Portal:Ukraine/Did you know

...that the Holy Trinity Church was the oldest church in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine, until it was destroyed by the Soviets in 1935?

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...that the February 9, 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Central Powers that helped clear Bolshevik forces from Ukraine?

...that the official cause of the Great Fire of 1811, which lasted for three days and burned down the whole Podil neighborhood of Kiev, was children playing with fire?

...that Khotyn Fortress (pictured), site of the Battle of Khotyn between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire in 1621, is one of the Seven Wonders of Ukraine?

...that in the Ukrainian-Soviet War (1917-1922) the Ukrainians fought for their independence first from the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union?

...that the strength of the Ukrainian People's Army fell from 300,000 to just 15,000 after five months of war with Soviet Russia?

...that the Contracts House (pictured), located in Kiev, Ukraine, was visited by writers Honoré de Balzac, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Pushkin, and poets Adam Mickiewicz and Taras Shevchenko?

...that Natalka Poltavka, by Vasyl Avramenko, was the first Ukrainian language film produced in the United States?

...that the Soviet 383rd Rifle Division was originally comprised completely of miners, from the Ukrainian Donets Basin?

...that Ukrainian realist artist Apollon Mokritsky played a significant role of introducing the former serf and talented artist Taras Shevchenko to the Ukrainian and Russian intelligentsia?

...that red and black were the most common colors of traditional Ukrainian embroidery (pictured)?

...that Ukrainian impressionist Ivan Trush painted a number of portraits of famous Ukrainians, among them Vasyl Stefanyk, Lesya Ukrainka, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Mykola Lysenko, and Ivan Franko?

...that Viktor Pynzenyk, Ukraine's Minister of Finance, is also a professor of economics at Lviv University?

...that korovai is a traditional Ukrainian wedding bread, baked from wheat flour and decorated with braids?

...that the massacre in Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD in the purges of 1937-1938 was investigated in 1943 during the German invasion of Ukraine and used in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union?

...that under the leadership of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (emblem), Ukraine became the first country in history to voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons?

...that Valentyn Rechmedin, a Ukrainian journalist and writer, received the Order of the Red Star after World War II?

...that Canada was the first Western country to recognize Ukraine's independence in 1991?

...that after the death of Ukrainian novelist Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, a museum was built in his hometown of Vinnytsia, films were made and his son was executed for having counter-revolutionary contacts?

...that Serhii Vasylkivsky (painting) was the first painter after Taras Shevchenko to draw upon Ukrainian historical and ethnographic themes?

...that the Orthodox cave monastery in Bakota, Ukraine is said to have been founded by St. Anthony of Kiev?

...that while the Ukrainian Chortkiv offensive was eventually pushed back by the Polish army, the initial success of this desperate attack by the Ukrainian Galician Army is considered its finest hour in the Polish-Ukrainian War?

...that Khotyn Fortress and Kyiv Pechersk Lavra are part of the Seven Wonders of Ukraine?

...that members of Sub-Carpathian Reformed Church were persecuted by communists in the Soviet Union and were sent to Gulag labour camps in Siberia?

...that in 1990, some 300,000 people created a 300 mile human chain stretching from Lviv to Kiev on the 71st anniversary of the Act Zluky?

...that the first Baptist baptism in Ukraine took place in 1864 on the river Inhul of today's Kirovohrad Oblast?

...that the 1646 Union of Uzhhorod was brokered by the Basilian monastic order on the model of the earlier Union of Brest?

...that the Poltava Bandurist Capella, directed by Hnat Khotkevych, was the first Soviet ensemble to be invited to tour North America?

...that Oleh Lysheha, educated at Lviv University, was the first Ukrainian poet to receive the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation?

...that the Hill of Ash near Kerch was the first Scythian royal mound excavated in modern times?

...that some scholars interpret the petroglyphs of Kamyana Mohyla in Ukraine as precursors of the Sumerian cuneiform script?

...that Anthony of Kiev left his Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery when it gained 12 members because he felt it was crowded?

...that the red column of the Kruty Heroes Memorial recalls the colonnade of the famously red-colored main building of the Kiev University where many of the Ukrainian cadets slain at the 1918 Battle of Kruty had studied?

...that the Sviatohirsk Lavra (pictured), an Orthodox Christian monastery in eastern Ukraine that dates back to the 1500s, was recently rebuilt anew after being destroyed by the Soviets in the 1930s?

...that although Russian is the most common first language in some parts of Ukraine, it has no status in the country?

...that reopening of the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów (picture) in 2005 marked a major improvement of Polish-Ukrainian relations?

...that during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, a secret synod of Ukrainian bishops in Pochaiv Lavra created the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church, canonically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate?

...that Kyiv's Museum of Western and Oriental Art houses the largest collection of foreign art in Ukraine?

...that the National Art Museum of Ukraine's (pictured) collections were first exhibited outside the country after it reached independence in 1991?

...that the National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine was used as a House of Political Education and a Bolshevik Club after the Russian Revolution?

...that the proposals for a new Crimean flag after the collapse of the Soviet Union included a white flag with seven rainbow colors at the top and a blue-white-red tricolor design, which was officially adopted in 1999?

...that the Vorontsovsky Palace (pictured) in Ukraine was designed by the English architect Edward Blore?

