About Kharkiv 

The City of Kharkiv
Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov is the second largest city in Ukraine. It was founded in the middle of 17th Century. It is one of the main industrial, cultural and educational centers of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kharkiv Oblast.

A large city and chief industrial and transportation center, Kharkiv is located near the rich coal mines of the Donets Basin and is linked by railroad to the iron ore deposits of Kryvyy Rih. Manufactures include farm and mining machinery, electric and railroad equipment, chemicals, machine tools, and processed food. Kharkiv is a city of broad avenues and large buildings; historical points of interest include Pokrovsky Cathedral (late 17th century), Uspensky Church (late 18th century), Patriarch's Church (19th century), and a bell tower (1812) built to commemorate victory over Napoleon. The city is the site of a university, scientific research centers, and several theaters and museums. Kharkiv was founded in 1656 as a fortress protecting Moscow from the Tatars. The city grew as a trade and cultural center, and in 1765 it became the administrative center of Ukraine. With the development of the vast mineral wealth of the region in the late 19th century, Kharkiv developed into an industrial and rail transportation center. During World War I Kharkiv was the scene of heavy fighting, first between German and Russian troops and later (1917-20) between opposing forces in the Russian Revolution. It was the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1920 to 1934, when it was replaced by Kyiv. During World War II Kharkiv was occupied (1941-43) by German troops and suffered severe damage. Population (1998 estimate) 1,521,000.

The Kharkiv Osnova International Airport is the international airport that serves the city. Railway trains and electric trains help people move form one city to another. Kharkiv Metro, trolleybus, taxis, tramways and marshrutkas are the main pubic transportation facilities in the city.

Kharkiv is the largest scientific industrial and trade center of Ukraine. At the same time all guests and visitors who come to our city on business trips say that they like it here. They admit that the city has beautiful parks, squares and gardens and that it has a lot of greenery.
Moreover, it turns out that there are sights worth to look at in Kharkiv. And in general we are fine to have enough sightseeing opportunities. Maybe just to renovate somewhere and give it minor repairs.

Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv oblast is located in the southeast of the lef bank of Ukraine, in the territory of the forest/steppe and steppe zones. It borders on Bilhorod oblast of Russia in the north, on Luhansk in the East, on Donetsk in the northeast, on Dnipropetrovsk in the South, on Poltava in the West, and on Sumy oblast in the northwest.
The oblast's area makes up 5.2% of the territory of Ukraine and takes the third position in Ukraine as to the number of population (nearly 3mln).

Resources
Minerals mainly comprise the fuel power resources and building materials. The Kharkiv oblast has the deposits of natural gas and oil, brown and bituminous coal, iron ore. The fuel power resources are mainly represented by a number of deposits of fuel gas in Shebelinka (Balakliya district), Krestyshchivka (Krasnograd district), and Kegychivka (Kegychivka district).

The deposits of building materials of sedimentary origin such as sands, clays, chalks, limestone are most distributed ones in the oblast. The Novoselivka deposit of extremely pure glass sands and Sukho-Kaminsk deposit of ochre are of great significance in the oblast. Loam, potter's clay and chalk occur all over the oblast's territory.
There are some mineral water springs in the oblast, the widely known is "Berezivske" spring.

History
During the last three centuries of our history, the Kharkiv oblast has become not only a traditional centre of the East Ukrainian lands but also one of the most developed industrial oblasts of Ukraine and in the south of Eastern Europe. However the old history of the land began in the times of antiquity.

Numerous archaeological relics confirm information about the first early settlements on the current Kharkiv oblast territory. This information concerns the end of Late Paleolith (10-12 thousand years ago), but the earlier presence of people is also dated back to the Mousterian time (about 80 000 years ago).

Active settling and development of the Sloboda oblast (Slobozhanshchina) began in the 1630s and acquired the mass character during the war of Liberation of Ukrainian people in 1648-1654. It was then, that the vast territories of the current East of Ukraine were mainly populated by Ukrainians, the migrants from the Trans-Dnieper area (Zadnipryanshchina), who have formed the aboriginal population of the land. In 1654 these lands were called the Sloboda Ukraine or Slobozhanshchina with their centre in Kharkiv which stood on the confluence of the Kharkiv and the Lopan rivers.

