming of settlements could only be decided by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.[64] In 1926 a provisional District Congress of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies adopted a resolution on renaming Yekaterinoslav to the name Dnipropetrovsk in honour of the of the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets's chairman of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, Grigory Petrovsky.[19][65][64]

Petrovsky was present at this congress and he did "accept this honor with great gratitude."[64] The resolution of the congress was approved by a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet dated 20 July 1926.[64] In the 1920s and 1930s dozens of streets, alleys, driveways, squares and parks continued to be renamed in the city, this continued in the 1940s and in subsequent years.[64]

In the late twenties, the authorities had to contend with growing labor unrest. "Do not strangle us, our children are dying of hunger, we have been placed in worse conditions than under the old regime" read one protest.[66] Despite this, the city figured prominently in Stalin's Five-Year Plans for industrialisation. In 1932, Dnipropetrovsk's regional metallurgical plants produced 20 per cent of the entire cast iron and 25 per cent of the steel manufactured in the Ukrainian SSR. By the end of the thirties the Dnipropetrovsk region became the most urbanised of Soviet Ukraine with more than 2,273,000 people living in the region and over half a million in the city proper. Dnipropetrovsk became an important cultural and educational centre with ten colleges and a State University.[67]

The surrounding countryside was devastated by the policy of forced collectivisation and grain seizures. Peasants had died en masse during the Holodomor of 1932–33.[68] Drawn by employment in the expanding heavy industry, the survivors changed the ethnic composition of the city. The percentage of residents recorded as Ukrainian rose from 36 percent of the population in 1926 to 54.6 percent in 1939, while the Russian percentage fell from 31.6 to 23.4, and the Jewish share fell from 26.8 to 17.9.[69][70]

Monument to 20,000 Jews shot by Germans in 1943 in Dnipropetrovsk. The monumental inscription (in Russian) does not mention Jews by name, but speaks of "20,000 civilians."[71]

Dnipropetrovsk was under Nazi occupation from 26 August 1941[72] to 25 October 1943.[73] The city was administered as part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The Holocaust in Dnipropetrovsk reduced the city's remaining Jewish population, estimates for which range from 55,000 to 30,000, to just 702.[74][75] In just two days, 13–14 October 1941, the Germans killed 15,000.[76]

In a series of camps in the city (Stammlager 348),[77] the occupiers are estimated to have killed upwards of 30,000 Soviet POWs.[78]

Yuzhmash produced Tsyklon-3 flanked by an RT-20P and R-11 Zemlya on display in Dnipro's "Rocket Park".

As early as July 1944, the State Committee of Defence in Moscow decided to build a large military machine-building factory in Dnipropetrovsk on the location of the pre-war aircraft plant. In December 1945, thousands of German prisoners of war began construction and built the first sections and shops in the new factory. This was the foundation of the Dnipropetrovsk Automobile Factory. In 1954 the administration of this automobile factory opened a secret design office, designated OKB-586, to construct military missiles and rocket engines.[79]

The high-security project was joined by hundreds of physicists, engineers and machine designers from Moscow and other large Soviet cities. In 1965, the secret Plant No. 586 was transferred to the USSR Ministry of General Machine-Building which renamed it "the Southern Machine-building Factory" (Yuzhnyi mashino-stroitel'nyi zavod) or in abbreviated Russian, simply Yuzhmash. Yuzhmash became a significant factor in the arms race of the Cold War (Nikita Khrushchev boasted in 1960 that it was producing rockets "like sausages" ).[80]

In 1959, Dnipropetrovsk was officially closed to foreign visitors.[81] No foreign citizen, even of a socialist state, was allowed to visit the city or district. Its citizens were held by Communist authorities to a higher standard of ideological purity than the rest of the population, and their freedom of movement was severely restricted. It was not until 1987, during perestroika, that Dnipropetrovsk was opened to international visitors and civil restrictions were lifted.[82]

Notwithstanding the high-security regime, in September and October 1972, workers downed tools in several factories in Dnipropetrovsk demanding higher wages, better food and living conditions, and the right to choose one's job.[83] Labor miiltancy returned in the late 1980s, a period in which promises of Perestrioka and Glasnost raised popular expectations.[84] In 1990 two thousand inmates rioted in the women's remand prison in a further of sign of growing unrest.[85]

Dnipropetrovsk's Mining Institute, 1972.

