UKRAINE – Northeast (Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava)

Ukraine – Northeast (Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava) June 17, 24, 2019

POLTAVA
Poltava Museum of Local Lore. The art nouveau building is brick with coloured tiles and the lovely interior has green tiles and floral motifs. Basically the regional museum, this has archaeology (pots, stone age), geology, a mammoth skeleton, some stuffed animals, 2 lovely small dioramas of a port and harvesting a field, then ethnology (2 great stuffed oxen pulling a cart). There’s a wonderful auditorium up stairs with light green tile, flower murals and a skylight. A few rooms are full of war issues but I could not determine what. Not a word in English. 60 HAU
Fallen Ukrainian Cossacks’ Monument (Monument of Cossack Glory). In a small circle, this has a Celtic stone cross on top of a stone pedestal with two large scepters and shield.
Museum of Poltava Battle History. The Russians under Peter I captured Poltava Fortress in December 1708. The Battle of Poltava involved Ukrainian Cossacks (Hetman of Ukraine from 1689-09, was Ivan Mazepa – 1639-1709) helped by Charles XII (1682-1718), King of Sweden (1697-1718) trying to regain the fort. Medieval armour, portraits, weapons, cannon and lots of great art of the battle. All the labels are in English. 50 UAH
Poltava Museum and long-range strategic aviation. This aviation museum has 3 options and prices: Museum of the History of Poltava Airfield 50 UAH, Cold War aircraft parking lot 50 UAH, and to view the cockpit of the TU-160 Blackjack (a supersonic, variable-sweep wing heavy strategic bomber, 1981, range 14,000kms, max speed 2000kms/h) 50 UAH.
The grounds outside have signs with several Russian vehicles and their specifications, 13 bronze busts, tanks and artillery. As the museum has no English, I opted to see just the planes. Take a van out to the airfield.
There were several planes from 1947 to 1981, most with labels in English. 50 UAH
Poltava Military relics: tanks, the airfield.

After Poltava, rather than drive probably good roads to Kyiv, I decided to go south around the lakes and see 4 NM sites. I lucked out and the first 87kms to Kremenchuk were brand new road (except for 1km of bombed out construction).
In Ukraine there are no posted speed limits anywhere – you need to know at village signs to slow to 50. I was zooming along as apparently was going through a village (there were no visible houses) and was stopped for speeding. They kept explaining that 28 people lived here. I whined for a long time. They wanted my registration to be in Ukranian (I was the first person they have ever stopped without registration in Ukrainian)!!! After 30 minutes of them heeing and hawing about what to do, making several phone calls, looking at my registration over and over, I just wanted the ticket to get on with driving. Finally they gave a fine of 255 UAH (about 9euros) and apologized for having to give it to me. This was the 6^th day of temperatures over 33 C, and I was boiling to death on the side of the road.
My premonition about bad roads turned into bad two lane narrow, pot-holed messes. Drivers do the “Ukrainian weave” as they go all over the road trying to find a “route” the mine field. 

Kremenchuk. (pop 223,000)
A NM “European City” it is an important industrial city in central Ukraine on the banks of the Dnieper River – the river is huge here. Kremenchuk is the administrative center of the Kremenchuk district in Poltava Oblast. Along with its city-satellites Svitlovodsk and Horishni Plavni, it creates an important urban agglomeration and transportation hub.
Kremenchuk is important as a large industrial center in Ukraine and Eastern Europe as the base of the KrAZ truck plant, Kremenchuk Oil Refinery of Ukrtatnafta, the Kryukiv Railway Car Building Works, and nearly located (Svitlovodsk) Kremenchuk HES. Highway M22 crosses over the dam of the hydro-electric power plant on the Dnieper. The Kryukiv Railway Car Building Works is one of the oldest railway repair and rail-car building factories in Eastern Europe, dates back to 1869.

After crossing to the south side of the Dnieper, I followed along the south side of a mammoth reservoir. The roads were a disaster. 

Dnieper is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and Belarus and the fourth-longest river in Europe. The total length is approximately 2,200 km (1,400 mi) with a drainage basin of 504,000 square kilometres (195,000 sq mi). Historically, the river was an important barrier, dividing Ukraine into right and left banks. Nowadays, the river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations. The Dnieper is an important navigable waterway for the economy of Ukraine and is connected via the Dnieper–Bug Canal to other waterways in Europe.
In antiquity, the river was known to the Greeks as the Borysthenes and was part of the Amber Road.
From the mouth of the Prypiat River to the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station, there are six sets of dams and hydroelectric stations, which produce 10% of Ukraine’s electricity.
The first constructed was the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (or DniproHES) near Zaporizhia, built in 1927–1932 with an output of 558 MW. It was destroyed during World War II, but was rebuilt in 1948 with an output of 750 MW.

On my last day in Ukraine, I left Kiev and headed north to Belarus.

CHERNIHIV (pop 295,000)
Chernihiv is on the Desna River 150 km to the north-north-east of Kiev .
History.  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. 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 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 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). 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.
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.
During World War II, Chernihiv was occupied by the German Army from 9 September 1941 to 21 September 1943.
Architecture. 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. 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.
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.
Monasteries. 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 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.
Historic Centre of Chernihiv, 9th -13th centuries. A tentative WHS:  (13/09/1989) A huge wide boulevard with fountains leads to the centre. But I never did quite figure out exactly where the historic center was. It is a very spread out place.
Transfiguration Cathedral. In a lovely park, this complex of buildings has two cathedrals, 2 museums, monuments to Taras Sheverchenko and Pushkin and several war memorials.
The 11^th century Transfiguration Cathedral has no particular highlights. The white exterior has some exposed brick and a small round attached bell tower. The frescoes are only in the dome and are very dark. The rest is faux marble and a gilt/blue iconostasis.
Trinity Monastery. This monastery looks a little tattered with unkempt grounds and in need of paint. The faux marble interior has dark murals on the ceilings and under the arches, floral designs and a huge green/gilt iconostasis. The highlight are the three large brass/enamel coffins and the mammoth 3-tiered bell tower. It is about 2kms east of town on the way to Belarus. Free

I entered Belarus north of Chernihiv. On the Ukraine side I had several photos of the engine, back, glove box taken by the guard.
Kilometers driven in Ukraine: 4282 over
On the Belarus side the line was long. There were 24 cars in four lines. It appeared that all vehicles were Belarusian. 

NOMAD MANIA Ukraine – Northeast (Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava)
Sights: Myrhorod Spa Town
Borders:
Belarus-Ukraine
Russia-Ukraine
XL: Three sisters border
Museums:
Kozelets: Chernihiv Area Weaving History Museum
Nizhyn: Rare Books Museum
Pryluky: Local Lore Museum of Maslov
House Museums/Plantations: Hoholeve: National Museum of Nikolai Gogol
Castles, Palaces, Forts: Kachanivka: Kachanivka Palace
Festivals: Sorochyntsi Fair
Open-Air Museums: Baturyn: Historic and Cultural Reserve – Museum of Hetmancy Villages and Small Towns: Opishnya

European Cities
KONOTOP
KREMENCHUK
SHOSTKA

CHERNIHIV
Tentative WHS: Historic Centre of Chernihiv, 9th -13th centuries (13/09/1989)
Religious Temples:
Transfiguration Cathedral
Trinity Monastery

POLTAVA
Sights: Poltava Military relics
Museums:
Museum of Poltava Battle History
Poltava Museum of Local Lore
Monuments: Fallen Ukrainian Cossacks’ Monument
Aviation Museums: Poltava Museum and long-range strategic aviation

SUMY
Museums: Museum of Banking History (Museum of Banking)