Belaya Tserkov, Belotserkovsky district. Bila Tserkva, city guide The annual population of Bila Tserkva is
White church - a city located in the center of Ukraine, in the southwest of the Kyiv region, on both sides of the Ros River. The city has enterprises producing agricultural machinery, food products, electrical equipment, tires, asbestos products, clothing, footwear, furniture and building materials.
In Bila Tserkva there is an agricultural university, a local history museum, two dramatic theaters, the Mikyil Church (built in 1706), shopping arcades (built at the beginning of the 19th century) and the Alexandria Arboretum, which was founded in 1797 as the court park of Count Branitsky and occupies 200 hectares of land. It was created on the basis of a natural oak forest in the English romantic style. The beauty of the park delighted Gabriel Derzhavin, Alexander Pushkin, Taras Shevchenko, Adam Mickiewicz, members of the imperial family and the Decembrists. Also in the city There is a sanatorium for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Several highways and a railway pass through Bila Tserkva.
In the center of a modern city The main attractions are located: the Transfiguration Cathedral, St. Nicholas Church, the Church of Ivan the Baptist, shopping arcades (BRUM). But the center of life in Bila Tserkva is located not in the historical center, but about five kilometers to the east. This is the largest residential area of the city, which the population calls the Levanevsky area, in honor of one of its first streets. In area it occupies about an eighth of the city, but more than a third of its population lives here.
From the starboard side of the Rosi Valley, a beautiful panorama of the city opens up: the foreground embraces a complex of luxurious dachas of wealthy Ukrainians.
The lowest part of the Rosi Valley is occupied by a private housing area, which is completely different from the rural one. Here, the houses are medium in size, mostly brick, pressed against one another and surrounded by tight, cozy courtyards. The distant plan of the panorama is occupied by a continuous multi-storey building, above which the chimneys of numerous enterprises pop up in places. In the eastern part of the city there is a huge industrial hub. Most of the city's working population works here.
Distance to Kyiv: 84 km. You can get there from Kyiv by minibus, which runs from the Lybidskaya metro station or the railway station (Vokzalnaya metro station).
Historical reference:
Bila Tserkva city was founded locally ancient Russian city of Yuryev V 1032 during the time of Yaroslav the Wise,in honor of his Christian name - Yuri. At that time, it was built as a castle-fortress to protect against the Pechenegs. The castle later grew into a town, which at the end of the 11th century became the cathedral center of the Poros diocese. After a raid by nomads in the 13th century, the city was completely devastated and resurrected under the name Bila Tserkva. in 1155 . The cathedral, to which the city owes its name, disappeared in the cycle of historical events.
History of Bila Tserkva associated with the peasant-Cossack uprisings, with the liberation war of 1648-1654. The city was under control Lithuania in the 14th century and under Polish rule since 1569. During the reign of Poland, Bila Tserkva became an important city in the country.To protect the state from the Tatars, a castle was built in Bila Tserkva, which housed a permanent Polish garrison. The mountain on which the castle was once located is called Castle Hill. In the 17th century, Bila Tserkva was the location of the Bila Tserkva Cossack regiment and the place where Bohdan Khmelnytsky signed an agreement with the defeated Poles (1651). The agreement certified the independent Cossack state. For a long time, Bogdan Khmelnitsky with his main forces was located in the Bila Tserkva castle, sending out calls to fight throughout Ukraine from here. The city became the center of the uprising, and dispossessed peasants flocked to it from everywhere.
Ivan Mazepa was born near Bila Tserkva in a family estate - the village of Mazepintsy and considered this region his homeland. In 1703, he settled in the Bila Tserkva castle and decided to make the city his property. The hetman felt absolutely safe in the Bila Tserkva castle. It was here that he spent a significant part of his life, amassed the lion's share of his capital and became one of the richest feudal lords in Europe. According to some sources, the hetman's treasury was found in the Belotserkov castle.
Ivan Mazepa transferred a significant portion of the income from his 20 thousand estates to the construction of religious buildings. According to his decrees, a large number of magnificent churches in the Ukrainian Baroque style were erected throughout Ukraine. In 1706, construction began on a large stone church in Bila Tserkva. The bloody events of 1708 and the subsequent transfer of the city to Poland left this building unfinished. Only part of the church called Nikolskaya has survived to this day.
In 1793 the city became part of the Russian Empire. At the end of the 19th century, the city of Bila Tserkva turned into a center for the production and trade of food products.
Through the eyes of a tourist:
On my first acquaintance with the city, it greeted us with rain, warm summer rain. The White Church reminded me of Kyiv about 15 years ago, quiet streets, few cars, no crowds of people. Everywhere is calm and quite clean. Prices for everything are much lower than in the capital.
The second trip was for charity for the Baby House, organized by the Mazda Club of Ukraine. The orphanage in this city is very poor, the state allocates too little money to support it, and the orphanage is constantly in need of special baby food. Of course, the spectacle is not for the faint of heart, but the children, despite their tiny age, are very happy that people come to them, pay attention, give them toys, gifts and food.
On the same trip we visited the old airstrip, where you can have a fun car race and a picnic; the area is simply huge.
And of course, the most interesting trip was to the Alexandria Arboretum. A very beautiful, huge park, where it’s nice to walk, relax, have a picnic, feed the swans, and just be there. Entrance costs 5 UAH.
Heraldry
The coat of arms of the Belotserkovsky district has the shape of a shield, which is represented by a classic shape with a pointed lower part in the middle. The left and right corners of the shield are rounded, the point in the middle of the lower part is directed from the outside of the shield. The shield is divided diagonally by a crimson ribbon (the color of the flag of Bila Tserkva). The upper field of the shield is divided into three stripes of equal width: the middle one is yellow, the outer ones are blue, that is, the colors of the flag of the Kyiv region. In the upper left part of the shield, on a blue field, there is a bow with three arrows (an element of the coat of arms of the city of Bila Tserkva) of golden color. The green field on the right side of the diagonal symbolizes the fertile fields of the Belotserkovsky district, and the golden ear in the form of a cornucopia symbolizes high grain yields. The silver color frames the contours of the shield and two diagonal side lines that divide the coat of arms into two parts: history and modernity.
The district flag is a rectangular panel with an aspect ratio of 2:3, consisting of three horizontal stripes of equal width. The top one is blue, the middle one is crimson (the color of the flag of the White Church), the bottom one is yellow (an element of the flag of the Kyiv region). In the blue part of the shaft there is a yellow bow with three arrows (an element of the coat of arms of the White Church) and an ear of corn in the form of a cornucopia, which symbolizes high grain yields.
The coat of arms was approved on October 3, 1998. The author of the drawing is A. Grechilo. In a red field there is a golden bow with a taut bowstring, on which there are three arrows pointing upward. In fact, a reconstruction has been made and the use of the city symbols granted by the privilege of 1620 has been restored. The bow and arrow emphasizes the historical role of Bila Tserkva as a fortified defensive settlement.
Approved on October 3, 1998. It is a square red panel with the image of a church with domes and white crosses in the center. The prototype of the modern city flag was the flag donated by the Polish king Sigismund III to the city militia. The flag was granted to the White Church on December 6, 1620 along with Magdeburg law.
Belotserkovsky district
Belotserkovsky district(Ukrainian Bilotserkivskyi district) is an administrative unit in the center of the Kyiv region of Ukraine.
The district borders in the north with Vasylkivsky and Obukhovsky, in the south - with Volodarsky, Stavischensky and Tarashchansky, in the west - with Fastovsky and Skvirsky, in the east - with Kagarlyk and Rakitnyansky districts of the Kyiv region.
The main rivers are Ros.
Area – 1276 sq. km.
Population – 55,608 people. (2006)
There are 1 city, 1 settlement and 34 village councils in the district. 60 settlements are subordinate to them.
The administrative center is the city of Bila Tserkva. 
(Ukrainian Bila Tserkva) is a city of regional subordination in the Kiev region of Ukraine.
The city is located 80 km south of Kyiv on the Ros River.
Population – 211.80 thousand people. (2014)
The area of the city is 34.77 square meters. km.
Highways of European significance pass through the city: Chernigov - Brovary - Kyiv - Boyarka - Glevakha - Belaya Tserkov - Stavische - Zhashkov - Uman - Ulyanovka - Lyubashevka - October - Odessa (E 95); also international Kyiv - Vasilkov - Bila Tserkva - Stavische - Uman - Ulyanovka - October - Odessa (M 05); railway line Fastov - Mironovka.
The city has a railway station, which was opened in 1876, and a commuter bus station.
Ukrainian Soviet writer V.S. studied and worked here. Coachman; Ukrainian Soviet teacher, professor M.M. Grishchenko; Ukrainian Soviet linguist, teacher, professor V.I. Masala; Doctor of Historical Sciences D.A. Kovalenko, Ukrainian Soviet writer V.A. Minyailo. In 1947-1948 studied at a vocational school and worked at the plant named after. May 1, pilot cosmonaut Hero of the Soviet Union P.R. Popovich. At one time, A.V. visited the city. Suvorov, G.R. Derzhavin, A.S. Pushkin, T.G. Shevchenko, I.S. Nechuy-Levitsky.
Scenes from the films “Queen of the Gas Station” were filmed in Bila Tserkva, namely the scene with bees on Shevchenko Square, and “Vladyka Andrey” in the Alexandria Arboretum. A memorial plaque to Nadezhda Rumyantseva was installed on the house where the scene of the film “Queen of the Gas Station” was filmed.
Episodes of the film “The Road to the Sich” were filmed in the Alexandria Arboretum. In the film you can see the Luna Colonnade, the Ruin composition and the administration building.
Also, in this arboretum, in the fall of 2012, a video for Mika Newton’s song “Don’t Let Go” was filmed.
History of Bila Tserkva
On the territory of the modern city, a burial mound from the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) and a large ancient Russian settlement were explored.
The historical predecessor of the White Church was the ancient Russian city of Yuryev, which was founded in 1032 by the Kyiv prince Yaroslav the Wise in Russia, as a fortress to protect Kievan Rus from attacks by nomads. Its name comes from the Christian name of Yaroslav the Wise - Yuri or George, hence in some sources - Georgev, Gyurgev, Yugrev, Yurev. In 1050, Yaroslav the Wise built an episcopal church in Yuryev, which was popularly called the “white church”. The city became the center of the Yuryevsk (Poros) diocese.
Yuriev, then the southern outpost of Kievan Rus, was subject to numerous attacks by the Cumans and other nomads. The Polovtsians destroyed it more than once, in particular in 1095 and 1103. In 1103, the Kiev prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, after a successful campaign against the Polovtsy, rebuilt Yuryev. During the Mongol-Tatar invasion in the 13th century. it was destroyed again.
