Kirovohrad
Encyclopedia
Kirovohrad formerly Yelisavetgrad, is a city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

 in central Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. It is located on the Inhul River. It is a motorway junction. Pop. 239,400 (2004 est.).

Developed around a military settlement
Military settlement
Military settlements represented a special organization of the Russian military forces in 1810–1857, which allowed the combination of military service and agricultural employment.-The beginning of the reform:...

 the city got to prominence in the 19th century when it became an important trade
Trade
Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...

 centre enjoying the rights of the Ukrainian culture promoter with the first professional theatrical
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 company both in Central and Eastern Ukraine being established here in 1882.

In Soviet times the city rose to the status of an agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

 and light industry
Light industry
Light industry is usually less capital intensive than heavy industry, and is more consumer-oriented than business-oriented...

 centre whose fame was due to such enterprises as Chervona Zirka Agricultural Machinery Plant (which once provided more than 50% of the USSR need in tractor seeders
Seed drill
A seed drill is a sowing device that precisely positions seeds in the soil and then covers them. Before the introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to plant seeds by hand. Besides being wasteful, planting was very imprecise and led to a poor distribution of seeds, leading to low...

), Hydrosila Hydraulic Units Plant
Hydrosila
JSC Hydrosila is Ukraine's company, currently one of the basic companies within the corporation "Hydrosila GROUP" JSC. Nowadays four factories belong to corporation: "Hydrosila" JSC, "" JSC, "Hydrosila LEDA" JSC, "Hydrosila TETIS" Ltd....

, Radiy Radio Component Plant, Pishmash Typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

 Plant (de facto defunct nowadays) etc.

The recent history of Kirovohrad saw the imminent decline of the city's industrial potential and general socioeconomic value. The latter plus the poor reputation of local authorities with the city's population led to the widespread settled opinions that Kirovohrad belongs to the group of the low-developed regional capitals of Ukraine. Since 2002 the economics of Kirovohrad has been slowly reviving.

During the Ukrainian presidential election of 2004
Ukrainian presidential election, 2004
The Ukrainian presidential election, 2004 was held on October 31, November 21 and December 26, 2004. The election was the fourth presidential election to take place in Ukraine following independence from the Soviet Union...

 the city got the country-wide notoriety because of mass election fraud committed by local authorities and long after that was known as District 100 (the community number according to Central Elections Committee).

Administrative status

The city is the administrative center of Kirovohrad Oblast
Kirovohrad Oblast
Kirovohrad Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kirovohrad.-Geography:The area of the province is , its population is 1.1 million....

, as well of surrounding Kirovohrad Raion within the oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...

. However, the Kirovohrad is a city of oblast subordinance
Administrative divisions of Ukraine
Ukraine is subdivided into 24 oblasts , one autonomous republic, and two "cities with special status".- Overview :...

, thus being subject directly to the oblast authorities rather to the raion administration housed in the city itself. The municipality of Kirovohrad beside the Kirovohrad city council also includes Nove town council that represents the town of Nove.

Name origin

Throughout the history Kirovohrad changed its name several times.

Presenting the letter of grant on January 11, 1752 to Major-General Jovan Horvat, the organizer of Nova Serbia
Nova Serbia
New Serbia was a territory of Imperial Russia from 1752 to 1764. It was mostly located in the territory of present-day Kirovohrad Oblast of Ukraine, although some of its parts were located in the territory of present-day Cherkasy Oblast, Poltava Oblast and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast...

 settlements, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia ordered "to found the earthen fortress and name it the Fort of St. Elizabeth" (see On the Historical Meaning of the Name Elizabeth for Our City) (in Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

). Thus very ambivalently the future city was called in honour of its formal founder, the Russian empress, and simultaneously with due respect to her heavenly patroness, St. Elizabeth
Elizabeth (Biblical person)
Elizabeth is also spelled Elisabeth or Elisheva...

.

The official date of the name Yelisavetgrad (usually spelled Elisavetgrad or Elizabethgrad in English language publications) introduction is unknown. It is considered that the word itself should have appeared in a natural way, as the amalgamation of the fortress name and the common Eastern Slavonic
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...

 constituent "-grad
Gord (Slavic settlement)
Gord is a medieval Slavic fortified settlement. This Proto-Slavic word for town or city, later differentiated into grad , gard, gorod , etc. The ancient peoples were known for building wooden fortified settlements...

" (Old/Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...

 "градъ", "a settlement encompassed by a wall"). Its first documented usage dates back only to 1764 when the Yelisavetgrad Province was organized together with the Yelisavetgrad Lancer
Lancer
A lancer was a type of cavalryman who fought with a lance. Lances were used in mounted warfare by the Assyrians as early as and subsequently by Greek, Persian, Gallic, Han-Chinese, nomadic and Roman horsemen...