In 1959 17.4% of Dnipropetrovsk students were taught in Ukrainian language schools and 82.6% in Russian language schools. 58% of the city's inhabitants self-identified as Ukrainians.[86] Compared with the other 3 biggest cities of Ukraine Dnipropetrovsk had a rather large share of education conducted in Ukrainian. In Kyiv 26.8% of pupils studied in Ukrainian and 73.1% in Russian while 66% of Kyiv residents considered themselves Ukrainian, in Kharkiv these numbers were 4.9%, 95.1% and 49%. In Odesa these numbers were 8.1%, 91.9% and 40%.[86][nb 4]

As in the overall Ukrainian SSR, Dnipropetrovsk saw an influx of young immigrants from rural Ukraine.[88] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast saw the highest inflow of rural youth of all Ukraine.[88]

According to KGB reports, in the 1960s "Samizdat" and Ukrainian diaspora publications began to circulate via Western Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk. These fed into underground student circles where they promoted interest in the "Ukrainian Sixtiers", in Ukrainian history, especially of Ukrainian Cossacks, and in the revival of the Ukrainian language. Occasionally the blue and yellow flag of independent Ukraine was unfurled in protest.[89] The authorities responded with repression: arresting and jailing members of underground discussion groups for "nationalistic propaganda".[90]

The growing evidence of dissent in the city coincided from the late 1960s with what the KGB referred to as "radio hooliganism". Thousands of high-school and college students had become ham radio enthusiasts, recording and rebroadcasting western popular music. Annual KGB reports regularly drew a connection between enthusiasm for western pop culture and anti-Soviet behavior.[91] In the 1980s, by which time the KGB had conceded that their raids against "hippies" had failed suppress the youth rebellion,[92][nb 5] such behavior was reportedly found in an admixture of Anglo-American" heavy metal, punk rock and Banderism—the veneration of Stepan Bandera, and of other Ukrainian nationalists, who in the Soviet narrative were denounced and discredited as Nazi collaborators.[94]

In an attempt to provide Dnipropetrovsk youth with an ideologically safe alternative, beginning in 1976 the local Komsomol set up approved discoteques. Some of the activists involved in this "disco movement" went on in the 1980s to engage in their own illicit tourist and music enterprises, and several later became influential figures in Ukrainian national politics, among them Yulia Tymoshenko, Victor Pinchuk, Serhiy Tihipko, Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Oleksandr Turchynov.[93]

Reflecting Dnipropetrovsk's special strategic importance for the entire Soviet Union, party cadres from the "rocket city" played an outsized role not only in republican leaderhip in Kyiv, but also in the Union leadership in Moscow.[95] During Stalin's Great Purge, Leonid Brezhnev rose rapidly within the ranks of the local nomenklatura,[96] from director of the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute in 1936 to regional (Obkom) Party Secretary in charge of the city's defense industries in 1939.[97]

Here, he took the first steps toward building a network of supporters which came to be known as the "Dnipropetrovsk Mafia". They spearheaded the internal party coup that in 1964 saw Brezhnev replace Nikita Khrushchev as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and call a halt to further reform.[96]

In a national referendum on 1 December 1991, 90.36% of Dnipropetrovsk's voters approved the declaration of independence that had been made by the Ukrainian parliament on 24 August.[98] Amidst the economic dislocation and soaring inflation that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, output declined.[99] Although its economic contraction was at a rate below the national average,[100] the Dnipropetrovsk city and oblast witnessed one of the largest population declines of all the regions of Ukraine.[101] By 2021, the city's population, which had stood at over 1.2 million in 1991, had been reduced to 981,000.[102] Young people from Dnipropetrovsk were among the millions of Ukrainians who left the country to find work and opportunity abroad.[103]

The continuation into the new century of the chaotic fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union was symbolized for many in Dnipropetrovsk by two violent episodes. In June and July 2007, Dnipropetrovsk experienced a wave of random video-recorded serial killings that were dubbed by the media as the work of the "Dnipropetrovsk maniacs".[104] In February 2009, three youths were sentenced for their part in 21 murders, and numerous other attacks and robberies.[105] On 27 April 2012, four bombs exploded near four tram stations in Dnipropetrovsk, injuring 27 people.[106] No one was convicted. Opposition politicians claimed to see the hand of President Viktor Yanukovych intent on disrupting the October 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election and installing a presidential regime.[107][108]

Lenin Square in Dnipropetrovsk on 22 February 2014 with the demolished monuments to Vladimir Lenin.