In 1311, Western Russian troops, led by Prince Yuri Slutsky, defeated large Tatar forces in the Rothko tract (outskirts of Yuryev), who lost 8,000 killed here. This event marked the beginning of the revival of the city. The ruins of the white-stone Yuryevskaya Church gave a new name to the city - White Church, which was first found in 1331.
In the 60s of the XIV century. Kiev region, incl. and the White Church, was captured by the Principality of Lithuania, and after the Union of Lublin - by Poland. To establish themselves in the occupied lands and protect themselves from attacks by the Crimean Tatars, Polish-Lithuanian magnates and local feudal lords built castles and various fortifications. One of these castles was built in Bila Tserkva in the early 50s of the 16th century. Kyiv governor Pronsky. The city became the center of the Belotserkovsky eldership, where the governor of the Kyiv governor was located.
To speed up the settlement of Bila Tserkva as an important stronghold in the fight against the Tatars, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of the Principality of Lithuania Sigismund II Augustus in 1555 provided the townspeople with a number of benefits for 10 years: he freed them from taxes, duties, castle work, etc. In 1562, the benefits were extended for another 5 years.
Since 1570, the White Church became the property of a Ukrainian magnate - the Kyiv governor V.K. Ostrogsky.
In 1580, the Polish king S. Batory freed the boyars and townspeople of the White Church from all kinds of taxes “for eternity,” for which the townspeople had to build and maintain a castle and carry a field warta.
In 1589, the townspeople of Bila Tserkva received Magdeburg law. However, V.K. Ostrozhsky the same year obtained from the king its abolition and demanded the fulfillment of feudal duties. In response, the White Church rebels rebelled and seized the prince's property, gunpowder and weapons. For this they were brought to court. The gentry of the entire Kyiv voivodeship participated in the suppression of this uprising.
At the end of 1591, Zaporozhye Cossacks, under the leadership of Hetman K. Kosinsky, destroyed the Polish garrison in Bila Tserkva and seized documents for the right to own the city and other property. From here the uprising spread to the entire Kiev region, Bratslav region, Podolia and Volyn.
The population of Bila Tserkva supported the anti-feudal peasant-Cossack uprising under the leadership of Nalivaiko. Having defeated a detachment of Polish troops led by Prince K. Ruzhinsky, S. Nalivaiko on April 2, 1596, supported by the Belaya Tserkov burghers, entered the city, but was forced to leave it: a large Polish army was approaching from Volyn, led by the Polish hetman S. Zholkiewsky.
At the beginning of the 17th century. Bila Tserkva was a fairly significant settlement. Mills, breweries and meaderies operated in the city, and trade developed. The White Church was also famous for its experienced artisans (in 1641 there were 2,772 of them). Among them were gunsmiths who knew how to make guns and cannons. Although the population was formally freed from all taxes, the Belaya Tserkov elder Ya. Ostrozhsky and his servants in every possible way limited the rights of the Cossacks and townspeople, collected taxes from them, burdened the population with soldiers' quarters, and plundered their property. All this caused great discontent among the city residents. A significant part of the population did not recognize the authority of Polish officials. In 1637, the Belaya Tserkov Cossacks and townspeople supported the peasant-Cossack uprising, led by the hetman of the unregistered Cossacks P.M. Pavlyuk (Booth).
The history of the White Church is closely connected with the liberation war of the Ukrainian people of 1648-1654. During this period, the city had a well-fortified fortress and was advantageously located on the routes between Kiev and the Zaporozhye Sich. It became one of the important strongholds in the struggle for liberation from Polish oppression, the center of the administrative-territorial and military unit - the Belotserkovsky regiment.
On May 22, 1648, the Belaya Tserkovites arranged a solemn meeting for the army of B. Khmelnitsky, which won a victory near Zheltye Vody and Korsun. From here B. Khmelnitsky sent station wagons to all corners of Ukraine with a call to rise up to fight against Polish oppression. Here, in a fortified camp, he formed a seventy-thousand-strong peasant-Cossack army. Later, in March 1651, B. Khmelnitsky wrote letters from Bila Tserkva to the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with a request to speed up the resolution of the issue of reunifying Ukraine with Russia.
In the fall of 1651, the peasant-Cossack army, drained of blood by the defeat at Berestechko, nevertheless stopped the united Polish-Lithuanian troops near Bila Tserkva.
On September 18 of the same year, B. Khmelnitsky concluded the Belotserkov Treaty, which was difficult for Ukraine, with the Polish government in order to give the Ukrainian people the opportunity to gain time to rally forces to fight their enemies.
On January 15, 1654, on Cathedral Square (now Freedom Square), the residents of Bila Tserkva, in the presence of representatives of the Russian embassy - steward L. Lopukhin and clerk J. Portomoin, took a solemn oath of allegiance to Russia. 38 nobles, 991 Cossacks and 120 townspeople took the oath.
However, the Belaya Tserkovites did not feel free for long. After the conclusion of the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, Bila Tserkva, like the entire Right Bank, remained under Polish rule. Subsequently, in 1686, this was confirmed by the “eternal peace” between Russia and Poland.
The struggle for the liberation of Right Bank Ukraine and its reunification with Russia continued. Companions of S.P. Palia - appointed hetman of Right Bank Ukraine S.I. Samus, Korsun colonel Iskra, Bratslov colonel A. Abazin at the beginning of 1702 convened a Cossack meeting in Fastov, which decided to prepare the masses for an uprising against the Polish gentry. It began in the spring in Podolia and Volyn. In the summer, the insurgency swept the Kiev region. On November 10, 1702, after a two-month siege by the troops of the Fastovsky colonel S.P. Palia defeated the Polish garrison in Bila Tserkva. The Cossacks captured 28 guns here, large reserves of gunpowder, grenades and lead. S.P. Paliy moved his residence here. The White Church, as in the time of B. Khmelnytsky, again became a stronghold of the struggle of the Ukrainian people for the liberation of Right Bank Ukraine from Polish oppression. Informing the tsarist government about military successes, S.P. Paliy reported the unanimous will of the peasants and Cossacks to reunite with the fraternal Russian people.
An unsuccessful war with Turkey forced the Russian government in 1711 to renounce its rights to Right Bank Ukraine, etc. to Bila Tserkva. The privileges that the city owed as an outpost against the Tatars were ignored in every possible way by the Polish governors and elders. They felt like absolute masters and interfered in the personal lives of the townsfolk, prohibited them, under threat of confiscation of property, from living outside the city, forced them to build manor houses, repair bridges and dams, and pay rent and other taxes within a certain period of time.
In 1774, the Polish Sejm transferred the White Church into “eternal possession” to the crown hetman of Poland, Count F.K. Branitsky. Residents of the city were also subjected to oppression from the Catholic Church. Back in the 30s of the 18th century. A Jesuit mission was established in the city.
After the second partition of Poland (1793), the White Church, together with all of Right Bank Ukraine, reunited with Russia. Located on profitable trade routes, Bila Tserkva was gradually drawn into the all-Russian market. Crafts and trade began to develop more widely; urban development was underway.
During the Patriotic War of 1812, a movement for the creation of a militia against the troops of Napoleon I developed widely in the city. A Cossack regiment was formed in Bila Tserkva from the townspeople and peasants of the surrounding counties (Vasilkovsky, Kievsky, Tarashchansky and Boguslavsky). As part of the Ukrainian Cossack army, the Belotserkovsky regiment under the command of Colonel E.P. Obolensky defended Brest-Litovsk in October, and then participated in the pursuit of the enemy to the western border, for which he was awarded silver pipes.
Events related to the Decembrist movement took place in Bila Tserkva. Here 1824-1825. S.I. Muravyov-Apostol, M.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and other members of the Vasilkovsky council of the Southern Society, headed by P.I. Pestel, discussed the future constitution of Russia - “Russian Truth” - and plans to assassinate the Tsar. In the materials of the investigation into the Decembrist case, they are called “Belotserkovsky plans.” It was supposed to kill Alexander I during his inspection of parts of the 3rd Corps. This action was supposed to be the beginning of the main actions, but due to the death of the king it could not be carried out.
During the performance of the Chernigov regiment (December 29, 1825 - January 3, 1826), the rebels had the intention of uniting with the 17th Jaeger Regiment, located in Bila Tserkva. His two companies led by Lieutenant A.F. Vadkovsky was preparing to support the rebels. But the command of the 3rd Corps, which included the 17th Jaeger Regiment, became aware of the intentions of the Chernigovites. A.F. Vadkovsky was arrested, and the command urgently transferred the unreliable regiment to Skvira. Having learned from a detachment sent for reconnaissance led by I.I. Sukhinov that the 17th Jaeger Regiment was withdrawn to an unknown direction, S.I. Muravyov-Apostol turned to the village. Canopies. The rebel regiment was defeated 15 km from Bila Tserkva. On January 6, prisoners were brought to the city, incl. S.I. Muravyov-Apostol and M.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin. On January 12, the leaders of the uprising were taken to St. Petersburg, and a special investigative commission and court were formed to deal with the “lower ranks.” After the execution, the soldiers of the Chernigov regiment, under strict supervision, were sent to serve in a separate Caucasian corps.
The uprising of the Chernigov regiment left a deep imprint on the consciousness of the peasants. Separate groups of serfs in the Belotserkov region joined the rebels; many peasants were also ready to join them, awaiting their approach. In 1826-1827 many serfs fled to the Transdanubian Sich and other distant places.
Economic and cultural development of Bila Tserkva in the first half of the 19th century. restrained by the fact that the city was proprietary. All land and enterprises belonged to the Branitskys. The industry specialized in processing agricultural products coming from the counts' possessions. In the 40-50s, two brick factories, a candle factory, agricultural machinery, two tanneries, and a distillery were built in the city; mills, grain mills, meat processing plants, fats, sugar, honey, leather, resin, etc. were built. Every year 11 fairs took place in Bila Tserkva.
During the post-reform period, industrial development accelerated. If in the 70s there were 13 industrial enterprises in the city, then at the end of the 19th century. there were 27 of them. The Fastovsko-Znamenskaya railway station Bila Tserkva, built in 1876, had a significant impact on the development of the economy, especially the expansion of market relations.
At the beginning of the 20th century. Bila Tserkva became one of the largest industrial and commercial centers of the Kyiv province. In 1900, there were: an agricultural machinery plant, 5 brick factories, 6 leather factories, a brewery, 2 mead factories and 4 soap factories, a tobacco factory, a gilt factory and 2 candy factories, 4 metalwork shops, 42 forges, 2 roller water mills, 13 grist mills, 2 oil mills. . In terms of bread trade volume, the city ranked first in the Kiev region, was considered second after Kyiv in the export of beer and mead products, and in the shipment of sugar - fourth place.
The city's population grew steadily. In 1860 there were 12,075 people, in 1900 - 47,771 people (including residents of the surrounding area). The city became a significant labor market. The mass movement of workers created special forms of employment characteristic of highly developed capitalism. Beginning in early spring, hundreds of ruined peasants gathered at the workers' exchange. They hoped to be employed in Kyiv and other large cities as blacksmiths, mechanics, turners, and seasonal workers at sugar factories.
