Poltava

Located in the central part of Ukraine, Poltava is a traditional city of the Soviet era. The basis of its architectural skeleton comprises numerous standard buildings with predominantly grey-colored walls. At the same time, despite a fairly modest palette of urban colors, the history of Poltava is much brighter. The city was founded almost 830 years ago. It is almost a peer of Moscow.

Poltava is a city famous for its heroic past. More than 200 years ago near the city Russian Tsar Peter I defeated the Swedish army and finally redefined the result of Russian-Swedish war. Since then, even originates a proverb «defeated as a Swede near Poltava», which means «to be fully thrown down». However, in Ukraine not everyone evaluates explicitly all the events of that era, because the Cossack army, led by hetman Mazepa was the ally of the Swedes in this battle. It is believed that the victory of Peter I forced the Ukrainians to forget about their own state for a long time.

Poltava, however, is known not only because of the folklore. And, if it comes to that, it is not fair to consider the architecture of the city to be formed only in the time of former USSR. Poltava is full of attractions. Some of them are original and really interesting.

Perhaps, the most amazing building of the city is the house of the Poltava local history museum. Built in the early 20th century (1908), in a style which is commonly called «Ukrainian Modernism», the building of the museum is a real decoration of the city: a powerful stone mansion with tiled roof. In Poltava you also should visit Hull Garden (Oktyabrsky Park), where the famous Stele of Glory and one of the most unique pieces of Ukrainian architecture - the Church of the Savior, which outside stone walls cover, in fact, its wooden predecessor.