On 26 January 2014, 3,000 anti-(Ukrainian President) Viktor Yanukovych and pro-Euromaidan activists attempted but failed to capture the Regional State Administration building.[109][110][111][112][113] There were street disturbances[114] and Euromaidan protesters were reported to be beaten up by paid pro-Yanukovych supporters (the so-called Titushky).[115][116] Dnipropetrovsk Governor Kolesnikov called them "extreme radical thugs from other regions".[117]

Two days later about 2,000 public sector employees called an indefinite rally in support of the Yanukovych government.[118] Meanwhile, the government building was reinforced with barbed wire.[118][119][120] On 19 February 2014 there was an anti-Yanukovych picket near the Regional State Administration.[121] On 22 February 2014, after a further anti-Yanukovych demonstration, Dnipropetrovsk Mayor Ivan Kulichenko, for the sake of "peace in the city" left Yanukovych's Party of Regions.[122]

Simultaneously the Dnipropetrovsk City Council vowed to support "the preservation of Ukraine as a single and indivisible state", although some members had called for separatism and for federalization of Ukraine.[122] On the same day, after street fighting in Kyiv, 22 February 2014, Yanukovych left Ukraine and went into Russian exile.[123]

A destroyed monument to Vladimir Lenin on Dnipro's Kalinin Avenue (now Prospekt Serhiy Nigoyan) in October 2014.

Dnipropetrovsk remained relatively quiet during the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, with pro-Russian Federation protestors outnumbered by those opposing outside intervention.[124][125] In March 2014 the city's Lenin Square was renamed "Heroes of Independence Square" in honor of the people killed during Euromaidan.[125][126] The statue of Lenin on the square was removed.[125][127] In June 2014 another Lenin monument was removed and replaced by a monument to the Ukrainian military fighting the Russo-Ukrainian War.[128][129]

Memorial to the victims of the Russian-Ukrainian War (ATO zone) in Dnipro's city centre in 2018.

To comply with the 2015 decommunization law the city was renamed Dnipro in May 2016, after the river that flows through the city.[20][18] By summer 2016 not only was the city was renamed, but so were more than 350 streets, alleys, driveways, squares and parks.[130] For example, Karl Marx Avenue, the main street, was renamed Yavornytskyi Avenue in honour of the once neglected city and cossack historian.[131] This was 12 percent of all of the city's toponymies.[130] Five of the eight urban districts of the city received new names.[130]

The slogan "Russian warship, go fuck yourself" displayed on a bus stop in Dnipro in February 2022.

In the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and with developing military fronts near Kyiv and to the north, east and south, Dnipro has become a logistical hub for humanitarian aid and a reception point for people fleeing the war. Roughly equidistant from most of the war's major battlegrounds — Donetsk, Mariupol, Kherson and Kharkiv are all within 200 miles (320 km)— the city's location is proving critical for supplying the Ukrainian defence effort. At the same time, its control of a Dnieper River crossing and the opportunity it would provide to cut off Ukrainian forces in the Donbas makes the city a high-value target for the Russians.[11][132]

Dnipro is reported as the only city in Ukraine where a volunteer formation has been created under direct City Council control. It is called the "Dnieper Guard" (Варти Дніпра, Varty Dnipra). The Mayor of Dnipro, Borys Filatov has dismissed suggestions that the group remained Ihor Kolomoyskyi's "private army". Kolomoyskyi has helped with some equipment purchases, but the force performs defence and law and order functions under the leadership of the national police.[133]

Dnipro city after Russian shelling in the night on 29 September 2022.