In the most terrible conditions lived the urban poor, who lived mainly in the so-called. "Georgia". This area of the city received this name because the earthen shacks resembled Caucasian sakli. The roofs were level with the ground, light came through small openings covered with pieces of glass. In many houses the amount of air per inhabitant was 0.33 cubic meters. fathoms (this is at a time when in prison the norm is 1.5 cubic fathoms). Epidemic diseases were raging in Bila Tserkva, killing hundreds of people.
The working population of the city was subjected to cruel exploitation by the Branitskys and their fellow tenants Menzel, Gabovich, Kernes, Bialik, Aizenshtein, Nirenshtein. The working day at their enterprises lasted 13-16 hours a day. The unemployment market allowed employers to keep wages at a meager level. The situation of workers and artisans especially worsened during the economic crisis of 1900-1903.
At the railway station in Kyiv, from afar you can hear the shouts of minibus taxi barkers: “Bila Tserkva!!!”, “Bila Tserkva!!!” If you are a fan of walking in parks, and you can’t afford to go to Peterhof or Pushkin these days, then take the offer seriously. The fact is that in Bila Tserkva there is one of the best Ukrainian arboretums, Alexandria. Or you can take the train and get there in two hours. The ancient White Church turned out to be at the same time a completely modern city. In recent years (judging by the architecture) new buildings have appeared in it.
Some of the construction accelerators, as expected, stretch upward.
Completely transforming the passing lanes with its appearance.
Insatiable new monsters are swallowing the old ones alive.
Perhaps that is why there is not so much of it left in the city.
Several small houses.
In one of which is the House of Children's Creativity.
The city has preserved ancient shopping arcades.
And the chic facade of this building suggests that it has a glorious past. And its width is quite suitable for arranging a hall for dances and receptions.
The local administration huddles in a small building (considering that after the fall of Soviet power, the number of executives at various levels increased greatly throughout the post-Soviet space).
The employment service, on the contrary, has a huge premises. It is possible that this is the know-how of local authorities, and everyone who needs work is simply employed in the bowels of this establishment.
Throughout the long history of the White Church, its residents have accomplished many glorious deeds.
They fought with the French.
And judging by the name of the stadium, they had something to do with labor. Even though they were in reserve.
The residents of Bila Tserkva always have great people of the past before their eyes.
Yaroslav the Wise.
Moses Solomonovich Uritsky learned the good and kind in this educational institution. And the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka was killed in St. Petersburg in 1918.
This monument was erected in honor of the uprising of Ukrainians against Polish rule.
And here it’s just a couple of lovers.
- Let's go to my place this evening. My parents left. Let's watch a movie on TV!...
- Let's do it next time?...
There are two white temples in the city, located side by side in the center.
Transfiguration Cathedral
And a Catholic church.
Here they have a good idea of Russia.
The city of Belaya Tserkov is located on the Ros River.
It slowly flows among green banks, illuminated by colorful roofs of houses.
Arboretum "Alexandria" is located on the same banks. On the gates of the main entrance there are busts of two of its visitors.
The park is more than two centuries old. It is named in honor of the founder - Countess Alexandra Branitskaya. The countess invited foreign specialists to supervise its breakdown. The large size of Alexandria made it possible to make the park diverse.
Lots of old majestic trees. Different breeds. Samples were brought from different parts of Russia and Europe.
There are several ponds on the territory,
Which flow one into another.
The park also overlooks the river bank.
The tradition of keeping swans here has been preserved for a long time.
In accordance with the traditions and rules of European park layout, Alexandria has many different bridges.
And a structure similar to an old fountain.
Founded by Yaroslav the Wise as a fortress for protection from nomads and named Yuriev (the Christian name of Yaroslav the Wise is Yuri, or George). According to folk legend, on the site of Yuryev destroyed by the Tatar-Mongols, a small church was built from uncouth white birch. Subsequently, the Chumaks called it the White Church.
Encyclopedic YouTube
1 / 4
✪ RUSSIAN IN UKRAINE / WHITE CHURCH - DENDROPARK ALEXANDRIA
✪ RUSSIAN IN UKRAINE / WHITE CHURCH - DENDROPARK ALEXANDRIA. Part 2
✪ Little-known Ukraine: Bila Tserkva
✪ Egypt in December. Rest from Bila Tserkva
Subtitles
origin of name
There are several versions regarding the origin of the name Bila Tserkva:
- One of them says that the Mongol-Tatars attacked and burned the village to the ground, only the white stone church remained on the mountain, it was she who gave the name to the city, before that there was the name Yuryev, which comes from the Orthodox name of its founder Yaroslav the Wise;
- The White Church was built as a fortress by Yuryev in 1032 by Yaroslav the Wise. The fortress was named after the Christian name of the prince - Yuriev. In 1050, he built an episcopal church on the city's Castle Hill, either whitewashed or built of white unhewn birch. Placed high on the mountain, the church became remarkable;
- Local residents called the church white, and when the Tatars destroyed Yuryev, the new city, which was being restored after the devastation, received the name White Church. There are settlements with this name in Moldova, Bulgaria, etc. They probably arose due to similar reasons.
- From white birch logs;
- Construction of a temple in honor of the victory over Baba Belaya;
- From the remains of a white stone church;
- The theory of heredity of the names Yuryev and Belaya Tserkov: the essence of the theory is the transformation of the primary name “city of the Church of St. (White) George” and “Bely Church”. It is the most probable since the people have always called St. George White;
Geographical location and main distances
| Zhytomyr (115 km) | Kyiv (79 km) | Sumy (355 km) | |
| Lviv (440 km) |  |
Poltava (320 km) | |
| Vinnitsa (135 km) | Odessa (370 km) | Zaporozhye (430 km) |
The city is located in the southwest of the Kyiv region, occupies an advantageous geographical position: the E95 highway (St. Petersburg-Kyiv-Odessa) runs next to it.
The distance to the capital of Ukraine - the city of Kyiv is 84 km, the distance to the capital of the Russian Federation - Moscow is 950 km, to the capital of the Czech Republic - Prague is 1020 km, to the capital of the Republic of Poland - Warsaw is 800 km. The distance to the Boryspil airport is 120 km.
Proximity to Kyiv, convenient transport links, developed socio-economic infrastructure, combined with landscape and natural conditions, give the city significant investment and tourist attractiveness.
Geological structure, soils and minerals
Geologically, the territory of the region is located on the Ukrainian shield. This is a transition zone from forest to steppe - forest-steppe.
Within the city, the main types of soils have formed: typical chernozem, podzolized gray forest soil, sod-podzolic, meadow-chernozem, turf and swamp. In the Belotserkovsky district, soil erosion processes are strongly pronounced, which arise under the influence of external conditions: erosion by melt and rainwater, weathering, provoked and accelerated by improper plowing of slopes.
The region is rich in various minerals that are of industrial importance. Among them, deposits of building materials predominate. Granites, gneisses, migmatites, and pegmatites are mined in the Belotserkovsky region. They are used in the form of rubble and crushed stone, for laying walls, for building sidewalks, and road surfaces. Pegmatites are a complex source of mineral and feldspathic raw materials.
Under Bila Tserkva there are large deposits of clay rocks, which are used in the brick and tile industry, as well as construction sands.
Among the combustible minerals in the Belotserkovsky region there is peat, which is also used in agriculture as a fertilizer. In Bila Tserkva there are sources of radon water.
Relief and hydrography
The main body of water is the Ros River, which flows for 16 km mainly in the southern part of the city, separating the central areas from Zarechye (modern Zarechye and the Peschany and Tarashchansky residential areas). The Protoka River flows through Bila Tserkva for 9.6 km and flows into Ros. And in the Sukhoi Yar tract there is a Sukhoyarskaya stream 9.6 km long. There are 4 bridges across Ros within the city: 2 pedestrian (Wooden bridge and Zarechanskaya dam) and 2 automobile. The Protoka River is crossed by a significant number of small bridges of various designs.
Archeology
In the center of the city, on the left bank of the Ros River, in the Castle Hill tract, archaeologists found a cultural layer with Old Russian pottery ceramics of the 11th-12th centuries, slate whorls and other materials. Here was the ancient Russian Yuryev, first mentioned in the chronicle in 1072 (Bishop Mikhail of Yuryev participated in the transfer of the relics of Saints Boris and Gleb). Yuryev was part of the system of fortified cities built by Yaroslav the Wise in the middle of the 11th century along the Ros River. The ancient settlement occupied a cape-remnant (area 2 hectares) on the river bank. It was apparently destroyed and burned by the Cumans in 1095. Once again, Yuryev is being rebuilt by Svyatopolk somewhat to the side. A castle was built on the site of the old settlement in the 16th century. On the western outskirts of the city (up the Ros River), in the Palieva Gora tract, another rounded settlement (55 m in diameter) was found. The settlement was fortified with two rows of concentric ramparts. During the examinations, ancient Russian pottery of the 12th-13th centuries, metal objects, and a bronze gilded panagia with the image of St. George and a six-pointed cross were found. Apparently, the ancient Russian Yuryev was located here, rebuilt by Svyatopolk Izyaslavich in 1103. There are unfortified settlements around the settlement.
Story
There was an earthen rampart near the city, which the local population called Trajan’s Rampart. Coins from the time of Trajan have been found there. Its remains remained between Yaroslav the Wise and Les Kurbas streets.
XI-XVI centuries
The city was founded in 1032 by the Kyiv prince Yaroslav the Wise. Initially it was called Yuriev (Gyurgev) according to the Christian name of Yaroslav the Wise - Yuri (George).
The beginning of the 11th century was marked by continuous Pecheneg raids on the southern outskirts of the Kyiv state. As a result, the borders of Rus' were pushed north - to the banks of the Stugna. In 1017, the Kiev prince Yaroslav the Wise defeated the Pechenegs and pushed them south. To strengthen the southern borders of the state along Russia, the construction of a defensive line began in 1032 - a system of guard fortresses connected by huge embankments and ditches.
It was in 1032 that Korsun, Boguslav, Steblev, Volodarka (the chronicle Volodarev) and other settlements of Porosye appeared. And it was in this year that a military-feudal castle appeared on the rocky left bank of the Russian River, named Yuriev (in honor of the Christian name of Yaroslav the Wise - Yuri). The castle was subsequently “overgrown” with a town, which at the end of the 11th century became the cathedral center of the Poros diocese.
The heart of the city was a mountain with a castle (castle) located on it. Also on the mountain stood a white stone cathedral - an obligatory attribute of the diocesan center.
