Mykolaiv

Mykolayiv (Ukrainian Миколаїв; Russian Николаев Nikolayev) is a city in southern Ukraine with a population of about 480,000. Mykolayiv is the capital of Mykolayiv Oblast, located at the confluence of the Southern Bug River with the Inhul River in the Black Sea coastal area. Both rivers enclose, 25 km above the mouth into the sea, in a far to the west reaching curve from northeast to south the core of the city lying on a plateau about 20 m high. Mykolayiv is the cultural centre of the region with universities and theatres, the city itself is predominantly Russian-speaking.

Odessa lies 100 km to the west, the port city of Kherson 60 km to the southeast. Only some time after the end of the Second World War the pontoon/ship bridges over Bug and Inhul have been replaced by fixed bridges with revolving parts for the passage of sea and war ships. The city is divided into 4 city rajons Rajon Sawod, Rajon Korabel, Rajon Inhul and Rajon Central.

The 79th Air Mobile Brigade of the Ukrainian army is stationed in the city.

The asteroid (8141) Nikolaev discovered on September 20, 1982 by N. S. Chernykh at the Crimean Observatory was named after the city.

Economy

Mykolayiv is an industrial center with mechanical engineering for agriculture and construction, light and food industry, and a nuclear power plant near the city. The city was the most important shipbuilding location in the Soviet Union and today, as the maritime center of Ukraine, has three large shipyards, a port on the bow and a naval base on the Inhul, as well as a shipbuilding academy. In winter, the harbour and naval base can be kept clear by the use of icebreakers.

The city is connected to the railway network only to the north and northeast. Just under 10 km northwest of the city center is Mykolaiv Airport (IATA airport code: NLV). The M14 international highway runs through the city, crossing the Southern Bug River here via the Varvarivka Bridge.

History

In the Sixth Turkish War from 1787 to 1792, Russia conquered the northwestern coast of the Black Sea, which until then had been under Ottoman sovereignty. Even before the Peace of Jassy, Tsarina Catherine II founded the city of Nikolaev on September 7, 1789, as the new naval base and admiralty (until 1898) of the Black Sea Fleet near an ancient Greek settlement. The governor-general Prince Potyomkin commissioned brigadier Mikhail Faleyev, the "first citizen of the town", to build the town and a shipyard. In 1897 a tramway was opened in the town, which is still a pillar of public transport. In the October pogroms of 1905, mobs devastated much of the city's Jewish neighborhoods and murdered nine Jews.

From 1941 to 1944 Nikolayev was occupied by the German Wehrmacht. Already at the beginning of the occupation almost all Jewish inhabitants - they made up about 15 to 20 % of the city population - were murdered by the SS. From April 1942 to November 1943 Stalag 364 was moved from Rzeszów in Poland to Nikolayev. During the fighting and blasts during the withdrawal of the Red Army in 1941 and the Germans in 1944, the two shipyards in the city were largely destroyed. Immediately after the recapture of the city by the Red Army in the spring of 1944, reconstruction began, primarily of the two shipyards, using German, Hungarian and Romanian prisoners of war and Soviet forced labourers. The large POW camp 126 with two sections in the vicinity of the two shipyards, occupied by up to 10,000 prisoners of various nationalities, existed until May 1949.

Mikrorayon in Mykolaiv


Map of the city, 1855.