The Russians first hit Dnipro on 11 March. According to state emergency services three air strikes close to a kindergarten and an apartment building killed at least one person.[134] On 15 March, Russian missiles hit Dnipro International Airport, destroying the runway and damaging the terminal.[135] In the early hours of 6 April, an air strike destroyed an oil depot.[136] On 10 April, a Ukrainian government spokesperson said that the airport in Dnipro had been "completely destroyed" as the result of a Russian attack.[137] On 15 July, a Russian missile attack killed four people and injured sixteen others in Dnipro.[138]

As part of the derussification campaign that swept through Ukraine following the February 2022 invasion 110 toponyms in the city were "de-Russified" from February to September 2022. According to Dnipro's Mayor Borys Filatov (speaking on 21 September 2022) "this is not the end."[139] Among other renamings, the Schmidt Street (the street was originally the Gymnasium Street but it was renamed to Otto Schmidt Street by Soviet authorities in 1934[64]) in the center of Dnipro was renamed to Stepan Bandera Street.[139]

Dnipro was hit during the 10 October 2022 Russian missile strikes on critical infrastructure.[140] On 18 October 2022 Russian missile strikes targeted the energy infrastructure of Dnipro.[141]

The City of Dnipro is governed by the Dnipro City Council. It is a city municipality that is designated as a separate district within its oblast.

Administratively, the city is divided into "districts in city" ("raiony v misti"). Presently, there are 8 of them. Aviatorske, an urban-type settlement located near the Dnipro International Airport, is also a part of Dnipro Municipality.

The City Council Assembly makes up the administration's legislative branch, thus effectively making it a city 'parliament' or rada. The municipal council is made up of 12 elected members, who are each elected to represent a certain district of the city for a four-year term. The current council was elected in 2015. The council has 29 standing commissions which play an important role in the oversight of the city and its merchants.

Until 18 July 2020, Dnipro was incorporated as a city of oblast significance, the centre of Dnipro Municipality and extraterritorial administrative centre of Dnipro Raion. The municipality was abolished in July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to seven. The area of Dnipro Municipality was merged into Dnipro Raion.[142][143]

Dnipro is also the seat of the oblast's local administration controlled by the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Rada. The Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is appointed by the President of Ukraine.

Area map

Dnipro City Hall

The Dnipropetrovsk Regional Administration building

The Dnipro central post office

Vokzalna square

Modern buildings on the right bank

The Prydniprovsk Power Plant

Five of the eight city districts were renamed late November 2015 to comply with decommunization laws.[144]

In the first decades of Ukrainian independence the city's voters generally favoured the proponents of continued close ties to Russia: in the 1990s the Communist Party of Ukraine, and in the new century, the Party of Regions.[145][146] After the 2014 events of Euromaidan, which included demonstrations and clashes in the central city, the Party of Regions ceded influence to those parties and independents calling for closer ties to the European Union.

As in Soviet Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk was disproportionately represented among political leaders in Kyiv.[81] The principal representatives of the so-called "Dnipropetrovsk Faction" in the capital were Ukraine's second president Leonid Kuchma and Ukraine's 10th and 13th prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.[147] Kuchma was a former senior manager of Yuzhmash[147] while Tymoshenko was president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a Dnipropetrovsk-based private company that from 1995 to 1997 was the main importer of Russian natural gas to Ukraine.[148]

Kuchma's 1994 presidential campaign had been financed by Dnipropetrovsk businessmen Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov. Kolomoyskyi and Bogolyubov were partners in Privat Group, a scandal-ridden financial-industrial conglomerate.[149] As prime Minister, Kuchma had granted their PrivatBank the unique priviege of opening overseas branches. These were later implicated in the wholesale defrauding of Ukrainian depositors, leading to the bank's nationalization in 2016.[150][151] Kuchma was also closely tied to another budding Dnipropetrovsk billionaire, his son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk whose assets included several giant steel and pipe plants in the region and the bank Kredit-Dnepr.[147]

Campaign activities of the Party of Regions in downtown Dnipropetrovsk on 25 December 2009 during the 2010 presidential election.

