Sights of Dnepropetrovsk

There is an opin­ion that there is absolute­ly noth­ing attrac­tive in Dne­propetro­vsk, that the roads here are ter­ri­ble and the dri­vers are undis­ci­plined. As for dri­vers and roads, I prob­a­bly agree — there real­ly are prob­lems with this. But as for the sights and beau­ty of the city, it’s time to dis­pel stereo­types.

Dne­propetro­vsk stretch­es on both sides of the Dnieper, in the very heart of Ukraine, where the two halves of the coun­try con­verge. From where and where you would not have to get in Ukraine, for sure your path will lie through Dne­propetro­vsk — the largest rail­way and trans­port hub of the coun­try. The city was con­ceived as the third cap­i­tal of the Russ­ian Empire, but nev­er received such a sta­tus and even­tu­al­ly became an ordi­nary provin­cial town. In the sec­ond half of the 19th cen­tu­ry, the city became a major indus­tri­al giant and was closed to for­eign­ers. In the 21st cen­tu­ry, it is chang­ing again before our eyes. The city, in gen­er­al, is full of con­trasts: dilap­i­dat­ed two-sto­ry build­ings and sky­scrap­ers, an incom­pat­i­ble com­bi­na­tion. There are quite a lot of sights and sim­ply beau­ti­ful places. I think that the opin­ion about the unat­trac­tive­ness of the city exists due to the fact that, first of all, the city is per­ceived by every­one as indus­tri­al. Those who have decid­ed to ded­i­cate a day — anoth­er detailed acquain­tance with the city — change their minds.

The pride of Dne­propetro­vsk and its main attrac­tion is the Dnieper Riv­er. The Dne­propetro­vsk embank­ment is the longest in Europe — along the right bank of the Dnieper, it stretch­es for more than 23 km. It is inter­est­ing that until the ear­ly 1960s, the city seemed to move away from the riv­er: end­less ware­hous­es and small fac­to­ries piled up along the Dnieper, there were prac­ti­cal­ly no places for recre­ation, and the riv­er was used only for car­go trans­porta­tion.
Nev­er­the­less, the fact that the city had a pow­er­ful indus­try and accu­mu­lat­ed mil­lions of tons of met­al­lur­gy waste made it pos­si­ble to form and strength­en the coast with a large boule­vard. To cre­ate a park zone, and also to stretch from west to east, for the entire length of the city of the city, a new avenue — Embank­ment

The Swan Foun­tain, installed in 2005 on the Embank­ment near the shore, is unique in that it can change oper­at­ing modes, “flap its wings” and rotate. At full pow­er, its jet can be thrown up to a height of 50 meters

I decid­ed not to make a sto­ry about the bridges of the city in a sep­a­rate top­ic, but to include them in the sights of Dne­propetro­vsk. There are 5 bridges across the Dnieper Riv­er in the city:

• The Amur Bridge was orig­i­nal­ly built in 1884. The project was made by the largest Russ­ian engi­neer-bridge builder Pro­fes­sor N. P. Bele­lyub­sky. The solemn open­ing of the bridge took place on May 18, 1884, along with the open­ing of the Cather­ine’s rail­way. And before that, for two cen­turies, the Dnieper Riv­er was an obsta­cle on the long way from Baturin through Gady­ach, Polta­va, Kobelya­ki, Pereval­ochna, Sich to Perekop. There was a trans­fer here. On the right bank there is the Novye Kay­da­ki set­tle­ment, and on the left bank there is the Kamen­ka set­tle­ment. Pic­tured is the Amur bridge

• The longest is the Kay­dak bridge, which allowed tran­sit vehi­cles to trav­el along the Kyiv-Donet­sk road with­out enter­ing the city, and made it pos­si­ble to start hous­ing con­struc­tion on the left bank of the riv­er. On Novem­ber 10, 1982, the bridge was inau­gu­rat­ed. Its length is 1732 m, 3‑lane traf­fic in both direc­tions. On Decem­ber 17, 1996, a tram was launched in its cen­ter