Yuriev lived in constant tension. The Pecheneg raids gave way to pressure from the Cumans, and later from the Mongol-Tatars. The city was “like a bone in the throat” of the nomads, constantly preventing their trips to the north. More than once it was destroyed to the ground. The last time Yuryev was devastated by nomads was in the 13th century, falling in order to be reborn with a new name - the White Church.
Burned by nomads, Yuryev left behind only a tall, dilapidated episcopal cathedral. This structure, built of white stone, for a long time served as a landmark for settlers among the dense and wild forests that then covered the valley of the Ros River. Therefore, the place where the cathedral stood, and then the city, which rose from the ruins of Prince Yuryev on the rocky shore, was named White Church. The cathedral, to which the city owes its name, disappeared in a hurricane of historical events; now no one will probably say by whom and when it was destroyed. During archaeological excavations carried out already in the twentieth century, the remains of this structure were found on Castle Hill.
In 1362, the White Church, together with the Principality of Kyiv, was annexed to Lithuania, and after the Union of Lublin (1569) it became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The town became the center of the starostva (administrative unit) and acquired the significance of the most important strategic point in the south of the state. In 1589, the Polish king Sigismund III approved the city's privileges at the Sejm in Warsaw, granting Magdeburg Law to Bila Tserkva and its residents.
In the middle of the 16th century, to protect the state from the Tatars, a castle was built in Bila Tserkva, which housed a permanent Polish garrison numbering up to two thousand soldiers and officers. The mountain on which the castle was then located is called Castle Hill. The first castle in Bila Tserkva was built in 1550 by the governor, Prince. Semyon Pronsky, since the city was on the Black Road, which the Tatars followed, and it needed to be protected. The city itself was also fortified with a palisade. In 1570 the castle was significantly removed. Prince Vasily Ostrogsky strengthens and rebuilds the castle.
At the end of the 16th century, Bila Tserkva became a city famous throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This was facilitated by an uprising of townspeople, angry at the abolition of the Magdeburg Law in the city by the mayor, Janusz Ostrogski. In 1589 they captured the castle with weapons and ammunition and held the city in their hands for almost a year.
In 1591, it was the capture of the Belotserkovsky castle that began the peasant-Cossack uprising, which became the harbinger of a period of constant wars between Ukraine and Poland. The leader of the uprising was Christopher (Krishtof) Kosinski.
XVII-XVIII centuries
In 1616, there were 300 petty bourgeois and 300 Cossack households in the city.
During the War of Liberation of 1648-1657, Bila Tserkva, which at that time was a fairly significant city, lying on the trade route, the center of the eldership and regiment and had more than 1000 households, became one of the most important strongholds of the Cossack army. For a long time, Bogdan Khmelnitsky with his main forces was located in the Belotserkovsky castle, sending out calls to fight throughout Ukraine from here. On September 18 (28), 1651, an agreement was concluded here between the Polish gentry government and Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky, which was called the Belotserkov Treaty.
In 1663, during the battle between the Polish army and the troops of Ivan Serko, the castle in Bila Tserkva was almost destroyed. But the following year it was rebuilt again, strengthened according to the most modern rules of fortification technology - it became practically impregnable. Neither the troops of Ivan Bryukhovetsky in 1665, nor Peter Doroshenko in 1667, 1669 and 1672 could take it.
Since 1660, the White Church alternately belonged to the Russian Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; for some time Porosie was even neutral territory. In 1665, in the battle of the White Church, a detachment of Kalmyks in the service of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich defeated the Polish hussars and reiters. In 1667, Commandant Jan Stahurski built the Church and Monastery of St. George in Bila Tserkva.
The beginning of the 18th century in Ukraine was marked by a large uprising of the Cossacks under the leadership of the Belitserkovsky and Fastovsky colonel Semyon Paliy against Poland. Paliy in 1702 with a detachment of ten thousand took the White Church under siege. After several unsuccessful assaults, the colonel resorted to cunning - taking the commandant prisoner, he forced the castle to capitulate. The city became the center of the uprising; dispossessed peasants from everywhere were drawn to it. The population of Bila Tserkva at that time reached 70 thousand, the castle was constantly fortified. In 1703, the Poles managed to suppress the uprising, and in the same year the Right Bank was occupied by Russian troops. Paliy was arrested and deported to Siberia (hetman Mazepa played a significant role in this).
Ivan Mazepa was born near Bila Tserkva in a family estate - the village of Mazepintsy - and considered this region his homeland. In 1703, he settled in the Bila Tserkva castle and decided to make the city his property. The hetman felt completely safe in Belotserkovsky Castle. It was here that a significant part of his life passed - here he made the lion's share of his capital and became one of the richest feudal lords in Europe, here he executed Kochubey and Iskra. According to some sources, the hetman's treasury was found in Belotserkovsky Castle.
Ivan Mazepa transferred a significant portion of the income from his 20,000 estates to the construction of religious buildings. Throughout Ukraine, he raised magnificent churches in the Ukrainian Baroque style. In 1706, Mazepa began the construction of a large stone church in his homeland - in Bila Tserkva. The bloody events of 1708 and the subsequent transfer of the city to Poland left this building unfinished. Only part of the church called Nikolskaya has survived to this day.
In 1743, elder Stanislav Yablonovsky built a church and monastery of the Jesuit order in Bila Tserkva.
Throughout the 18th century. The White Church often witnessed popular uprisings, the crown of which was the Koliivshchyna. For the suppression of the Koliyivshchyna, the great crown hetman Ksawery Branitsky in 1774 received one of the richest canteen estates in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the Belotserkovsky eldership. At the end of 1778, he took possession of these estates, which have since been called Belotserkovsky County, and subsequently built a palace here.
In 1793 the city was annexed to Russia. For a long time (until the 20th century), Belotserkovshchina became the patrimony of the Branitsky family.
“The White Church and “Alexandria” were a real duchy with a court, with a huge number of people who ate around the court, with large stables of thoroughbred horses, with hunts that attracted the entire aristocracy of the South-Western region” - this is what he wrote about the times of the Branitskys in Belaya Tserkov Nikolai Berdyaev in his “Self-Knowledge”.
The Branicki's had ambiguous influence on their main residence. They made Bila Tserkva a city that lost its administrative significance for the state. By order of Catherine II and not without the “decree” of the Branitskys, the castle was destroyed, the Belotserkovskoye eldership was liquidated, the district center was moved to Vasilkov, the city was transferred from state property to personal property.
XIX - early XX centuries
In the 19th century, the town of Belaya Tserkov was the volost center of the Belo-Tserkovskaya volost of Vasilkovsky district, Kyiv province.
In 1806, the Branitskys entered into an agreement with the Jewish community, which was given permission to settle and build in the city. Jews brought great trade and craft to Bila Tserkva. In 1809-1814, Branitsky set up shopping arcades in the city center, which stimulated the further settlement of Jews in Bila Tserkva and caused a radical change in the ethnic composition of the urban population.
The period of revolutions, the center of the anti-hetman uprising of 1918
In 1918, the White Church again loudly declared itself. A great force rallied in this city, which later shook up the whole of Ukraine.
“Back in September, no one in the City (Kyiv) imagined that three people could be built who have the talent to appear on time, even in such an insignificant place as the White Church” - these are offensive words for the White Church from Mikhail’s “White Guard” Bulgakov relate to Toropets, Petlyura and Vinnychenko and once again confirm the fact that it was this city that played a leading role in the creation of the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
Through the efforts of Yevgeny Konovalets, a Separate Detachment of the Sich Riflemen was founded in August-September 1918 in Bila Tserkva.
In November 1918, an armed uprising began in Bila Tserkva under the leadership of Simon Petlyura and Vladimir Vinnichenko. Here the formation of the main forces of the Directory took place. Here, for the first time, a message about the return of power to the independent UPR was published.
For more than a month, the city above Russia was the headquarters of the rebel forces - in fact, the second capital of Ukraine. From here a 60,000-strong army set out, which on December 14, 1918 occupied Kyiv, which was under the control of the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky (mainly ethnic Russians).
In August 1921, the Cossack Rada of Right Bank Ukraine was formed in the city.
The Great Patriotic War
On July 16, 1941, Bila Tserkva was occupied by German troops and for 902 days the city was under the yoke of the invaders. But the city did not stop resisting, 10 sabotage groups were created, and underground organizations operated. Partisan detachments were organized from career military personnel who were surrounded and the local population in the area, for example, the “Falcon” detachment, led by Red Army captain I.P. Kryzhanovsky and Commissar I.E. Moskalenko, numbering about 100 people.
Bila Tserkva was liberated by Soviet troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front on January 4, 1944 during the Zhitomir-Berdichev offensive operation (December 24, 1943 - January 14, 1944). After the end of stubborn fighting, the city was almost completely destroyed.
The country's leadership highly appreciated the heroism of the military units that liberated the city from the invaders: “... Today, January 4, at 21 o’clock, the capital of our Motherland, Moscow, on behalf of the Motherland, salutes our valiant troops who liberated the city of Belaya Tserkov with twelve artillery salvoes from one hundred and twenty-four guns...” ( Order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief January 4, 1944 No. 55).
Modern White Church
For a long time, Bila Tserkva was an ordinary provincial town, until the industrial giant Belotserkovshina (now JSC Rosava) was built here in 1972. It was then that industrial enterprises began to grow in the city - it turned into an industrial center, one of the most powerful hubs of the chemical industry of the Ukrainian SSR.
In the 70s, the city's population began to grow rapidly - in two decades it increased by almost one hundred thousand. After the Chernobyl accident, the city received more than 1,700 displaced people from the exclusion zone.
The modern White Church is a city with a population of about 215,000 people, located in the Rosi Valley on both sides. A beautiful panorama of the city opens from the right bank of the valley (departure from Belaya Tserkov in the Tarashchansky direction): the foreground embraces a complex of dachas. Next extend the newest microdistricts of multi-storey buildings - Tarashchansky and Peschany massifs. The lowest part of the Rosi Valley is occupied by a private development area. The private sector of Bila Tserkva is not similar to the rural one - there are no significant “garden” spaces here. Medium-sized, mostly brick, houses stand close to each other and are surrounded by small courtyards. The distant plan of the panorama is occupied by a continuous multi-storey building, above which in some places the chimneys of numerous enterprises protrude.
In the east of the city there is a large industrial hub. In addition to Rosava, there are factories for rubber and asbestos products, mechanical and tire plant No. 2, Belotserkovskaya CHPP and other enterprises. Most of the working population of Bila Tserkva works here.
City division
The White Church is divided into main areas: the Levanevsky massif, the Sandy and Tarashchansky massifs, the Pionerskaya microdistrict, the CSN massif, Zarechye, the railway settlement area, Rotok, Vokzalnaya, Center, the Pavlichenko (Stabnaya) massif, the former military town of Gayok.