With Viktor Yushchenko, Tymoshenko co-led the Orange Revolution which annulled the declared vidtory of Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 presidential election,[152] and under President Yuschenko served as prime minister from 24 January to 8 September 2005, and again from 18 December 2007 to 4 March 2010. Yanukovych narrowly defeated Tymoshenko the 2010 presidential election, taking 41.7 percent of the vote in the Dnipropetrovsk region.[153] The candidates accused one another of vote rigging.[154][155]

In the October 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election Yanukovych's Party of Regions, which promoted itself as the champion of the language rights and industrial interests of largely Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, won 35.8 percent of the vote in the Dnipropetrovsk region, compared to 18.4 percent for Tymoshenko's Fatherland Party and 19.4 percent for the Communists.[156] Tymoshenko mounted a hunger strike to once again protest election irregularities.[157]

On 2 March 2014, following the removal of Yanukovich as President, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov appointed Ihor Kolomoyskyi Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[158] Kolomoyskyi initially dismissed suggestions of Russian-backed separatism in Dnipropetrovsk,[159][160] but then tok vigorous measures. He posted bounties for the capture of Russian-backed militants and the surrender of weapons;[161][162] drafted housands of Privat Group employees as auxiliary police officers;[163] and is said to have provided substantial funds to create the Dnipro Battalion,[164][165] and to support the Aidar, Azov, and Donbas volunteer battalions.[166][167]

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Petro Poroshenko won the May 2014 presidential election with 45 per cent, but in the 2014 parliamentary election in October his political party Petro Poroshenko Bloc secured 19.4 percent of the vote, 5 points behind the Opposition Bloc,[168] the successor to the disbanded Party of Regions.[169][170]

On 25 March 2015, following a struggle with Kolomoyskyi for control the state-owned oil pipeline operator,[171] President Poroshenko replaced Kolomoyskyi as governor with Valentyn Reznichenko.[172][173][174]

In the 2015 Ukrainian local elections Borys Filatov of the patriotic UKROP[175] was elected Mayor of Dnipro.[176]

In the March–April 2019 Ukrainian presidential election Dnipro voted overwhelmingly voted for the successful candidate, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who advocated memberhsip of European Union.[177][178] In the parliamentary election in October, his Servant of the People party swept the board, winning each of Dnipro's five single-mandate parliamentary constituencies.[179][180]

By the time of the October 2020 Ukrainian local elections, support for Zelenskyy's party had collapsed: it won just 8.7 percent of the vote for the city council.[181] The Euromaidan trajectory was represented instead by Filatov's Proposition (the "Party of Mayors"),[182] with 60 percent of the popular vote against 30 percent for the pro-Russian the Opposition Platform – For Life.[183][nb 6]

Under the Köppen–Geiger climate classification system, Dnipro has a humid continental climate (Dfa/Dfb).[186] Snowfall is more common in the hills than at the city's lower elevations. The city has four distinct seasons: a cold, snowy winter; a hot summer; and two relatively wet transition periods. However, according to other schemes (such as the Salvador Rivas-Martínez bioclimatic one), Dnipro has a Supratemperate bioclimate, and belongs to the Temperate xeric steppic thermoclimatic belt, due to high evapotranspiration.[187]

During the summer, Dnipro is very warm (average day temperature in July is 24 to 28 °C (75 to 82 °F), even hot sometimes 32 to 36 °C (90 to 97 °F)). Temperatures as high as 36 °C (97 °F) have been recorded in May. Winter is not so cold (average day temperature in January is −4 to 0 °C (25 to 32 °F), but when there is no snow and the wind blows hard, it feels extremely cold. A mix of snow and rain happens usually in December.

The best time for visiting the city is in late spring (late April and May), and early in autumn: September, October, when the city's trees turn yellow. Other times are mainly dry with a few showers.[188]

"However, the city is characterized with significant pollution of air with industrial emissions."[189] The "severely polluted air and water" and allegedly "vast areas of decimated landscape" of Dnipro and Donetsk are considered by some to be an environmental crisis.[190] Though exactly where in Dnipropetrovsk these areas might be found is not stated.[190]

Dnipro is a primarily industrial city of around one million people; in being such it has developed into a large urban centre over the past few centuries to become, today, Ukraine's fourth-largest city after Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Stalinist architecture (monumental soviet classicism) dominates in the city centre.[193]

Immediately after its foundation, Dnipro, or as it was then known Yekaterinoslav, began to develop exclusively on the right bank of the Dnieper River. At first the city developed radially from the central point provided by the (completed in 1835[13]) Transfiguration Cathedral. Neoclassical structures of brick and stone construction were preferred and the city began to take on the appearance of a typical European city of the era. Of these buildings many have been retained in the city's older Sobornyi District.[194] Amongst the most important buildings of this era are the Transfiguration Cathedral, and a number of buildings in the area surrounding Akademik Yavornitskyi Prospekt, including the Khrennikov House.