...that the Grand Crimean Central Railway was built very rapidly in 1855 enabling heavy ammunition to be transported to the Allied troops to end the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War?

...that the Palanok Castle (picture) in Mukacheve, Ukraine, was used as an all-European political prison after the fall of the French Bastille, and as a shelter for the Crown of St. Stephen, protecting it from Napoleon's troops?

...that St. George's Cathedral (below) in Lviv, Ukraine served as the mother church of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church during the 19th and 20th century?

...that St. Cyril's Monastery (picture) in Kiev, Ukraine was closed by the Tsarist Government and its living quarters were converted into a hospital and later an insane asylum, which lasted until the mid-late 20th century?

...that in the Battle of Zhovti Vody the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth faced 1:10 odds for 18 days before its final defeat by the Cossack-Tatar alliance?

...that the remains of the Lviv High Castle in Lviv, Ukraine, was used as the foundation for a kurgan, constructed in memory of the 300-anniversary of the Union of Lublin?

...that Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny enrolled his entire Cossack army as students to prevent a Kievan school's conversion to a Jesuit Collegium?

...that Ostap Veresai, a 19th-century blind kobzar from Ukraine, performed at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia?

...that Taras Fedorovych, a 17th-century Cossack leader, led a Cossack and peasant uprising over the issue of the Cossack register?

...that in 1057, Saint Anthony of Pechersk singled-handedly dug out the Near Caves in Kiev, Ukraine part of Kiev Pechersk Lavra?

...that for organizing a revolt on an Ottoman slave galley and freeing Christian slaves, Hetman Ivan Sulyma received a medal from Pope Paul V?

...that the clocks on the Great Lavra Belltower have only stopped once during their existence: when the nearby Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra was blown up during the Second World War?

...that the Ukrainian Catholic University is the first Catholic university to be opened and operated by an Eastern Rite Catholic Church?

...that a recent fire in the open air Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine (picture) was caused by an arson, set to cover up the theft of a valuable collection of the eighteenth-century cassones exhibited in the burned building?

...that the legend of the Gold of Polubotok says that Cossack Pavlo Polubotok deposited 200,000 gold coins at the Bank of England in 1723 and that the money owed to Ukraine is supposedly valued at twenty times the world's gold reserve? (picture)

...that the Swallow's Nest, constructed in 1911-1912 and located on top of a 40 meter cliff in Crimea, Ukraine, is a medieval-type castle which has survived an earthquake measuring 6-7 on the Richter scale? (picture...)

...that Vasyl Karazin, the founder of Kharkiv University, was not allowed to attend the opening ceremony?

...that the Zymne Monastery in Volynia is believed to have been named after a winter palace of Vladimir the Great that formerly stood on the spot?

...that the Lviv Opera and Ballet Theater, in Lviv, Ukraine combines details of the Renaissance and Baroque?

...that the 1710 Bendery Constitution by Hetman Pylyp Orlyk was one of the first state constitutions in Europe?

...that when the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine issued the decree to construct the Donetsk Metro in 1991, the completion date was set for 2002, but due to the unstable economic situation of the city, it is still not complete?

...that St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv may have been the first Russian and Ukrainian church to have a golden dome, now so typical of vernacular church architecture?

...that the Potemkin Stairs (pictured) located in Odesa, Ukraine create an optical illusion, where either the landings or the stairs are invisible depending on an observer's vantage point?

...that the Kiev tram was the first electric tramway in the Russian Empire, and the second one in Europe after the Berlin Straßenbahn?

...that the Lviv tram, opened on May 5, 1880 in Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary), is one of the last urban transit systems in the former Soviet Union to still use grooved rail?

...that with some 150,000 customers per day, the Seventh-Kilometer Market outside of Odesa, Ukraine, is among the largest markets of the world and consists almost entirely of shipping containers?

...that tickets bought for the ceremonial opening of Kiev Republican Stadium scheduled for June 22, 1941 were still valid 7 years later, as the event was "postponed until after the Victory" due to the Nazi invasion to the USSR?

...that the statues of St. Andrew and Samson from the Fountain of Samson in Kiev were stored in a museum before the beginning of WWI, saving them from destruction by the Bolsheviks?

...that the Khreschatyk is the main street of Ukrainian capital Kyiv on which Orange Revolution and other historical events mainly took place?
...that the neo-classical Verkhovna Rada building in Kyiv features a hundred-tonne glass dome over the chamber where the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine convenes to enact legislation?
...that at its first years Kiev Zoo had to move its animals into the food storage of the main Kiev railway station for the winter?
...that the longest of the Kiev bridges, the 1,543 metres long Paton Bridge over the Dnieper River, constructed in 1953 was the first fully welded steel construction of such length at that time?
...that among many historic landmarks at the Andrew's Descent in Kyiv, there is a medieval Gothic style castle that locals call the "Castle of Richard the Lion Heart" due to the legend the 12th century King of England had visited the building?
...that the Kryvbas economic region in Ukraine is one of the largest iron ore and steel industry centers in Europe?
...that the Privat Group is one of the few Ukrainian companies that own industries in the United States?
...that Vasyl Avramenko is often referred as "The father of the Ukrainian dance"?

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