 Regiment.

In 1924 the city was renamed Zinovievsk, (also spelled Zinovyevsk,) - after Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...

, a Soviet statesman and one of the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks)
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

 leaders, who was born in Yelisavetgrad on September 20 (September 8 O.S.
Old Style and New Style dates
Old Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...

), 1883. At the time referred he was the member of Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...

 and the Chairman of the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

's Executive Committee.

On December 27, 1934, after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Zinovievsk and other Soviet cities was renamed again - this time as Kirovo, and then as Kirovograd. The latter name appeared simultaneously with the creation of Kirovograd Oblast, on January 10, 1939 and was aimed to differentiate the region from Kirov Oblast
Kirov Oblast
Kirov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kirov. Population: -History:In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vyatka remained a place of exile for opponents of the tsarist regime, including many prominent revolutionary figures.In 1920, a number of...

 in present-day Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

.

After the independence of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, the name of the city got started to be spelled directly via Ukrainian pronunciation as Kirovohrad, though previous Russified orthography is still widely used due to the wide spread of this language in the region.

Since 1991 there have been a lot of discussions on the future fate of the city name. A number of activists fervently support the idea to return the city its original name Yelisavetgrad (or now Yelysavethrad in Ukrainian transcription
Romanization of Ukrainian
The romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....

). Other variants were also proposed by people who consider the name of the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n Empress Elizabeth inappropriate for contemporary Ukraine: they were Tobilevychi (in honour of the Tobilevych family, the Coryphaei of the classic Ukrainian drama established in Kirovohrad in 1882), Zlatopil, from Ukrainian "золоте поле", literally "golden field", and Stepohrad, Ukrainian for "city of steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

s" (in recognition of the agricultural status of the city), Ukrayinsk or Ukrayinoslav, i.e. "the glorifying Ukraine one" and Novokozachyn (to commemorate the semi-fabulous Cossack regiment which could have quartered in the present-day city location).

Due to the slight tensions existing among the followers of different variants mentioned above and primarily because of annual city budget deficit the deal of Kirovohrad renaming remains an unresolved case.

History

The history of Kirovohrad starts from that of Fort of St. Elizabeth. This fort was built in 1754 by the order of empress Elizabeth of Russia and it played a pivotal role in the new lands added to Russia by the Belgrad Peace Treaty of 1739. In 1764 the settlement received status of the center of the Elizabeth province, and in 1784 the status of chief town of a district, when it was renamed after the fort as Yelizavetgrad.

The Fort of St. Elizabeth was located on the crossroads of trade routes, and it eventually became a major trade center. The city has held regular fairs 4 times a year. Merchants from all over the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 have visited these fairs. Also, there were a lot of foreign merchants, especially from Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

.

On Wednesday, April 27, 1881, there was a pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...

 against the Jewish citizens of Elisavetgrad. A religious dispute at an inn served as fuel for the riot. The attack focused at first on the systematic destruction of Jewish shops and warehouses. The Jewish citizens tried to protect their businesses, but this only led to more outrage. The soldiers joined in the rioting rather than protecting the innocent. After two days of attacks, many were killed, 500 houses and 100 shops were demolished and approximately 2,000,000 rubles' worth of property was stolen or destroyed. This would not be the only pogrom against the Jewish population of Elisavetgrad. In 1905 another riot flared killing Jews and again plundering the Jewish quarter. A contemporary account of the 1905 pogrom was reported in the NY Times December 13, 1905

Elizabethgrad was ravished by famine in 1901 which was made worse by poor government response. The region itself is extremely fertile. However, a drought in 1892 and poor farming methods which never allowed the soil to recover, prompted a large famine that plagued the region. According to a 1901 NY Times article, the Ministry of the Interior denied that the persistence of famine in the region and blocked non-State charities from bringing aid to the area. In the opinion of the NY Times author, "The existence of famine was inconvenient at a time when negotiations were pending for foreign loans." The Governor of the Kherson region, Prince Oblonsky, refused to acknowledge this famine. Nevertheless, one non-resident and non-State worker was able to gain access to Elizabethgrad and could provide the NY Times with an eye-witness account
He observed:
  1. General destitution
  2. Acute destitution
  3. Death from starvation
  4. Hunger typhus (shows poverty)
  5. Little to no work to be found in the region.


The first Ukraine theater was built in Kirovohrad, which was founded by M. Kropyvnyts'ky, I. Karpenko-Karyy, M. Zankovets'ka, P. Saksahans'ky and M. Sadovs'ky.