Climate
The climate is moderate continental, warm, with sufficient moisture. Winter is mild; The average temperature in January is −6 °C. Summer is warm; the average July temperature is from 18 to 20 °C. Precipitation is about 600 mm per year. The average annual precipitation is 500-600 mm, the moisture coefficient is 1.3. The average annual temperature is +6.9 °C. The average duration of the frost-free (growing season) period is 160-170 days. Winds from western and southwestern directions predominate.
Population
The population of Bila Tserkva was small until the middle of the 20th century. Its number decreased significantly after the Second World War, when almost all persons of Jewish nationality were exterminated. However, after the announcement of the all-Union construction of rubber processing enterprises RTI and two factories of the Belotserkovshina association, the city’s population more than doubled.
National composition of Bila Tserkva according to population census data:
| 1926 | 1939 | 1959 | 1989 | 2001 | |
| Ukrainians | 57,0 % | 68,9 % | 71,0 % | 78,6 % | 87,4 % |
| Russians | 3,4 % | 7,6 % | 18,6 % | 17,5 % | 10,3 % |
| Jews | 36,4 % | 19,6 % | 7,8 % | 2,0 % | 0,1 % |
| Belarusians | 0,3 % | 1,0 % | 0,8 % | 0,6 % | |
| Poles | 2,4 % | 2,2 % | 0,2 % | 0,2 % | 0,1 % |
The modern Levanevsky massif, adjacent to these plants, has become a place of concentration of about 60% of all residents of Bila Tserkva. In the early 90s. There was a slight decrease in the population, mainly due to the curtailment of production at a number of enterprises in the city and the emigration of people of Jewish nationality to Israel. Now there is a process of slow growth in the number of residents of Bila Tserkva, which is associated with the restoration of the work of many enterprises and the creation of an extensive service sector.
Jewish heritage of Bila Tserkva
Jews appeared in Bila Tserkva back in the 16th century. These were mainly small traders. In 1648, a significant part of the city's Jewish community was exterminated or expelled by the Khmelnytsky Cossacks.
The center of Jewish life in Bila Tserkva became the Trading Square, in the center of which the Polish aristocrats Branicki built large Trading Rows with 85 stores. An entire Jewish town grew up around the Trade Square in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Branitskys rented out the Trading Rows. They also rented land around the Trade Square and on the nearby streets. In addition, the city owners had financial affairs (and not petty ones at all) with the Jewish community. The Jewish community of Bila Tserkva grew. At the end of the 19th century, 18,720 Jews lived in the city (52.9% of the city’s total population). And at the beginning of the 20th century, the number of Jews increased even more. But then the reverse process began: Civil War - pogroms, World War II - total destruction.
In 1989, 3,823 Jews lived in Bila Tserkva. According to the 2001 census, 150 Jews lived in the city. But the Jews left the White Church quite an impressive legacy: these are synagogue buildings, residential buildings, shops, schools, and hospitals. By 1941, the Jewish town was much richer in architecture and more harmonious, but the merciless bombing of the city in 1941 deprived the White Church of most of the buildings.
On Trade Square there is a large Jewish hotel, which was built in the 19th century. It is unlikely that this is the “Belotserkovsky Jewish tavern” that Taras Shevchenko wrote about in “Travel with pleasure and not without morality.” Now there are several institutions and a residential part.
There are many preserved buildings around the square, the signs on which indicate that these are architectural monuments, former residential buildings. Although some of them are similar to synagogues in their architecture and decor.
Salvation for the economy was the conclusion in 1806 of the Branicki agreement with the Jewish community, which was given permission to settle and build in the city. However, it was the Branitskys who legalized their stay in the city and even built Trading Rows for Jews in the city center.
Jews brought great trade and craft to Bila Tserkva. It became a junction of important transport routes; numerous government, military, postal relay races and merchant caravans passed through it.
Economy
Industry
At the beginning of the 20th century. Bila Tserkva became one of the largest industrial and commercial centers of the Kyiv province. In 1900, there were: an agricultural machinery plant, five brick factories, six tanneries, a brewery, two mead factories and four soap factories, a tobacco factory, a gilt factory and two candy factories, four metalwork shops, 42 forges, two roller water mills, 13 grain mills, two oil mills. .
Mining industry
- VAT "Karyer"
- OJSC "Kamenyar" (Bricklayer)
granite, pebbles, sand, crushed stone, clay
- VAT "Brick Factory"
Manufacturing industry
- KP "Belotserkovkhleboprodukt"
- JSC "Bilotserkivkhlibokombinat"
Light industry
- OP "Spring" UTOG
- JSC "VTTP"
- CJSC PTV factory "Tosna"
- OJSC "Belotserkovskaya Book Factory"
- PJSC "Belotserkovskaya Printing House"
- Valtex LLC
Chemical and petrochemical industry
- Inter-RTI LLC
- LLC "SP Beglend"
- OJSC "Stroymaterialy"
- OJSC "BC Plant ZhBK"
- LLC "Belotserkovsky House-Building Plant"
- CP "Bilotserkivbud"
- Tribo LLC
- LLC firm "Magnet"
- OJSC Metalist plant
Mechanical engineering, repair and installation of machinery and equipment
- LLC NPP "BelotserkovMAZ"
- Rotor-2 LLC
- LLC "BELOTSERKOVAGROMASH"
- OJSC "Mechanical Plant"
- LLC "Instrumentalshchik"
- JSC "Tehmashremont"
- OJSC "BC Elektroremzavod"
- LLC Izolyator plant
- Belotserkovskoye UPP UTOS
- BC plant "Etalon"
- Runway "Modern"
- CJSC NPF "Ferokeram"
- LLC "ZUO "Thermo-Pak"
Energy industry
- CJSC "Belotserkovskaya CHPP"
- CP "BC SMR Heating Network"
- KP SMR "Kyivoblvodokanal"
Food industry
Public Joint Stock Company "Belotserkovsky Cannery", founded in 1858, is one of the leading enterprises for processing agricultural raw materials in the Kiev region. The production capacity of the plant is 25 million conventional cans per year, which allows the production of products in large industrial batches. The area of the land plot is 7.62 hectares.
In 2008, the Belotserkovsky Dairy Plant (BMK) was built near the city of Belaya Tserkov. The plant's capacity is 250 tons of milk processing per day. Belotserkovsky Dairy Plant is the only supplier in Ukraine of milk mixtures for ice cream and cocktails to McDonald's Ukraine Ltd.
In June 2011, the international company Mareven Food Holding, together with its strategic partner, the Japanese food holding Nissin Foods Holdings, announced the completion of construction of a plant in Bila Tserkva. The company's plant will produce products under the Rollton brand. Already, the Mareven Food Ukraine company employs more than 400 employees. Investments in this project amount to about $35 million.
Connection
Communication companies:
- Telecommunication Center No. 4 KOF OJSC "Ukrtelecom"
- Postal Center No. 1 CODE UGPPS "Ukrposhta"
Cellular communications in the city are represented by GSM operators: Kyivstar, Vodafone, lifecell; CDMA: PEOPLEnet, Intertelecom; UMTS (3G): TriMob (Lycamobile); Kyivstar, Vodafone, lifecell since 2015; WiMAX: FreshTel and Giraffe.
Finance
Trade and services
On the territory of the city there are the Kiev Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 9 markets, 145 food stores, 14 household chemical stores, more than 60 retail outlets, 16 sports stores, more than 120 furniture specialties, 7 - special equipment, 17 - fabrics, accessories, yarn , 46 stores of men's and women's clothing, 22 jewelry stores, about 10 shopping complexes and centers, such as:
- Shopping and entertainment complex "Hermes" - Yaroslav the Wise Street, 40;
- Shopping and entertainment complex "Vega" - Heroes of Heavenly Hundred Street, 2a;
- Shopping and entertainment center "Orange" - Yaroslav the Wise Street, 1
- Shopping and entertainment center "City Center" - Mikhail Grushevsky Boulevard, 13;
- Shopping and entertainment center "White Plaza" - Lyudmila Pavlichenko street, 27
(opened September 2015);
- Shopping center "Evrodom" - Yarmarochnaya street, 43/24;
- Shopping center "DNS" - Alexandrinsky Boulevard 62;
- Shopping center "Boulevard" - Alexandrinsky Boulevard, 151;
- Shopping center "Passage" - Heroes of Heavenly Hundred Street, 2;
- Office and shopping center "Big Triangle" - Heroes of Heavenly Hundred Street, 2a;
- Fashion Center "Grand Perfume" - Prince Vladimir Avenue, 1a;
- Fashion Center "Queen" - Alexandrinsky Boulevard, 35a.
The city has major national supermarket chains for food and household goods - Furshet, Silpo, Velmart hypermarket, ATB, Malina, Eco Market, Novus (opening September-October), "Fora", as well as household and professional equipment, audio and video electronics - "Foxtrot", Comfy, Eldorado, "Frost". There is a local grocery chain of markets "Triumph".
There are more than 40 gas stations and complexes in Bila Tserkva, which are the property of large market operators TNK-BP, Amic, Ukrtatnafta, WOG, OKKO and others. Also, in the city there are about 15 car dealerships, about 56 stores specializing in auto parts, 5 driving schools, 26 parking lots, garage cooperatives, etc.
Passenger transport companies
- JSC "Belotserkovsky Bus Park"
- Private enterprise "Valois"
- PE "K-A-N"
- Small private enterprise "Stagecoach"
- Trolleybus control
- Private transport agency "Ikarus"
- Suburban bus station
Transport
Highways of European significance pass through the city: Chernigov - Brovary - Kyiv - Boyarka - Glevakha - Bila Tserkva - Stavische - Zhashkov - Uman - Ulyanovka - Lyubashevka - Zhovten - Odessa (E 95); also international Kyiv - Vasilkov - Bila Tserkva - Stavische - Uman - Ulyanovka - Zhovten - Odessa (M 05); railway line Fastov - Mironovka.
The city has a railway station, which was opened in 1876, and a commuter bus station. The plans of the City Development Strategy until 2025 include the construction of a City bus station in the area of the Odessa highway near the city (Rotok station). Also, the city has a pre-sale ticket office - the Kiyavia air services agency, which is located on Vokzalnaya Street 22.
Urban transport
KP "Bwake" is located in the western part of the city of Bila Tserkva. The company has:
- The airfield is class (4D), included in the State Register of Civil Airfields of Ukraine, with an unequipped runway measuring 2500 × 42 m, taxiways, aircraft parking, suitable for daytime operation according to visual flight rules.
- An industrial site located at a distance of 0.5 km from the airfield, with access roads and railways; with petroleum products storage; with a complete infrastructure for carrying out work to extend the service life of aircraft in two hangar-type buildings, equipped with slipways, ventilation systems, lighting and provided with all necessary types of energy.
- Aircraft hangars: one measuring 60 × 60 m, the second - 106 × 58 m. Work to extend the service life is carried out on IL-76, AN-12, AN-72 (AN-74), An-24 (AN-26) aircraft. Currently, both domestic aircraft and vessels from near and far abroad undergo maintenance at the production facilities of the Bwake enterprise.