Over the next few decades, until the final end of the Russian Empire with the October Revolution in 1917, the city did not change much in appearance and the predominant architectural style remained that of neo-classicism. Notable buildings built in the era of before 1917 include the main building of the Dnipro Polytechnic, which was built in 1899–1901,[195] the art-nouveau inspired building of the city's former Duma (parliament),[196] the Dnipropetrovsk National Historical Museum, and the Mechnikov Regional Hospital. Other buildings of the era that did not fit the typical architectural style of the time in Dnipropetrovsk include,[197] the Ukrainian-influenced Grand Hotel Ukraine, the Russian revivalist style railway station (since reconstructed),[198] and the art-nouveau Astoriya building on Akademik Yavornitskyi Prospekt.

Once Yekaterinoslav became part of the Soviet Union (officially in 1922), and became Dnipropetrovsk in 1926,[19] the city was gradually purged of tsarist-era monuments and monumental architecture was stripped of Imperial coats of arms and other non-socialist symbolism. Following the 1917 October Revolution, a monument to Catherine the Great that stood in front of the Mining Institute was replaced with one of Russian academic Mikhail Lomonosov.[46]

Later, due to damage from the World War II, badly damaged buildings were, more often than not, demolished completely and replaced with new structures.[199] This is one of the main reasons why much of Dnipro's central avenue, Akademik Yavornitskyi Prospekt (former Karl Marx Prospect), is designed in the style of Stalinist Social Realism.[200] A number of large buildings were reconstructed. The main railway station, for example, was stripped of its Russian-revival ornamentation and redesigned in the style of Stalinist social-realism,[201] The Grand Hotel Ukraine survived the war but was later simplified much in design, with its roof being reconstructed in a typical French mansard style as opposed to the ornamental Ukrainian baroque of the pre-war era. Many pre-revolution buildings were also reconstructed to suit new purposes. For example, the Emperor Nicholas II Commercial Institute in the city was reconstructed to serve as the administrative centre for the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a function it fulfils to this day. Other buildings, such as the Potemkin Palace were given over to "the proletariat" (the working man), in this case as the students' union of the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University.

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and appointment of Nikita Khrushchev as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the industrialisation of Dnipropetrovsk became even more profound, with the Southern (Yuzhne) Missile and Rocket factory being set up in the city. However, this was not the only development and many other factories, especially metallurgical and heavy-manufacturing plants, were set up in the city.[202] At this point Dnipropetrovsk became one of the most important manufacturing cities in the Soviet Union, producing many goods from small articles like screws and vacuum cleaners to aircraft engine parts and ballistic missiles.[202]

As a result of all this industrialisation the city's inner suburbs became increasingly polluted and were gradually given over to large, industrial enterprises. At the same time the extensive development of the city's left bank and western suburbs as new residential areas began.[202] The low-rise tenant houses of the Khrushchev era (Khrushchyovkas) gave way to the construction of high-rise prefabricated apartment blocks (similar to German Plattenbaus). In 1976 in line with the city's 1926 renaming, a large monumental statue of Grigoriy Petrovsky was placed on the square in front of the city's station.[203] This statue was destroyed by an angry mob early 2016.[204]

Since the independence of Ukraine in 1991 and the economic development that followed, a number of large commercial and business centres have been built in the city's outskirts. To this day the city is characterised by its mix of architectural styles, with much of the city's centre consisting of pre-revolutionary buildings in a variety of styles, stalinist buildings and constructivist architecture, whilst residential districts are, more often than not, made up of aesthetically simple, technically outdated mid-rise and high-rise housing stock from the Soviet era. Despite this, the city does have a large number of 'private sectors' were the tradition of building and maintaining individual detached housing has continued to this day. Late November 2015 about 300 streets, 5 of the 8 city districts and one metro station were renamed to comply with decommunization laws.[144] As part of the derussification campaign that swept through Ukraine following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine 110 toponyms in the city were renamed from February to September 2022.[139]

• Architecture and historically significant sites and monuments in Dnipro
• 
  The Yavornytsky Historical Museum
• 
  In the early 1950s, during the ongoing industrialisation of the city, much of Dnipropetrovsk's centre was rebuilt in the Stalinist style of Socialist Realism.[205] The statue of Lenin pictured here was removed in March 2014.[206]
• 
  Stalinist architecture blends with the post-modernism of Dnipro's 'Passage' shopping and entertainment centre[207]
• 
  The Dnipro Philharmonic

A panoramic view of the city

Akademik Yavornitskyi Prospekt, Dnipro's central avenue, features a green pedestrian boulevard and a tram line

The main forms of public transport used in Dnipro are trams, buses and electric trolley buses. In addition to this there are a large number of taxi firms operating in the city, and many residents have private cars.