• The most beau­ti­ful is the Mere­fa-Kher­son rail­way bridge — the very first bridge built in the form of an arc. It was nec­es­sary to build a rail­way line to the south, and this was an impos­si­ble task, since the Nizhned­ne­provsk sta­tion on the left bank of the Dnieper was to the left of the South Sta­tion sta­tion, and it was impos­si­ble to con­nect them with a straight line, since the main branch from east to west passed just through the Cen­tral Sta­tion, and nev­er turned back east. The design engi­neers were giv­en the task of con­nect­ing uncon­nect­ed sta­tions. For sev­er­al years, the bridge was designed and the ten­sion and load on the bend of the arc were cal­cu­lat­ed. This bridge is now one of the most unique sights of Dne­propetro­vsk

• The South Bridge is part of the east­ern arc of the bypass around the city, which is under con­struc­tion. The bridge is 1248 meters long and 22 meters wide. It was built in stages from 1982 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000. Opened in Decem­ber 2000. In 2002, the con­struc­tion of a road junc­tion on the left bank was com­plet­ed, an over­pass across the rail­way was built.

• Cen­tral (New) — a road bridge con­nect­ing the city cen­ter with the left bank

The most leg­endary place in Dne­propetro­vsk is Monastyrsky (Kom­so­mol­sky) Island. The island was first men­tioned in 1880 in the work of Bish­op Theo­do­sius, as the north­ern­most point where Andrew the First-Called reached on his mis­sion. The name “Monas­tic” island received from the sup­pos­ed­ly exist­ing Byzan­tine monastery, found­ed here in the 9th cen­tu­ry.

With the rest of the city, the island is con­nect­ed by a cable car, and a pedes­tri­an bridge

In 1958, a mon­u­ment to T. G. Shevchenko was erect­ed on the island — one of the largest in Ukraine

In 1999, the Ortho­dox Church of St. Nicholas was built on the north­ern part of the island.

The island also has a beach and a recre­ation park where Dne­propetro­vsk res­i­dents who did not man­age to go to the sea have a rest 🙂

Among sights of Dne­propetro­vsk the largest col­lec­tion of stone Scythi­an “women” in Ukraine. It is locat­ed in a clear­ing near the His­tor­i­cal Muse­um. There are about 80 babs, the col­lec­tion is con­sid­ered to be per­haps the largest stone sculp­tures in the world. Some stat­ues are gen­er­al­ly 5 thou­sand years old and they have remark­ably sur­vived to our times.

A few more women)

It is also worth not­ing the Gold­en Rose Choral Syn­a­gogue. Accord­ing to the well-known mag­a­zine Cor­re­spon­dent, after the restora­tion the syn­a­gogue is the hall­mark of Dne­propetro­vsk. In my opin­ion, a rather strange busi­ness card .. The pho­to shows the syn­a­gogue before and after restora­tion

The cen­tral street of Dne­propetro­vsk, both in admin­is­tra­tive and in oth­er sens­es, is the Prospekt named after Karl Marx

The length of the avenue is 5 kilo­me­ters

His­tor­i­cal name — Cather­ine Avenue (1834–1923)

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Prospekt named after Karl Marx is one of the old­est thor­ough­fares of the city. It began to form along with the foun­da­tion of Yeka­teri­noslav on the Dnieper from the end of the 1780s. The idea of ​​cre­at­ing a prospec­tus belongs to the author of the mas­ter plan of Yeka­teri­noslav, archi­tect Ivan Yegorovich Starov. Most of this street is paved with paving stones. Along the avenue itself there are many old build­ings. Among them are the his­tor­i­cal muse­um, the build­ing of the Min­ing Uni­ver­si­ty, the build­ings of the Dne­propetro­vsk Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, the city exec­u­tive com­mit­tee. The street starts from the Mon­u­ment of Glo­ry and ends with the rail­way sta­tion Dne­propetro­vsk-Glavny

In the pho­to, the old and new ren­o­vat­ed sta­tion

Mon­u­ment “Eter­nal Glo­ry” on Karl Marx Avenue

You should def­i­nite­ly vis­it the dio­ra­ma “Bat­tle for the Dnieper”. “Bat­tle for the Dnieper” is the largest dio­ra­ma in Ukraine and one of the largest in the world.

