Chernihiv

Chernihiv · Chernigov Чернігів
City of regional significance
From top, left to right: Trinity Monastery, Catherine's Church, fortress guns on the Val, Krasna square, Hotel "Desna" building, and view of ancient Chernihiv with Transfiguration, Borys and Hlib Cathedrals and Chernihiv Collegium
Flag Coat of arms Logo
Nickname(s): City of Legends
Chernihiv · Chernigov Чернігів Location of Chernihiv in Ukraine
Coordinates: 51°30′0″N 31°18′0″E / 51.50000°N 31.30000°E / 51.50000; 31.30000Coordinates: 51°30′0″N 31°18′0″E / 51.50000°N 31.30000°E / 51.50000; 31.30000
Country	Ukraine
Oblast	Chernihiv Oblast
Municipality	Chernihiv municipality
Founded	907
City Status	907
Government
• Mayor	Vladyslav Atroshenko[1] (Petro Poroshenko Bloc "Solidarity"[1])
Area
• Total	79 km2 (31 sq mi)
Elevation	136 m (446 ft)
Population (2015)
• Total	294,727
• Density	1,547/km2 (4,010/sq mi)
Postal code	14000
Area code(s)	(+380) 462
Vehicle registration	CB / 25
Website	chernigiv-rada.gov.ua

Chernihiv (also Chernigiv, Chernigov; Ukrainian: Чернігів Ukrainian pronunciation: [t͡ʃɛ̝rˈɲiɦiu̯], Russian: Черни́гов; IPA: [tɕɪrˈnʲiɡəf]),^[2] a historic city in northern Ukraine, serves as the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast (province), as well as of the surrounding Chernihiv Raion (district) within the oblast. Administratively, it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance. Population: 294,727 (2015 est.)^[3]

Geography

Chernihiv stands on the Desna River to the north-north-east of Kiev.

The area was served by Chernihiv Shestovitsa Airport, and during the Cold War it was the site of Chernigov air base.

History

The Saviour Cathedral of Chernihiv (1030s) is the oldest in Ukraine.

Chernihiv was first mentioned in the Rus'-Byzantine Treaty (907) (as Черниговъ (Chernigov)), but the time of establishment is not known. According to the items uncovered by archaeological excavations of a settlement which included artifacts from the Khazar Khaganate, it seems to have existed at least in the 9th century. Towards the end of the 10th century, the city probably had its own rulers. It was there that the Black Grave, one of the largest and earliest royal mounds in Eastern Europe, was excavated in the 19th century.

In the southern portion of the Kievan Rus' the city was the second by importance and wealth.^[4] From the early 11th century it was the seat of powerful Grand Principality of Chernigov, whose rulers at times vied for power with Kievan Grand Princes, and often overthrew them and took the primary seat in Kiev for themselves. The grand principality was the largest in Kievan Rus and included not only the Severian towns but even such remote regions as Murom, Ryazan and Tmutarakan. The golden age of Chernihiv, when the city population peaked at 25,000, lasted until 1239 when the city was sacked by the hordes of Batu Khan, which started a long period of relative obscurity.

The area fell under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1353. The city was burned again by Crimean khan Meñli I Giray in 1482 and 1497 and in the 15th to 17th centuries it changed hands several times between Lithuania, Muscovy (1408–1420 and from 1503), and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1618–1648), where it was granted Magdeburg rights in 1623 and in 1635 became a seat of Chernihiv Voivodeship. The area's importance increased again in the middle of the 17th century during and after the Khmelnytsky Uprising. In the Hetman State Chernihiv was the city of deployment of Chernihiv Cossack regiment (both a military and territorial unit of the time).

Under the 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo the legal suzerainty of the area was ceded to Tsardom of Russia, with Chernihiv remaining an important center of the autonomous Cossack Hetmanate. With the abolishment of the Hetmanate, the city became an ordinary administrative center of the Russian Empire and a capital of local administrative units. The area in general was ruled by the Governor-General appointed from Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital, and Chernihiv was the capital of local namestnichestvo (province) (from 1782), Malorosiyskaya or Little Russian (from 1797) and Chernigov Governorate (from 1808).