The city's municipal roads also suffer from the same funding problems as the trams, with many of them in a very poor technical state. It is not uncommon to find very large potholes and crumbling surfaces on many of Dnipro's smaller roads. Major roads and highways are of better quality. In recent years the situation has, however, been improving, with a number of new used trams bought from the German cities of Dresden and Magdeburg,[231] and a number of roads, including Schmidt Street and Moskovsky Street being reconstructed with modern road-building techniques.[232]

A scheme of the Dnipro Metro system in the city

Dnipro also has a metro system, opened in 1995, which consists of one line and 6 stations.[233] The 1980 official plans for four different lines were never made reality.[234] In 2011 the metro was transferred to municipal ownership in the hope that this will help it secure a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.[235] In 2011, plans envisioned an expansion of three station, Teatralna, Tsentralna and Muzeina, to be completed by 2015.[236] The opening of these three stations have been repeatedly delayed and they will not open until 2024 at the earliest.[237] The extension will increase the number of stations to nine, which would extend the line 4 km to a total of 11.8 km (7.3-mile).[237]

Bridges linking the city's right and left banks are heavily used

Dnipro has some highways crossing through the city. The most popular routes are from Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia. Transit through the city is also available. As of 2011 the city is also seeing construction of a southern urban bypass, which will allow automobile traffic to proceed around the city centre. This is expected to both improve air quality and reduce transport issues from heavy freight lorries that pass through the city centre.

The largest bus station in eastern Ukraine is located in Dnipro, from where bus routes are available to all over the country, including some international routes to Russia, Poland, Germany, Moldova and Turkey. It is located near the city's central railway station.

In the summertime, there are some routes available by hydrofoils on the Dnieper River, whilst various tourist ships on their way down the river, (Kyiv–Kherson–Odessa) tend to make a stop in the city. Dnipro's river port is located close to the area surrounding the central railway station, on the banks of the river. It is a good example of constructivist architecture from the late period of the Soviet Union.

The city is a large railway junction, with many daily trains running to and from Eastern Europe and on domestic routes within Ukraine.

There are two railway terminals, Dnipro Holovnyi (main station) and Dnipro Lotsmanska (south station).

Two express passenger services run each day between Kyiv and Dnipro under the name 'Capital Express'. Other daytime services include suburban trains to towns and villages in the surrounding Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Most long-distance trains tend to run at night to reduce the amount of daytime hours spent travelling by each passenger.

Domestic connections exist between Dnipro and Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Truskavets, Kharkiv and many other smaller Ukrainian cities, whilst international destinations include, amongst others, Minsk in Belarus, Moscow's Kursky Station and Saint Petersburg's Vitebsky Station in Russia, Baku—the capital of Azerbaijan, and the Bulgarian seaside resort of Varna.

The city is served by Dnipro International Airport (IATA: DNK) and is connected to European and Middle Eastern cities with daily flights. It is located 15 km (9.3 mi) southeast from the city center.

Terminal of the Dnipro River Port

The city has a river port located on the left bank of the Dnieper. There is also a railroad freight station.

Dnipro is a major educational centre in Ukraine and is home to two of Ukraine's top-ten universities; the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University and Dnipro Polytechnic National Technical University. The system of high education institutions connects 38 institutions in Dnipro, among them 14 of IV and ІІІ levels of accreditation, and 22 of І and ІІ levels of accreditation. In year 2012 National Mining Institute was on the 7th and National University named after O. Honchar was on the 9th place among the best high education institutions in "TOP-200 Ukraine" list.

The main building of the Dnipro Polytechnic

The list below is a list of all current state-organised higher educational institutions (not included are non-independent subdivisions of other universities not based in Dnipro).