- The public organization “Belotserkovsky Aeroclub Pilot” and LLC “International Aviation Training Center” are based at the airfield of the KP “Bwake”.
City problems
The city community has repeatedly encountered various experiments of the city government. In 2008, this was a plan for the construction of an electric steel rolling plant, which could significantly worsen the environmental situation in Bila Tserkva. Several referendums were held, the decisions of which were not taken into account. At the moment, construction is frozen, but there is a possibility of resuming work.
In 2011, a group of Muslim activists (mainly representatives of the Azerbaijani and Chechen diaspora) began the process of building a mosque with minarets on the site of the now closed School No. 10, without consulting the community. Public meetings unanimously said that the construction of a mosque in Bila Tserkva was inappropriate. However, in Kyiv, as well as the city mayor, they consider this a manifestation of xenophobia.
Culture, leisure and sports
Theater, music, cinema
Bila Tserkva is the largest cultural center of the Kyiv region. With its cultural potential and achievements in the field of culture, the city has been at the forefront of the Kiev region for many years.
Since 1933, the Kiev Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater named after. Panas Saksagansky, which is located in an adapted building at the address: lane. Club, 1, Bila Tserkva. Theater performances take place almost entirely in the state Ukrainian language, occasionally in Russian.
Thanks to the petition of the director and artistic director of the theater, Honored Artist of Ukraine Vyacheslav Uskov, the theater was returned to the name of the regional one, which it had before the German-Soviet War. Now the creative team of the theater has been replenished with young actors and directors - graduates of theater universities in Kyiv, Kharkov and Ivano-Frankivsk.
Also, since 1924, in the very heart of Bila Tserkva on Castle Hills, the Belotserkovsky Museum of Local Lore has been housed in a specially erected modern building. This is a significant urban and regional center of culture, science and education, which contains a large number of monuments of material and spiritual culture of the Southern Kiev region.
On the basis of the museum, local history readings, scientific and practical conferences of various levels dedicated to outstanding events of history and modernity are annually held, and their materials are published.
After restoration, the House of Organ and Chamber Music was opened in the church building. The organ was installed on March 7, 1990 by the Czechoslovak company Rieger Kloss. It has a mechanical structure and an electrical register (loop), three manuals, a pedal keyboard, six free and three ready-made combinations, and forty roller-grinding registers. The total number of pipes is 2734.
There are also three Palaces of Culture in the city - the Bilotserkiv MAZ Palace of Culture, the Rosava PC, the Inter-RTI PC LLC, the cinema named after. A. Dovzhenko, 6 clubs, 13 libraries, 3 art schools, 4 music schools, creativity center for children and youth “Sunflower”, house of artistic creativity, house of young technicians, etc.
There are 24 amateur performance groups in Bila Tserkva. Among them are the folk dance ensemble “Rovesnik”, the violin ensemble of junior and senior classes of Music School No. 4, the children’s dance group “Happy Childhood”, the men’s choir, the Municipal Brass Band, etc.
Festivals of various levels are held: “Rainbow over Russia”, “Musical discoveries in Bila Tserkva”, “Golden Autumn”, “Musical meetings in the Branitsky Palace”, “Nest”, “Poetic winter”, “Christmas stars”, “And the All-Ukrainian festival Young Director named after Les Kurbas ".
Parks
The city has many small squares and parks located in the historical center. The Central City Park of Culture and Recreation named after has long played an important role in the cultural life of Bila Tserkva. T. G. Shevchenko (TsMPK and V named after T. G. Shevchenko), who turned 80 years old in 2012. Also in the city center is the Park of Glory.
On the western outskirts lies the picturesque Alexandria.
Along Klinicheskaya Street there is the Stroiteley Park, which previously served as a military cemetery. Now there is a city skating rink “Ice Age” and a church is being built there.
There are 3 boulevards in the city:
- Alexandriysky Boulevard, starting from the Pobeda microdistrict, crosses the DNS and Vokzalnaya microdistricts and ends in the central part of the city. The boulevard ends with Cathedral Square;
- Mikhail Grushevsky Boulevard, near the engineering plant LLC Scientific and Production Enterprise "BelotserkovMAZ", stretches from May 1 Square to Pavlyuchenko Street;
- Princess Olga Boulevard is located between the third and fourth microdistricts of the Levanevsky massif.
Sport
In the city of Bila Tserkva there are 2 football clubs that play at the Belotserkovsky stadium “Trudovye Rezervy”:
- Arsenal (Belaya Tserkov) was founded in 2006 and plays in the second league of the Ukrainian championship.
- Ros (football club) was founded in 1983. Former names: "Dynamo" Irpen (1983-1988), "Dynamo" Bila Tserkva (1988-1992), "Ros" (1992-1994, 1996-1997), "Transimpex-Ros", "Ros-Transimpex", " House Builder", "Rigonda" (1997-2002). Modern name since February 2002.
Sports institutions of the city: basketball club, 7th sports club, chess federation, committee for physical culture and sports, sports club "Burevestnik", children's and youth sports club, 2 children's and youth sports schools, 3 stadiums, etc. .
White Church in literature
- Viktor Grabovsky “White Church”
- Victor Grabovsky “In the White Church...”
- Oleg Divov “Weapons of Retribution” is a book about service in the High Power Brigade in Bila Tserkva.
- Anna Ruchai “My Favorite Witch”
- A. S. Pushkin. Poem "Poltava":
- Oles Gonchar. The novel “Man and Weapon” is about the student battalion of the Belotserkovsky Agricultural Institute, which took part in the Great Patriotic War. I visited Bila Tserkva several times to meet with students and library readers.
- Henryk Sienkiewicz “With Fire and Sword”: “... Therefore, everyone who could fled to Khmelnitsky, even the gentry fled when there was no other way to salvation. So Khmelnitsky multiplied and multiplied his forces, and if not immediately moved to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , if he spent a long time in the White Church, it was mainly in order to introduce order into those restless and wild forces,” etc.
- Mikhail Bulgakov “The White Guard”. The White Church is mentioned at least three times.
- In the story by Ostap Vishny “SPRING IS RED (At Anna Denisovna Kosheva’s place).”
- Konstantin Paustovsky “The Tale of Life”: in the first book “Distant Years” the action takes place near Bila Tserkva.
Education and science
General secondary education
General secondary education in Bila Tserkva. It is represented by 25 general educational institutions: a collegium, a lyceum, two gymnasiums, five specialized general education schools, thirteen general education schools of levels I-III, one school of the first level, a special general education school and one private educational complex. In these establishments in 2012/2013 The city has 18,463 students.
In addition, there are two evening (shift) general education schools No. 1 and 2 in the city, in which 582 students study, of which 193 are in evening school No. 2 (institution at the establishment of BVK No. 35). The educational process in general education institutions of the city in the current academic year is provided by 1,527 teaching staff.
Training in one shift is organized in 21 institutions, which is 95.4% of students from their total number.
Also in 2008, the first in the Kyiv region, the Belotserkovsky Collegium, was opened, which took leading places in the city. Already in 2010, the first graduates graduated from it.
Higher education
In Bila Tserkva there are 16 higher educational institutions and 1 preparatory courses (Institute of Economics and Law “Krok”). There are 14,034 students studying there. Among them are 3,250 freshmen.
Scientific institutions
- State Dendrological Park "Alexandria" NAS of Ukraine
Higher educational institutions of III and IV levels of accreditation
- Belotserkovsky National Agrarian University - Cathedral Square, 8/1;
- Belotserkovsky branch of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management - Levanevskogo Street, 52/4;
- Belotserkovsky Faculty of Economics and Business of CJSC "Kiev University of Culture" of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts - Gordinskogo Street, 68/8;
- Belotserkovsky Institute of Economics and Management of the University "Open International University of Human Development" Ukraine - 2nd Komsomolsky Lane, 42;
- Training center for distance learning - distance learning of the Kyiv Academy of Humanities - B. Khmelnitsky Street, 42/41.
- Belotserkovsky branch of the Kyiv Institute of Business and Technology - Loginova Street, 39/2;
- Belotserkovsky branch of the University of Modern Knowledge - Skvirskoye Highway, 194;
- NCDZN of the Eastern European University of Economics and Management - Skvirskoye Highway, 260a.
Higher educational institutions of the second level of accreditation
- Belotserkovsky College of Finance, Accounting and Auditing of the National Academy of Statistics, Accounting and Auditing - G. Kovbasyuka Street, 15.
Higher educational institutions of the first level of accreditation
- College of Technology and Economics BNAU - Yaroslav the Wise Street, 25/2;
- Higher educational institution "Belotserkovsky Medical College" - Skvirskoe highway, 240;
- Belotserkovsky Technical College of TSO of Ukraine - Matrosova Street, 50;
- KZ "Belotserkovsky Humanitarian College" - Yaroslav the Wise Street, 47;
- Belotserkovsky College of Service and Design - Shevchenko Street, 91;
- Belotserkovsky branch of the Odessa State Academy of Technical Regulation and Quality - Yanvarsky Proryva Street, 84.
- State Higher Educational Institution "Belotserkovsky Mechanical and Energy College" - Levanevskogo Street, 52/4;
Medicine
The medical infrastructure is represented by 8 hospital institutions, 10 clinics, including 3 dental clinics, a rehabilitation center for children with cerebral palsy, a psychoneurological dispensary, the Dubrava sanatorium and territorial medical association.
City medical institutions
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Religion
There are more than 30 registered religious communities in the city, including 10 communities of the UOC, the Roman Catholic Church, the Jewish community, the Muslim community and others. There are 5 churches, a chapel, a convent of St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, and 4 houses of worship.
Bila Tserkva is the center of the Bila Tserkva diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The UOC includes the following churches: Transfiguration Cathedral, Church of St. Mary Magdalene and Church-Chapel of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious.
Bila Tserkva also has the parish of the Nativity of Christ of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which does not yet have its own church, but a project for which already exists (the project was carried out by the architect Yuri Ivanovich Babich). On April 18, 2008, an attempt by Greek Catholics to consecrate a plot of land for the construction of a temple ended in a confrontation with supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate.
From the name Belaya Tserkov you imagine something more like the pictured Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky - a quiet patriarchal town with an ancient temple reflected in a slow river among the willow branches. And it is all the more unexpected that Bila Tserkva, located on the right bank of the Kyiv region, 70 kilometers from the capital, is larger than other regional centers of Ukraine or any of the cities in the metropolitan regions of post-Soviet countries - about 210 thousand people live here. But with the antiquity, the quiet river and the white churches, everything is in order here, the Bila Tserkva history is very ornate and very right-bank, and my story about the Bila Tserkva will take two posts - in the first we will walk around the city, and in the second we will delve into the largest park in all of Ukraine Alexandria.