According to the census of 1897, in the city of Chernihiv there were about 11,000 Jews out of the total population of 27,006. Their primary occupations were industrial and commercial. Many tobacco plantations and fruit gardens in the neighborhood were owned by Jews. There were 1,321 Jewish artisans in Chernihiv, including 404 tailors and seamstresses, but the demand for artisan labor was limited to the town. There were 69 Jewish day-laborers, almost exclusively teamsters. But few were engaged in the factories.^[5]

During World War II, Chernihiv was occupied by the German Army from 9 September 1941 to 21 September 1943.

Architecture

Pyatnytska Church of Saint Paraskevi (c. 1201, restored after World War II).

Eletsky monastery cathedral was modeled after that of Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Note the contrast between its austere 12th-century walls and baroque 17th-century domes.

Archbishop's residence in Chernihiv

Chernihiv Museum of Arts

Regimental Chancellery building

Church of St. Michael and Fedir in Chernihiv

Chernihiv's architectural monuments chronicle two most flourishing periods in the city's history - those of Kievan Rus' (11th and 12th centuries) and of the Cossack Hetmanate (late 17th and early 18th centuries.)

The oldest church in the city and one of the oldest churches in Ukraine is the 5-domed Transfiguration Cathedral, commissioned in the early 1030s by Mstislav the Bold and completed several decades later by his brother, Yaroslav the Wise. The Cathedral of Sts Boris and Gleb, dating from the mid-12th century, was much rebuilt in succeeding periods, before being restored to its original shape in the 20th century. Likewise built in brick, it has a single dome and six pillars. The crowning achievement of Chernihiv masters was the exquisite Pyatnytska Church, constructed at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. This graceful building was seriously damaged in the Second World War; its original medieval outlook was reconstructed to a design by Peter Baranovsky.

The earliest residential buildings in the downtown date from the late 17th century, a period when a Cossack regiment was deployed there. Two most representative residences are those of Polkovnyk Lyzohub (1690s) and Polkovnyk Polubutok (18th century). The former mansion, popularly known as the Mazepa House, used to contain the regiment's chancellery. One of the most profusely decorated Cossack structures is undoubtedly the ecclesiastical collegium, surmounted by a bell-tower (1702). The archbishop's residence was constructed nearby in the 1780s. St Catherine Church (1715), with its 5 gilded pear domes, traditional for Ukrainian architecture, is thought to have been intended as a memorial to the regiment's exploits during the storm of Azov in 1696.

Monasteries

Trinity Monastery in Chernihiv

All through the most trying periods of its history, Chernihiv retained its ecclesiastical importance as the seat of bishopric or archbishopric. At the outskirts of the modern city lie two ancient cave monasteries, formerly used as the bishops' residences.

The caves of the Eletsky Monastery are said to predate those of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (Kiev Monastery of the Caves). Its magnificent 6-pillared cathedral was erected at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries; some traces of its 750-year-old murals may still be seen in the interior. After the domes collapsed in 1611, they were augmented and reconstructed in the Ukrainian baroque style. The wall, monastic cells, and bell-tower all date from the 17th century. The nearby mother superior's house is thought to be the oldest residential building in the Left-Bank Ukraine. The cloister's holiest icon used to be that of Theotokos, who made her epiphany to Svyatoslav of Chernigov on 6 February 1060. The icon, called Eletskaya after the fir wood it was painted upon, was taken to Moscow by Svyatoslav's descendants, the Baryatinsky family, in 1579.

The nearby cave monastery of Saint Elijah and the Holy Trinity features a small eponymous church, which was constructed 800 years ago. The roomy Trinity cathedral, one of the most imposing monuments of the Cossack baroque, was erected between 1679 and 1689. Its refectory, with the adjoining church of Presentation to the Temple, was finished by 1679. There are also the 17th-century towered walls, monastic cells, and the five-tiered belfry from the 1780s.