In the 21st century annually around 55,000 students studied in Dnipro, a significant number of whom students from abroad.[238]

Synagogue and Menorah Center

Entrance to the Taras Shevchenko Park

Dnipro has a variety of theatres (plus an Opera) and museums, including the Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum. There are also several parks, restaurants and beaches.

The major streets of the city were renamed in honour of Marxist heroes during the Soviet era. Following the 2015 law on decommunization these have been renamed.[18][144]

The central thoroughfare is known as Akademik Yavornytskyi Prospekt, a wide and long boulevard that stretches east to west through the centre of the city. It was founded in the 18th century and parts of its buildings are the actual decoration of the city. In the heart of the city is Soborna Square, which includes the Transfiguration Cathedral founded by order of Catherine the Great in 1787.[42] On the square, there are some remarkable buildings: the Museum of History, Diorama "Battle for the Dnipro River (World War II)."

Further from the city centre and next to the Dnieper River (spelled "Dnipro" in Ukrainian) is the large Taras Shevchenko Park (which is on the right bank of the river) and Monastyrskyi Island. In the 9th century, Byzantine monks based a monastery here.[239]

A few areas retain their historical character: all of Central Avenue, some street-blocks on the main hill (the Nagorna part) between Pushkin Prospekt and Embankment, and sections near Globa (formerly known as Chkalov park until it was renamed) and Shevchenko parks have been untouched for 150 years.

The river keeps the climate mild. It is visible from many points in Dnipro. From any of the three hills in the city, one can see a view of the river, islands, parks, outskirts, river banks and other hills.

There was no need to build skyscrapers in the city in Soviet times. The major industries preferred to locate their offices close to their factories and away from the centre of town. Most new office buildings are built in the same architectural style as the old buildings. A number, however, display more modern aesthetics, and some blend the two styles.

Dnipro-Arena

FC Dnipro football club, used to play in the Ukrainian Premier League and UEFA Europa League, and were the only Soviet team to win the USSR Federation Cup twice. The club was owned by the Privat Group. Note: A bandy team, a basketball team and others use the same name.

The city is home to BC Dnipro, champion of the 2019–20 Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague. The team plays its home games at the Palace of Sports Shynnik.

Other local football include: FC Lokomotyv Dnipropetrovsk and FC Spartak Dnipropetrovsk, both of which have large fan bases. SC Dnipro-1 is another team emerged in 2017.

Recently the city built a new soccer stadium; the Dnipro-Arena has a capacity of 31,003 people and was built as a replacement for Dnipro's old stadium, Stadium Meteor. The Dnipro-Arena hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification game between Ukraine and England on 10 October 2009. The Dnipro Arena was initially chosen as one of the Ukrainian venues for their joint Euro 2012 bid with Poland. However, it was dropped from the list in May 2009 as the capacity fell short of the minimum 33,000 seats required by UEFA.[240][241]

The city is the centre of Ukrainian bandy. The Ukrainian Federation of Bandy and Rink-Bandy has its office in the city.[242] The foremost local bandy club is Dnipro, which won the Ukrainian championship in 2014.

• Oksana Baiul (born 1977) – 1994 Winter Olympics figure skating gold medalist
• Anatoliy Demyanenko (born 1959) – Ukrainian football coach and former football defender.
• Artem Dolgopyat (born 1997) – Israeli artistic gymnast (Olympic medalist, second in world championships)
• Marharyta Dorozhon (born 1987) – Ukrainian/Israeli Olympic javelin thrower
• Kyrylo Fesenko (born 1986) – NBA basketball player
• Inessa Kravets (born 1966) – long jumper and triple jumper
• Yaroslava Mahuchikh (born 2001) – high jumper
• Igor Olshansky (born 1982) – NFL defensive tackle
• Olesya Povh (born 1987) – Olympic bronze medalist runner
• Oleh Protasov (born 1964) – former Ukrainian footballer
• Inna Ryzhykh (born 1985) – professional triathlete
• Adel Tankova (born 2000) – Ukrainian-born Israeli Olympic figure skater
• Oleg Tverdokhleb (1969–1995) – athlete, 400-metre hurdles
• Tatiana Volosozhar (born 1986) – figure skating Olympic gold medalist, 2014

Dnipro also cooperates with:[246]

• Osaka, Japan (2022)