It is the cen­ter of a large memo­r­i­al com­plex ded­i­cat­ed to the heroes and events of the Great Patri­ot­ic War

This work was cre­at­ed by mas­ters of bat­tle paint­ing M. B. Grekov N. Ya. But and N. V. Ovechkin. The whole-woven fab­ric, woven at the Pen­za weav­ing fac­to­ry “Red Octo­ber”, with an area of ​​840 square meters (1 × 2) is locat­ed in a spe­cial build­ing, designed by archi­tect V. A. Zuev. The total area of ​​the build­ing is 1340 square meters. The area of ​​the dio­ra­ma hall is 900 sq.m. A wide view­ing radius (up to 230°), a deep sub­ject plan con­sist­ing of the remains of defen­sive struc­tures, weapons, cross­ing facil­i­ties and oth­er mil­i­tary attrib­ut­es, spe­cial light­ing and sound­ing of the dio­ra­ma hall cre­ate for the audi­ence the effect of direct pres­ence at the site of the assault on the Dnieper by valiant Sovi­et sol­diers. There is a sim­i­lar struc­ture only in Sev­astopol — Dio­ra­ma “Storm of the Sapun Moun­tains”

Not far from the dio­ra­ma is the Trans­fig­u­ra­tion Cathe­dral — one of the cathe­dral church­es of the Dne­propetro­vsk dio­cese of the Ukrain­ian Ortho­dox Church, con­se­crat­ed in hon­or of the Trans­fig­u­ra­tion of the Lord. Com­plet­ed in the clas­si­cist style in 1835 under Arch­bish­op Gabriel

The Trans­fig­u­ra­tion Cathe­dral is the most remark­able land­mark of Yeka­teri­noslav of the Clas­si­cism era, which crowned the city’s foun­da­tion site.

From 1930 to 1988 there were no ser­vices in the Cathe­dral. From 1975 to 1988 the tem­ple housed a muse­um of reli­gion and athe­ism. Today, divine ser­vices in the cathe­dral are per­formed dai­ly.

In the pho­to — the Trans­fig­u­ra­tion Cathe­dral inside

The con­struc­tion of the Trans­fig­u­ra­tion Cathe­dral reflect­ed the fea­tures of the reign of sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions. Dur­ing the war, prayers sound­ed with­in the walls of the tem­ple, and in peace­time, stone idols and an ancient Egypt­ian mum­my were exhib­it­ed.

You can also take a walk along Yeka­teri­noslav Boule­vard, which is espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful in the evening. There are many illu­mi­nat­ed foun­tains here.

I will list some more inter­est­ing places in Dne­propetro­vsk:

Brezh­nev House in Dne­propetro­vsk

House of Organ and Cham­ber Music

Sausage for EURO 2012 :))

I described only a part of the sights of Dne­propetro­vsk, there are a lot of them and it is bet­ter to see every­thing with your own eyes.

I can’t resist and still I will describe some neg­a­tive moments in the life of the city of Dne­propetro­vsk

First of all, it is worth not­ing the gen­er­al stag­na­tion in the devel­op­ment of the city — only the cen­ter and some sec­tions in the dis­tricts are devel­op­ing. At the entrance to the city, there is com­plete dev­as­ta­tion, a huge con­trast between the cen­ter and oth­er areas.

Pic­tured are sky­scrap­ers in the cen­ter

There is also a stag­na­tion in the con­struc­tion of the metro — since 1995, after the launch of the Vokzal-Kom­mu­nar sec­tion (6 sta­tions), not a sin­gle sta­tion has been opened (the next line — 1 or 2 sta­tions to the city cen­ter — would allow unload­ing the cen­ter and using the metro more ratio­nal­ly); Con­struc­tion work is pro­gress­ing very slow­ly.

6 sta­tions for the third most pop­u­lous city in Ukraine is cat­a­stroph­i­cal­ly small. In the pho­to, the scheme of the Dne­propetro­vsk metro

Because of this, traf­fic prob­lems arise in the city. Despite the exten­sive net­work of routes and the size of the fleet, fixed-route taxis can­not cope with the load dur­ing peak hours. Real alter­na­tive projects — a mono­rail, a high-speed tram (light metro), just bring­ing the roads back to nor­mal — have not yet been observed. It is also sad that due to the inac­tion of the author­i­ties, Dne­propetro­vsk lost EURO 2012, despite the fact that the sta­di­um here was built on time.

In the pho­to, the sta­di­um Dnipro — Are­na