Other historic abbeys may be visited in the vicinity of Chernihiv; those in Kozelets and Hustynya contain superb samples of Ukrainian national architecture.

Climate

Chernihiv has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) with cold, cloudy and snowy winters, and warm, sunny summers. The average annual temperature for Chernihiv is 7.0 °C (44.6 °F), ranging from a low of −5.6 °C (21.9 °F) in January to a high of 19.5 °C (67.1 °F) in July. Precipitation is well distributed throughout the year though precipitation is higher during the summer months and lower during the winter months. The record high was 39.0 °C (102.2 °F) and the record low was −36.0 °C (−32.8 °F).

Gallery

• 
  Pretty square (Krasna ploshcha) and Shevchenko Theatre
• 
  Opera and Drama Theatre
• 
  Shchors cinema in Chernihiv
• 
  Hotel Desna
• 
  Chernihiv City Council
• 
  Museum of history, former Governor's House
• 
  Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi Museum
• 
  Tarnovsky Museum of antiquities
• 
  Chernihiv architecture
• 
  Old and modern buildings
• 
  New apartment block
• 
  City hospital
• 
  Chernihiv philharmony
• 
  Palace of celebrations
• 
  Chernihiv Yuri Gagarin Stadium

Panoramic view of the central Krasna square

Chernihiv panorama from Desna River

Famous people from Chernihiv

• Jacob Tamarkin, Russian-American mathematician born in Chernihiv
• Anatoly Rybakov, Russian writer
• Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, Soviet Bolshevik leader and diplomat
• Vadim Pruzhanov, keyboardist for the Extreme Power Metal band DragonForce
• Giennadij Jerszow, Polish-Ukrainian sculptor born in Chernihiv
• Eduard Weitz (born 1946), Israeli Olympic weightlifter
• Andriy Yarmolenko, Ukrainian footballer raised in Chernihiv who plays for Dynamo Kiev

International relations

Twin towns - Sister cities

Chernihiv is currently twinned with:

• Gomel, Belarus
• Memmingen, Bavaria, Germany
• Tarnobrzeg, Poland ^[8]
• Petah Tikva, Israel
• Gabrovo, Bulgaria
• Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
• Ogre, Latvia
• Prilep, Macedonia

References

Bibliography

Notes

External links

Administrative divisions of Chernihiv Oblast
Administrative center: Chernihiv
Raions	Bakhmach Bobrovytsia Borzna Chernihiv Horodnia Ichnia Koriukivka Korop Kozelets Kulykivka Mena Nizhyn Nosivka Novhorod-Siverskyi Pryluky Ripky Semenivka Snovsk Sosnytsia Sribne Talalaivka Varva
Cities	Regional Chernihiv Nizhyn Novhorod-Siverskyi Pryluky District Bakhmach Baturyn Bobrovytsia Borzna Horodnia Ichnia Koriukivka Mena Nosivka Oster Semenivka Snovsk
Urban-type settlements Category:Chernihiv Oblast

Administrative divisions of Ukraine
Capital: Kiev
Oblasts	Cherkasy Chernihiv Chernivtsi Dnipropetrovsk Donetsk Ivano-Frankivsk Kharkiv Kherson Khmelnytskyi Kiev Kirovohrad Luhansk Lviv Mykolaiv Odessa Poltava Rivne Sumy Ternopil Vinnytsia Volyn Zakarpattia Zaporizhia Zhytomyr
Cities with special status	Kiev Sevastopol1
Autonomous republic	Crimea1
Administrative centers	Cherkasy Chernihiv Chernivtsi Dnipro Donetsk Ivano-Frankivsk Kharkiv Kherson Khmelnytskyi Kiev Kropyvnytskyi Luhansk Lutsk Lviv Mykolaiv Odessa Poltava Rivne Sevastopol Simferopol Sumy Ternopil Uzhhorod Vinnytsia Zaporizhia Zhytomyr
1Claimed and controlled by Russia as the Republic of Crimea and the Federal City of Sevastopol