Bila Tserkva was the last city that I visited in Ukraine for the first time, arriving by highway from what was then Kirovograd, and leaving by train to Zaporozhye, from where, no longer through Dnepropetrovsk, home. Perhaps it really was the last, and therefore I didn’t feel sorry for trudged here for 8 hours by minibus - I looked at all these fields and villages with a melancholy feeling of farewell. The minibus dropped me off on the Kyiv-Odessa highway with a crowded stop for buses that do not enter the city. On the right there were fields stretching towards the horizon, on the left behind the junction was the Belotserkovshina plant (1972) of the local company Rosava, the largest tire manufacturer in Ukraine, and apparently of very high quality - most of the products are exported. I don’t know exactly how things are going at this plant now; Russia seems to account for a considerable part of its orders.
The tire factory, in general, made Belaya Tserkov what it is today, and between it and the city there is a huge gray residential area of Levanevsky (or Rotok - like Rosava, this is the name of the river), where more than half of the population of BC lives (as this very population names his city in everyday life). The exit of the interchange is separated from the noisy highway by a quiet dead end, where I boarded a minibus and drove for a good half hour to the center past endless industrial zones.
Let’s make a reservation here that I had little time in Bila Tserkva. I didn’t initially plan to go there, but in that crazy spring, when I managed to visit the Donbass before mainland Ukraine and spent a month in the Far North, I seriously messed up with logistics, hoping to get from Kirovograd within a day to the Gayvoronskaya narrow-gauge railway and ride along it , and somehow (apparently by teleportation) managed to get to Bila Tserkva just in time for the station, on the way also (apparently having learned to slow down time) dropping into the Volodarka area - Parkhomovka with a magnificent church-manifesto of “Russian modernism” and to Gorodishche-Pustovarskoye with extremely picturesque water mills near the old sugar factory... Only a couple of days later I realized how unrealistic this plan was, and that if I got from Kirovograd to Bila Tserkva I had time to walk along it, that would be nice. In general, I had 3-4 hours to do everything about everything, and although I managed to get a lot out of them, a lot was left out.
A fairly extensive urban center stretches between the railway and the Ros River. A minibus from "Rosava" brought me to the figure-eight ring near a rather simple Stalinist clinic building. To the right was Pervomaiskaya (still!) street with a real Shukhov turret (1928) in the future - in Ukraine, especially in the southwestern regions, there are quite a few of them, from water pumps like this to near Kherson. Its appearance, I would like to say, has not changed since the 1920s, but in fact it has changed since the 1940s, when the tower was repaired after the war. The greenery on the left hides the Park of Glory, but I didn’t go there:
The Belotserkovsky center is formed by two streets, which on the map form a giant letter “G” - Yaroslav the Wise (formerly Gorky) street, perpendicular to Rosya, and Alexandrinsky Boulevard, parallel to the river. I followed the first one from the place in the frame above, and basically the business center looks something like this - a big noisy city of gray high-rise buildings and tacky new buildings for those who just didn’t have enough for an apartment in Kyiv.
The shot above was taken literally from the far end of the street - from the Church of John the Baptist hanging in its perspective:
But along the way, the first place of worship in the White Church turned out to be the Green Synagogue (1855-60), which has been occupied by a college since 1929. “Green” is, of course, not the name, that’s how it was Choral:
And behind it is a whole synagogue courtyard. Jews settled in Bila Tserkva in 1806 - once a city, after the turbulent 17-18 centuries it was a place owned by the Branitsky magnates, but peaceful life and a good location took their toll - by the beginning of the 20th century, with a population of 50 thousand, Bila Tserkva was the largest a shtetl in the Russian Empire, more than two times larger than both the district town and any of the modern urban settlements, these Soviet analogues of shtetls, and more than half of its population were Jews.
In the frame above there is a green Merchant Synagogue, but I didn’t really find anything about the origin of the yellow synagogue in the frame below, and it’s not a fact that it was a synagogue. We will meet the Jewish heritage of the White Church more than once:
From here it’s already a stone’s throw to the main square, onto Yaroslav the Wise Street, which faces the modest house of the city administration. I like this property of large cities that are not regional centers - all the buildings of power in them seem to be reduced, and therefore it seems that there is more freedom here. Nearby, as usual, is a stand in memory of the Heavenly Hundred, which obvious foreigners looked at in front of me.
Opposite is the Stalin-era registry office and the same long stand, but only Soviet and with the history of the city, one of the most complex and action-packed among the histories of cities known to me. The White Church stands on the Ros River, the very name of which indicates the border - either “the river beyond which Rus'”, or even opposite “Rus is the land beyond Russia”, although the border itself here is even older than Rus' itself - they pass through the White Church ancient Serpentine shafts. And it was on this border in 1032 that Yaroslav the Wise founded a fortress, which he named in honor of his Christian middle name Yuryev (a couple of years earlier, by the way, having already founded another Yuryev on the northwestern borders - the present Tartu), which became the center of a new line of fortifications, which also included Korsun, Boguslav, Steblev and Volodarev (now Volodarka). After Yuryev, nomads besieged time after time, a couple of times they managed to destroy it, the ancient city more than once changed its location within the current city, regularly holding the onslaught of first the Pechenegs, then the Polovtsians, until the Mongols swept it away in 1239. According to legend, only the ruins of the temple survived, after which the village that began to grow in the old place received its name... but the Kyiv temples were built from plinth, and their ruins were rather red. According to another legend, a church made of rough birch was then cut down at the mass grave of Yuryev’s defenders, but such a structure was too short-lived to give the city a name. There is a version that people simply called St. George (Yuri) White, and thus one name turned into another, or even that “Bila Tserkva” is a modified version of “Bila Tserkov,” that is, “near the church.” Be that as it may, the city fell into desolation for a long time, and the Ostrozhskys, the most powerful Orthodox family of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the centers of estates in Volyn (,), took seriously the task of restoring it. In Little Russia they received several cities, including one, they built castles in them, and Ivan Konstantinovich became the head of the Belaya Tserkov church, later the first Catholic Janusz in the Orthodox family.
In 1589, the White Church received Magdeburg Law, and Janusz, who did not want to lose such possession, tried to challenge this in the royal court. The king was about to side with the tycoon, but a riot broke out in the city with the seizure of the castle, which was brutally suppressed, but the authorities still retained city rights for Bila Tserkva. However, as they say, “a sediment remained,” or, more correctly, the long-accumulated contradictions simply reached a critical mass, with which the Bila Tserkva riot only knocked out the plugs: uprisings of the Cossacks previously loyal to the Polish crown began one after another, and their breeding ground was precisely the Bila Tserkva region - in 1591 Krysztof Kosinski rebelled here in 1594-96, and Severin Nalivaiko, who suppressed his uprising, rebelled here in 1594-96. The White Church did not bypass the Khmelnytskyi region, as a result of which it became a classical territory with an uncertain status between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - formally the White Church was owned by the latter, but the Cossacks, including Hetman Mazepa, who was born here ten years before the Khmelnytskyi region, came here as if they were their own home. In general, this has often happened in history: just as under Austria-Hungary, Ukrainians lived better and more freely than under Russia, so under Russia they lived better and more freely than under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and while on the Left Bank of Little Russia academies were opened and built luxurious churches, the Right Bank remained a sad, distant colony, shaken by uprisings almost every decade. In 1685, on the initiative of Hetman Semyon Paliy, the Poles revived the Cossacks in “their” Ukraine, but they only needed the latter to recapture Podolia from the Ottoman Empire, and when this was done, the Cossacks were immediately liquidated again, and in 1702-04 In neighboring Fastov, Paliy raised another uprising. The White Church was not spared by the bloody Kolievschina that flared up in 1768-69 just to the south, in the suppression of which the Polish Count Francis Xavier Branitsky distinguished himself, in 1774 for such merits he received the White Church as his inheritance. Well, in 1793, Right Bank Ukraine peacefully became part of the Russian Empire, the troubled times were over - now it was possible to build a palace and invite Jews to bring in income...
Behind the administration and the monument to the Heavenly Hundred lies the Trade Square, in general an exemplary European Market with a square plan - I don’t know whether this is a legacy of the Branitskys or the Ostrozhskys who have not yet forgotten the Renaissance. In the center of the square is BRUM (officially the Belotserkovsky district department store, but among the people they were the Branitsky Department Store), built in 1809-13 as Trading Rows. Nowadays they are occupied not so much by shops as by cafes, through one of which, with the words “Yes, I’ll look at the shopping arcades,” I even looked into the courtyard:
But the buildings of Torg have not been very well preserved - the White Church was apparently severely destroyed by the war. Moreover, it may well be that not only the Great Patriotic War - into the Civil War, continuing the traditions of Kosinsky, Nalivaiko and Paliya, it was from here that Simon Petlyura entered the scene. It’s strange that with such an ideologically alien name (not only is it a church, it’s also white!) and a nationalistic past, the city under the Soviets was never renamed into something pure and workers-peasants-soldiers.
Although some remnants of antiquity have been preserved here. Bila Tserkva looks like an average provincial town, destroyed by the war, although in fact, when all this was built, it was a small town, receiving city status either in 1917 (like many overgrown towns, suburbs and workers' settlements), or even in 1919 - under the “Petlyurist” Directory. The blue building in the frame, if I’m not confusing anything, is a former Jewish hotel (and Taras Shevchenko also wrote about the “Jewish tavern in Bila Tserkva”), behind which is something very similar to a synagogue (that this is a synagogue of Craftsmen, although not with complete certainty) .
However, it is no secret that a construction boom can destroy historical centers no less than a war or an earthquake - the number and general tackiness of new buildings in the BC is amazing even compared to the rest of the former USSR. Moreover, this is one of the few cities in Ukraine where the population is growing noticeably; it may well be the easternmost (except for Kyiv) growing city in the country:
But the fragile houses of the old shtetl still stand here and there:
Not far from Torgovaya Square in Club Lane, an entire Kiev Regional Drama Theater named after Panas Saksagansky was discovered, living in Bila Tserkva since 1933 - although not so huge, it was already the “capital” of the Kyiv region. In Soviet times, the theater was located in that blue mansion three frames above. In the photo the theater is on the left, and the hostel on the right is an unusual red brick Stalinist building (1936):
Nearby is Shevchenko Park (Petrovsky Park until 2003), where there seems to be even a monument to the Heroes of Space, but I only saw an abandoned wooden pavilion, where in Soviet times all sorts of concerts and competitions were held in the summer.
