Kharkiv exhibition

We invite everyone to our first photo exhibition:

KHARKIV PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE.

OXFORD CENTRAL LIBRARY (Oxford Westgate Library)

Nov 6th to Nov 25th 2023.

Enter is free.

Mirror Stream (Ukrainian: Дзеркальний струмінь, Dzerkalʹnyi struminʹ) is a fountain in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The natural fountain was discovered in 1947.
The fountain is near the Kharkiv Philharmonic. It was built in 1947. It remains one of the most remarkable architectural monuments in Kharkiv and, due to that, has been listed in UNESCO's Encyclopedia.
Former "Komsomol Heroes Alley" as photographed in 2007
A "Komsomol Heroes Alley" with busts of young World War II heroes was located behind the fountain from 1958 until 2013. The busts were removed during the construction of the new church Khram Svyatykh Zhon-Myronosytsʹ, due to the 2015 decommunization laws they have never returned

The Taras Shevchenko Garden (formerly the University Garden) is a botanical monument of nature in the centre of Kharkiv, one of the oldest in the city.
The Garden is decorated with about 100 types of decorative deciduous and coniferous trees, shrubs of various garden forms, ornamental flower beds, borders, panels, vases and other forms of green architecture, brightly decorated with numerous types of flowering plants, and a fountain is located in the central part of the Garden.
As a natural monument, the Garden includes 20 ancient oaks, aged from 200 to 300 years, remnants of native oak forests that once grew near the city.
At the entrance to the central alley of the Garden, there is a 16.5-meter monument to T. G. Shevchenko.

The Derzhprom (Ukrainian: Держпром) building is an office building located on Freedom Square. Built-in the Constructivist style, it was the first modern skyscraper building in the Soviet Union upon its completion in 1928. Its name is an abbreviation of two words that, taken together, mean State Industry. In English, the structure is known as the State Industry Building or the Palace of Industry.
Derzhprom takes its place as a unique phenomenon of world architecture among the various structures that represent the modernist architecture of the first half of the 20th century, which are already on the UNESCO World Heritage List or the Tentative List.

The V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, is one of the major universities in Ukraine, and earlier in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. It was founded in 1804 through the efforts of Vasily Karazin becoming the second oldest university in modern-day Ukraine.
Kharkiv National University holds the second place in Ukraine in volume of publications and citations in the scientific database Scopus and the Hirsch index, with the best academic results in the School of Medicine and School of Biology.
In 2021, according to QS World University Rankings, it is the best university in Ukraine and ranks 477th university in the world.

The historical centre of Kharkiv is the old district of the city, from which its further development began. Most of the historical and architectural monuments are located in it.

Two large rivers flow through it: Kharkiv and Lopan. The most extensive streets are Sumska, Poltavsky Shlyach, Heroiv Kharkiv and Gagarin avenues.

The Kharkiv "Sky" illumination on Sumy and Pushkinska was installed in December 2019 above the roadway before the New Year. In February 2020, it was decided that the installations would not be dismantled as planned after the holidays. As the city hall said then, the building is energy-saving and inexpensive to maintain.

As a result, "Starry Sky" "is registered" in Kharkiv permanently. Like the street lights, it has not been switched on in the city since February 24, 2022.

Constitution Square is the central square of Kharkiv, which arose together with the city's founding. She changed her name several times. Almost every building on the square is an architectural landmark. The Kharkiv City Council and other central city authorities are on the court.

On March 2, 2022, during the battles for Kharkiv, the Palace of Labor was fired upon by the Russian army. At the same time, neighbouring buildings were also damaged, particularly an adjacent residential building, the city council, and others.

Bridge of Lovers was officially opened on August 23, 2010, at the old Rybny pedestrian suspension bridge site. The wedding tradition of leaving locks for the newlyweds "for good luck" was started here. In the evening, the bridge is illuminated.

Located in the Lopanska Strelka Park. This is the historical district of Kharkiv, the confluence of the Kharkiv River with Lopan. It is between the Lopan Bridge and the Bridge of Lovers.

Central Park for Culture and Recreation (Ukrainian: Парк культури і відпочинку) is a Kharkiv, Ukraine, city park consisting of over 130 hectares of land. It is bounded in the southern corner by Vesnina Street in the east - Sumska Street to the north - the so-called elite private settlement construction, and in the west – by Dynamo street corner and Novgorod.
The park originated from the City governing council who "proposed to plant trees on 20-40,000 square metres on both sides of the Sumskoy road".The idea was that the area would be used for horse riding in a similar manner to the Boulogne Forest. Teachers, university students, and school students all assisted voluntarily with the tree planting. Each tree had a plaque next to it showing who had planted it.