Transport
The oblast's territory is crossed by main railways and highways through which it maintains contacts with the Donbas, the Crimea, the Azov and the Black sea ports, industrial centres of Ukraine and CIS countries.

Transport enterprises of all kinds in the oblast will meet the transport demands of national economy and population. It is planned to start operations to replenish the rolling stock of urban motor and electric transport by means of introduction of leasing operations.

It is also planned to implement a number of projects in the oblast aircraft construction, using progressive home technologies.

Industry
The Kharkiv oblast has a powerful industrial, scientific and agrarian potential. There are above 1,300 industrial enterprises, building, transport establishments and organisations and a considerable number of agrarian enterprises.

The oblast's economy is mainly industrially based. Power engineering is one of the basic branches in the oblast's economy and gives almost 40% of the budget receipts.

The fuel power complex of the Kharkiv oblast is a unique one in Ukraine. Its uniqueness is determined by two factors: firstly, almost a half of Ukrainian gas is produced there, secondly, the oblast power system under general deficit of generating powers, can be separated from a single power system of Ukraine and support itself at the expense of its own generating powers and transfers from Russia. Today there are 39 gas and gas condensate deposits in the oblast. About 7,000,000,000m3 of gas are extracted from the developed bore holes.

In 1997, 37 developed bore holes that produce 60,000,000 m were put into exploitation, the works at Yuliivsky oil and gas condensate deposit are being completed, but even now the Kharkiv TES has received additional 500,000 m of gas per day; the Shebelinka plant of high octane petrol produces 250,000 tons of petrol (AI-98) and 100,000 tons of diesel fuel per year.

The fuel power complex is presented by gas producing enterprises SE "Shebelinkagazprom", SE "Kharkivtransgaz", generating SSEIP "Kharkivoblenergo" and "Zmiivka SRPP", heat supply enterprises "Kharkiv Heat Networks", SSEIP "Kharkivoblenergo" and "Kharkivteploenergo". "Kharkivtransgaz" enterprise. State enterprise "Kharkivtransgaz" has on its balance 17 gas, gas condensate and oil deposits, 9 of which are on the territory of the Kharkiv oblast.

The estimated balance reserves of carbon are: gas 55,730,000, 000m, condensate 6,372,000 tons, oil 3,560,000 tons. Five gas condensate deposits are being developed in the oblast now, 4 more deposits still wait. The total average diurnal production of carbon by enterprise "Kharkivtransgas" in the Kharkiv oblast makes up 4,080,000 m of gas and 202 tons of condensate.

Agriculture
The agro industrial complex (AIC) is the second structure subdivision of the oblast economy after industry.

Above a half of the total volume of AIC production falls on agriculture. Agricultural production of the oblast has the multibranch structure, its basic industries are plant growing (54%) and cattle breeding (46%). The area of agricultural lands of all the categories of economies makes 2,400,000 ha including arable land 1,900,000 ha (5.9% of arable lands of Ukraine).

Agricultural products in the oblast are made at 490 collective agricultural enterprises of nonstate forms of property, 1160 private farms and by almost 556,000 citizens working on plots of their own.

Grain production makes 30% of plant growing, sugar beet industry - 23.4%, sunflower -14%, vegetables -5.3%. The rest falls on fodder production and some other subsidiary industries.

Arable lands with the total area of 1,900,000 ha are mainly occupied by the sowing areas.
Grain cultures: winter and spring wheat, rye, barley (550,000 ha) occupy the leading position in the structure of sowing areas, maize occupies the second position.

Vegetables are grown everywhere in the Kharkiv oblast.

Horticulture is the important branch of plant growing, the total area of fruit and berry stands making 20,000 ha.

Essential breeding work in the oblast is directed to selection and oblasting of high yielding culture varieties and to reorientation of farms for high quality crops.

Animal growing is based on cattle breeding (80%), swine breeding (9.6%) and poultry farming (7.9%) industries.

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