Oleksandriia

Early history

In the 16th - the first half of the 18th century, the lands of the modern city and the territories adjacent to it belonged to the Hetmanate and Zaporozhian Sich. The city is first mentioned in 1746, as the settlement Usivka (Ukrainian: Усівка).^[3] According to 18th century data, in the 1740s, a regiment of Kremenchuk Cossacks of the Myrorod regiment "Hryhoriy Usyk with his brother Sydor, Pylyp Usyk and his brother Kyrylo" settled in the city. Although they weren't the first settlers in these territories.^{[4][5][unreliable source?]}

Therefore, the year 1739 can be considered the date of foundation of the settlement, when Mykhailo Ovramenko's neighbors, Stepan Tereshchenko and Roman Kasyan, a Cossack of the Kremenchuk regiment, began to live here.^[6] In 1752 the settlement accounted for some 256 men.^[7] During the establishment of the Russian colony of New Serbia in 1752–64, the 3rd Company of New Serbia was quartered in Usivka Pandurs. In place of Usivka, the sconce Bechey (after the Serbian city of Bečej) encampment was established.

In 1764, New Serbia was liquidated, and Usykivka became part of the Elizabethan province of Novorossiya Governorate, which existed until 1783, when its territory was included in the Yekaterinoslav Viceroyalty. In 1784, the Russian government gave the settlement a Hellenic name of Oleksandriisk and later Oleksandriia.

In 1793, 738 people lived here. In 1858, 7,800 people lived in Oleksandriia.^[8] At the beginning of the 20th century, 14,007 people lived in Oleksandriia.^[9] From 1806 to 1922, Oleksandriia was a county (uyezd) seat.

20th century

During the Ukrainian War of Independence and Ukrainian–Soviet War in 1917, branches of the Ukrainian Free Cossacks appeared on the territory of Oleksandriia. Because of Red Terror in May 1919, the city of Oleksandria was the center of an anti-Bolshevik uprising led by Otaman Nykyfor Hryhoriv, whose forces were brutally suppressed by the Red Army on 23 May 1919.^[10]

During the Holodomor of 1932–1933, at least 1,729 residents of the city died^[11]

On 6 August 1941, (during World War II) the Red Army of the Soviet Union left the city to the Nazi Germany Wehrmacht without a fight. During the Nazi occupation, the city lost almost its entire Jewish population (est. ~2,500).^[12] The Nazi administration also executed over 5,500 Soviet prisoners of war as part of the Nazi stance on the issue of the Soviets not signing the 1929 Geneva Convention. The city was recovered by the Soviet armed forces on 6 December 1943.^[13]

Recent history

In 2013, 82,819 residents lived here.

During the war in the Donbas, 24 warriors from Oleksandriia died, in whose honor a monument in the form of a cross with a trident was opened on Independence Day 2017^[14]

Until 18 July 2020, Oleksandriia was designated as a city of oblast significance and belonged to Oleksandriia Municipality. It was the administrative center of Oleksandriia Raion even though it did not belong to the raion. As part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Kirovohrad Oblast to four, Oleksandriia Municipality was merged into Oleksandriia Raion.^[15][16]

On 15 April 2022, at 10:26 p.m., two Russian missiles hit the infrastructure of the city's airport.^[17]

In 2023, on Independence Day, the Memorial Alley of those killed in the Russo-Ukrainian war opened.^[18]

Language

Distribution of the population by native language according to the 2001 census:^[20]

Climate

The climate of Oleksandriia is classified as humid continental (Köppen classification: Dfb). Winters are cold and mild, while summers are hot. January is usually the coldest month (average temperature -5 °C), its hottest month is July (average temperature 21.5 °C). With no dry season, winters are snowy and summers are rainy. Its wettest month is June (66 mm), its driest is March (30 mm), with an average annual precipitation of 526 mm.

Twin towns

Oleksandriia is twinned with:

• Jarocin, Poland
• Xinyi, China
• Tervel, Bulgaria

Friendship agreement

• Bath, United Kingdom^[22]