Freedom Square (Ukrainian: Площа Свободи) in Kharkiv, Ukraine, is the 8th largest city-centre square in Europe.
On 1 March 2022, during the battle of Kharkiv in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the square and the surroundings were hit by Russian missiles.
A monumental statue of Lenin was erected in 1964 and was torn down by protesters on 28 September 2014. In August 2016 pavers were laid on the site where the statue of Lenin stood. A new fountain on the site of the former statue was opened on 23 August 2020.

The Kharkiv subway worked exclusively as a shelter for the first three months of the war.

Hundreds of townspeople, with their most necessary things, moved underground to hide from the shelling.

People have completely set up their lives here: residents have pitched their tents, set up sleeping places, play with children, walk dogs, eat and clean. Humanitarian aid in medicines, food products, hygiene products and children's clothes constantly arrives at metro stations.

On March 1, two Russian rockets hit the Kharkiv City Council building on Sumska Street. As a result of this crime, 29 people died in Russia. The historical building, a monument of culture, received significant destruction. After the shelling, everything that survived was removed - a substantial part of the archive and some office equipment.

About 200 million hryvnias (over 4 million pounds) are needed to rebuild the historic building of the Kharkiv City Council, which was destroyed in March due to enemy rocket fire.

In March 2022, Russian occupiers attacked the building of Karazin National University. The Faculty of Economics and the School of Business building was destroyed.

Also, a missile strike destroyed the Karazin sports complex, and the central and northern buildings, the Physical and Technical Faculty of Science and Technology construction, the dormitories, the nature museum, and the old building of the leading scientific library on University Street were damaged. The premises of professors and workers were in the zones of intense shelling, so they were also destroyed and, in low temperatures, became unfit for habitation.

Saltivka, a neighbourhood that housed half a million people before the war, was shelled daily since the first day of the full-scale invasion. The North Saltivka micro district suffered the most destruction. According to the city authorities, approximately 70% of the houses here have been damaged or destroyed.

House on the North Saltivka.

House on the North Saltivka.

Since the beginning of the war, more than half of the educational institutions in Kharkiv have been destroyed.
One hundred seven buildings of kindergartens, 118 school buildings, 12 premises of after-school institutions and four towers of education departments were damaged. At the same time, a third of the objects were repeatedly hit, and four schools were destroyed. Sixty buildings of vocational and technical institutions were also damaged.
According to preliminary estimates, the city's educational infrastructure damage exceeds 3 billion hryvnias.
The city council also reported that there are currently 37,000 schoolchildren in Kharkiv, 32.1% of the total number of students.

As a result of strikes on energy facilities in Kharkiv, there are constant problems with heating, electricity and water. Blackouts lasted 14 hours.

The Kharkiv government building airstrike occurred on March 1, 2022, when Russian forces attacked the Kharkiv oblast government administrative building in Kharkiv. The attack on the Kharkiv government building took place in the context of the battle of Kharkiv against Russian hosts coming from the northwest.

Despite constant shelling, Kharkiv is recovering and continues to live. The city is being rebuilt, and roads and public infrastructure are being repaired.

Kharkiv needs 9.5 billion euros to restore destroyed buildings, infrastructure and communal facilities. Currently, 150,000 Kharkiv residents remain homeless. Half of the schools and kindergartens were destroyed. Fifty-six hospitals were damaged. Now, 1.3 million people permanently live in Kharkiv. The population is growing as a result of the return of citizens, as well as the resettlement of residents from other settlements.

On March 6, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded Kharkiv the Hero City of Ukraine title.
During the large-scale Russian invasion, Kharkiv became one of the first cities to wake up to explosions on the morning of February 24, 2022 and continues to be bombarded by the invaders every day.

In December, the British architect Norman Foster drew the world's attention to Kharkiv by presenting to Mayor Terekhov a plan for the city's reconstruction, which he developed with a team of Ukrainian architects.

It is based on five pilot projects. Among them is the "Cultural Heritage Project", which involves the creation of a new architectural landmark in the city centre, as well as the "River Project" to transform the six-kilometre strip between the Kharkiv and Nemyshlya rivers into an ecological space for pedestrians and cyclists.

With the support of the UN European Economic Commission, the UN4Kharkiv working group was created to implement the pilot project for the reconstruction of Kharkiv, which united 16 UN agencies and international organizations.

"Reconstructed Kharkiv is a 6-7-story building with the latest technologies and underground parking lots of double importance (parking lot and shelter for people). But we will preserve the architectural traditions of the city of Kharkiv as much as possible; this is very important for us," the mayor emphasized.

Despite the recovery, internal repairs, purchasing things, and furniture remain a problem for the affected people. Some victims lost everything, and the restored housing was received in the condition of new buildings without internal repairs.

At the same time, the city council planned a large project, which they planned to implement after the victory. They want to build 2 new neighbourhoods in the city, which will be designed for those people who have lost their homes.

Kharkiv is in bloom.
The city will be restored and will become even better.