Meanwhile, we came to the very center of the business center, and delving into the courtyard behind Yaroslav the Wise Street, I finally discovered a white church. The Transfiguration Cathedral was built in 1833-39 by Alexandra Branitskaya, nee Sanechka Engelhardt - the niece of Grigory Potemkin, and according to rumors circulating at that time - his mistress. She was friends with Potemkin even in marriage, and she herself was one of the richest women in the Russian Empire - for example, the famous Yusupov Palace on the Moika belonged to her before the Yusupovs. She built a cathedral in a Jewish town on a Catholic estate in her old age, and died in the year its construction was completed:
What rumor associated with the “curse of Mazepa” - he was from the village of Mazepintsy near the Bila Tserkva, made the Bila Tserkva itself his favorite residence (although the events of Pushkin’s “Poltava” that allegedly took place here actually took place in), and in 1706 he began construction of the next mega-cathedral, the first on the Right Bank: having reasoned that “Sweden is with us!”, he conceived the unification of Ukraine under its protectorate even then, and apparently he had plans for his native White Church that Tamerlane had. But in the end, only a small chapel remained completed from the huge temple, which in 1852 was “grown” with the facade and consecrated as St. Nicholas Church:
Nearby is a monument to Shevchenko. Surprisingly, in such a symbolic city for Ukraine, Kobzar is immortalized with a modest bust in a not very visible place.
Closer and closer to Castle Hill... The same street of Yaroslav the Wise leads there, but I took a slight detour along the Belotserkovsky Agrarian University, which grew in Soviet times from a gymnasium, transferred here in 1843 from Vinnitsa, where it, in turn, was formed from a Jesuit college, so the university dates its origins back to 1630.
What is characteristic is that since the move he has lived in the same building from the 1840s... however, it is in the depths of the territory, the outer buildings are from the 1930s:
In the park there is a monument (1985) to students and staff who died in the war, much more similar in style to the monuments to the “Afghans”:
Across the square from the university facade is Druzhby Street, a direct continuation of Yaroslav the Wise Street with the local housing commune “House of Socialism” (1925-27) immediately after the roundabout:
And the creepy building of the local history museum, the style of which I would characterize as “untimely constructivism” - although the museum was founded in the most constructivist era, in 1920-24, then it occupied first the Branitsky mansion, then the priest’s house, and the current building , apparently, late Soviet. It looks frankly half-abandoned, although the museum seems to be working properly:
A school of cyclists raced down the street:
And the Street of Friendship itself cuts through the noticeable humpbacked peak of Castle Hill, where stood both the ancient city of Yuriev Grad and the Ostrozhsky fortress, demolished under the Branitskys. Two churches stand like gates - on the left, the Church of St. John the Baptist (1810-12), the Branicki Foundation, and now the Hall of Organ Music, dominates the city; on the right is the Church of St. George, reminiscent of ancient Yuryev.
Behind the church there is a memorial stone. The first Cossack uprising in these parts was raised not by a Cossack or a hetman “for Holy Rus', for the Orthodox Faith,” but by the Catholic nobleman Kryshtof Kosinsky, who did not share positions and property with another nobleman Janusz Ostrogski... but property disputes do not raise entire countries to revolt , and then the uprising swept all of Little Russia and the Lower Lower Region, and its main demand was to equalize the rights of the Cossacks and the gentry. Another Cossack, Severin Nalivaiko, in the service of the Ostrozhskys, suppressed the Kosinsky uprising more actively than anyone else, and the Ostrozhskys themselves, although Orthodox, were ardent patriots of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and their ancestors during the Grand Duchy of Lithuania distinguished themselves by victories over the Moscow army (and it’s hard not to remember the Russian-speaking patriots of today’s Ukraine ). However, the same Nalivaiko and his comrades, fighting with Kosinsky, quietly smashed and plundered the Little Russian estates of Catholic magnates, and from all this the thought creeps in - was old Konstantin Ostrozhsky not up to something here, who saw that in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was no place for his faith, and measures like academies and printing houses are not enough? Be that as it may, Janusz Ostrogsky himself converted to Catholicism, the Cossack uprisings continued, and the more firmly the Uniate took root in Western Rus', the more firmly Orthodoxy became stronger in the Cossack identity. Thus, from conflicts over land and title, a conflict of identity gradually grew, which ultimately split the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and pushed Ukraine towards the Russian Tsar.
As for the Church of St. George, under Yaroslav the Wise only a small wooden temple was founded here, which was rebuilt in stone in 1178-80 and, according to legend, became the “white church” that gave the name to the place after the Mongol devastation. Its foundation was actually found on this rocky cape, and a new temple was built in 2011-13 nearby:
Of course, it’s an obvious remake - but in my opinion it’s very successful, even the plinth in it is the right size:
But the main thing in this red and white church is not even the architecture, but the location - together with the church, like a gate to the bridge. The result was a church ensemble in the best traditions of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox architecture - simple and very landscaped, which you want to look at from different points.
Friendship Street between the churches turns into the Central Bridge (1960) over the Ros River:
It’s hard to believe that this river could give the name to that entire huge country “from the Peipsi shores to the icy Kolyma”... although this is only one of the hypotheses, and I’m still closer to the version that Rus' is primary, and Ros is its border along the path from the south (“reached Ros,” as a Byzantine merchant might say at the crossing) is secondary.
The churches stand on a rocky promontory, so characteristic of Right Bank Ukraine. The fact that Ros is a great ancient border is reminded by the bridges - there are only two of them across a small river (!) for a city of 200 thousand, not counting a couple of pedestrian ones.
Downstream from the bridge you can see not the white, but the yellow Church of Mary Magdalene (1843), around which an entire convent has operated since 1994. It was built with the money of the same Alexandra Branitskaya, but the dedication is suspicious: Mary Magdalene in monasticism (in the world - Marina) was the name of the mother of Hetman Mazepa. I didn’t get there, which I regret - the church stands in Zarechye, and is connected to this shore by a picturesque pedestrian dam of a stone water mill.
On the other hand, upstream there is a beach and a city, endless rows of gray high-rise buildings looking like Kyiv:
And when you go down from Castle Hill past the museum, you will find yourself in a park with the local Winter Palace (1796). The fact is that the Branitskys had two estates several kilometers from each other - the winter White Church and the summer Alexandria. Compared to the background of other buildings and the general wealth of the White Church and the grandiose scale of the Alexandria Park, this palace impresses with its demonstrative simplicity:
Nowadays it is occupied by a music school. The Branitskys were the owners of the estate until the Civil War, and in the estate park, separated by Alexandria Boulevard from Shevchenko Park, other wings of later eras have been preserved:
Until recently, Alexandrinsky Boulevard was called the street of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, and as follows from the date, it was renamed for the second time already under independent Ukraine. Parallel to Ros, perpendicular to Yaroslav the Wise Street, it leads to that same Alexandria. Almost immediately behind the estate is another red brick hostel from the 1930s with “Greek” ornaments on the windows:
Houses along the boulevard, of different purposes, conditions and eras:
Ukrtelecom, built in the 1980s and 90s, contains a small Telecommunications Museum inside - they say it’s interesting, but visiting is by appointment only:
The house of the merchant Taubin, in my opinion, is the most beautiful in Bila Tserkva:
Another feature of this city is the characteristic long stops with wooden canopies, but I’ll leave them in more detail for the next part:
Somewhere a kilometer from Castle Hill is the Postal Station (1825-33), this is either a station of the pre-railroad era, or a caravanserai in the European style. Here, on the road St. Petersburg - Moscow - Kyiv - Odessa, they were especially thorough: at post stations they not only transmitted correspondence, but also changed horses, repaired carts, and provided overnight accommodation. The scale of the complex is impressive - here is the main building, the “transport station” itself:
It stands in the depths of a natural square with a round, neglected square, flanked by two very dull-looking buildings. On the left is the coachman's (analogous to the "rest rooms of locomotive crews"), on the right (in the frame below on the left) is the hotel where Shevchenko stayed. Taras Grigorich, unlike Alexander Sergeevich, did not write about the stationmaster, so the station complex was never turned into a museum. But there is also a caretaker’s house - in the frame below on the right side:
In the depths of the block are the outbuildings of the station, analogues of all these depots and warehouses. Here, it seems, are the workshops (forge and wheel shop) and, judging by the number of wide doors, a carriage house:
This looks most like a stable:
And I still have no idea about the purpose of this building in the depths of the complex:
Further along the boulevard is Polyana (as it is marked on Wikimapia, and apparently known to Belaya Tserkov residents), and behind it is the impressive building of the Jewish School (1901) - from here it is actually not far to the Trade Square, the two main streets form more of an acute angle than the letter "G" ".
And where two paths to Alexandria from the center converge, the boulevard itself begins between tall high-rise buildings. It opens with a monument to the grenadiers (1983) - further along the boulevard there are also old barracks (I saw them from the window of a minibus, and due to the difficult international situation I did not dare take a photo), where the 2nd Kiev Cossack Regiment, which distinguished itself in the war with Napoleon, was based .
Actually, apart from the monuments, there is nothing special in this part of the boulevard. For example, at the Clark Hotel, which used to be just a Guest House, revolutionary Pyotr Zaporozhets, who died in prison back in 1905, looked like a gloomy rock star:
He looks at Station Square, from which the station is still about a kilometer to the right - I’ll leave it for the next part, because that’s where I was leaving. On the square there is a mournful Ukrainian bargaining:
I went deeper into the courtyards behind the square to see one of the most impressive old industrial monuments in Ukraine - the Branitsky warehouses (1788), built even before the palace, back under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, halfway between two residences. They are a good hundred meters long, and are still used for their intended purpose:
“Tell me, is there a passage there,” I asked a woman walking past the fence of the warehouses to the gate of the courtyard of the new building.
- Why do you need it?
- Yes, I’m a tourist, I came into the courtyard to see the old warehouses, now I’m looking for a bus stop.
-Tourist? Have you come to see our city? Where from?
-From Moscow.
-Oooh! How far away! Let’s go, now I’ll show you around... - she smiled and opened the magnetic lock on the gate.
And the paradox is that before the great quarrel between (un)brotherly peoples, I encountered such sincere cordiality in Ukraine much less often... What lies behind it - hidden sympathy, the desire to show oneself to the enemy from the best side, or simple human curiosity towards a guest from parallel world?
Due to lack of time, at first I wasn’t planning on going to Alexandria at all, but the same passer-by convinced me not to neglect the main attraction and suggested the right minibus. About Alexandria and some other city details of the BC in the next part.
UKRAINE and DONBASS-2016
. Review and table of contents.
Two sides of the same war- see table of contents.
DPR and LPR- see table of contents.
Vinnitsa, Zaporozhye, Dnepr- see table of contents.
Kievan Rus
. Ancient Rus' in the museum and the city.
. City.
. Skansen.
White church. City.
White church. Alexandria Park.
Pryluki. Gustyn Monastery.
Pryluki. City.
Nezhin. Miscellaneous.
Nezhin. Old city.
Chernigov. Child.
Chernigov. Center.
Chernigov. Boldin Mountains.
Chernigov. Miscellaneous.
Kyiv before and after Maidan- there will be posts.
Little Russian Ring- there will be posts.