Famous people from Kirovohrad

  • Olesya Dudnik
    Olesya Dudnik
    Olesya [alternate spelling Olessia] Vitalyevna Dudnik is a gymnastics coach and former artistic gymnast who competed internationally for the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1990...

    , a Soviet gymnast
    Gymnast
    Gymnasts are people who participate in the sports of either artistic gymnastics, trampolining, or rhythmic gymnastics.See gymnasium for the origin of the word gymnast from gymnastikos.-Female artistic:Australia...

  • Israel Fisanovich
    Israel Fisanovich
    Israel Ilyich Fisanovich born 1914, died 1944, was a Soviet Navy submarine commander and Hero of the Soviet Union. He died when his submarine, the former was sunk in a friendly fire incident....

    , a Soviet Navy
    Soviet Navy
    The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...

     submarine commander , hero of the Soviet Union
  • Grigory Gamarnik
    Grigory Gamarnik
    Grigory Aleksandrovich Gamarnik is a former Soviet world champion wrestler.-Wrestling career:...

    , USSR, world champion (Greco-Roman lightweight), world championship silver
  • Moses Gomberg
    Moses Gomberg
    Moses Gomberg was a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan....

    , a chemist
    Chemist
    A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

  • Boris Hessen
    Boris Hessen
    Boris Mikhailovich Hessen , also Gessen was a Soviet physicist, philosopher and historian of science...

    , a historian of science
    History of science
    The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....

  • Andrei Kanchelskis
    Andrei Kanchelskis
    Andrei Antanasovich Kanchelskis is a Ukrainian-born Russian football manager and former association footballer who played as a right winger. Kanchelskis is the only player in history to have scored in each of the Glasgow, Merseyside and Manchester local derbies.Currently, he is managing FC...

    , a Russian-Ukrainian footballer
  • Jake Marmer, Jewish poet best known for Umtza, an avant-garde take on Passover.
  • Heinrich Neuhaus
    Heinrich Neuhaus
    Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus was a Soviet pianist and pedagogue of German extraction. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1964. He was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1956...

    , a Soviet pianist
    Pianist
    A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

     and pedagogue of German
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     extraction
  • Maurice Podoloff
    Maurice Podoloff
    Maurice Podoloff was a U.S. lawyer and basketball and ice hockey administrator. He was the first president of the National Basketball Association...

    , American Hockey League
    American Hockey League
    The American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...

     and National Basketball Association
    National Basketball Association
    The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

     pioneer/executive
  • African Spir
    African Spir
    Afrikan Aleksandrovich Špir was a Russian Neo-Kantian philosopher of German descent who wrote primarily in German...

     (or Afrikan Spir), a philosopher
  • Alexei Suetin, a Soviet-Russia
    Russia
    Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

    n International Grandmaster
    International Grandmaster
    The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....

     of chess and an author
  • Grigory Zinoviev
    Grigory Zinoviev
    Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...

    , a Bolshevik
    Bolshevik
    The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

     revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician
    Politician
    A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

  • Arseny Tarkovsky
    Arseny Tarkovsky
    Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky was a prominent Soviet and Russian poet and translator. He is considered one of the great 20th century Russian poets. He was also the father of influential film director Andrei Tarkovsky.-Origin:...

    , Russian poet
  • John Wegner (1887–1976), artist
  • Irina Belotelkin
    Irina Belotelkin
    Irina Roudakoff Belotelkin was an American artist and fashion designer.- Early years :Irina Belotelkin, nee Roudakoff, was born in Elisavetgrad, Ukraine to the Russian noblesse ancienne as recorded in the imperial registers of Tver...

    , artist and fashion designer
  • Andriy Rusol
    Andriy Rusol
    Andriy Rusol is a Ukrainian retired footballer, who last time played as a defender for Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and the Ukrainian national team.-Club career:...

    , football player
  • Valeriy Porkujan
    Valeriy Porkujan
    Valeriy Semenovych Porkuyan is a former Ukrainian footballer who played for Dynamo Kyiv, and is currently an assistant coach with FC Chornomorets Odessa.- Club :...

    , a Soviet footballer
  • Victor Orly
    Victor Orly
    Victor Orly is a French painter, born in Ukraine. He lives in Marseille, France since 2004. His works were exhibited in France, Ukraine, Russia and China...

    , French painter, born in Kirovohrad.

Climate

Kirovohrad is located in the central region of Ukraine.
Kirovohrad's climate is moderate continental
Continental climate
Continental climate is a climate characterized by important annual variation in temperature due to the lack of significant bodies of water nearby...

: cold and snowy winters, and hot summers. The seasonal average temperatures are not too cold in winter, not too hot in summer: -6.9 °C in January, and 20.3 °C (68.5 °F) in July. The average rainfall totals 513 mm (20 in) per year, with the most in June and July.

External links

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