My Birth City

  • November 16, 2018

This week posts are all about my family and my roots and today’s post is about my birth city. It’s my birthday week so I’m allowed to have “all about me” posts, right?! 😊

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I was born in Ukrainian city named Kharkiv (it’s in Ukrainian but a Russian pronunciation Kharkov is also used). It’s the second largest city in Ukraine with a population of about 1.5 million. Kharkiv was the first post-Russian Revolution Ukrainian capital actually that was later assigned to Kyiv (or Kiev in Russian) in the early 20th century. Kharkiv sits right near the Russian boarder so most of the population speaks Russian with both languages taught in schools and used in daily life but the official language remains to be Ukrainian. The city is known as a center of technology, academia and a large artistic community.

Here’s the same map of Ukraine where I indicated different cities and areas. Kharkiv sits in the North-East and Kyiv is up North dividing Ukraine in Eastern and Western parts. Eastern Ukraine is more Slavic with the official Ukrainian language and following Eastern Orthodoxy, while Western Ukraine resembles Poland a bit with a different Ukrainian dialect and following Catholic religion. Ukraine is surrounded by Black and Azov seas in the South, though the Crimea is now part of Russia and some of the resort towns I used to go to during my childhood are no longer Ukrainian.

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I hope you can spare some time and watch the videos below (with the sound on) that would introduce you to my city and the most beautiful sights in Ukraine. The first video is done through the eyes of an American businessman visiting Kharkiv. The video is in English with Ukrainian subtitles. This video will only play through the link to YouTube but I hope you do that after you’ve watched the other two videos, it’s so worth it! Check out our marble metro stations, streets and parks! The second video gives an overview of some of the city sights, especially many Cathedrals and parks. The last video shows gorgeous Ukrainian sights that the country is famous for (you can also hear a beautiful Ukrainian folk song in the background).

Please enjoys the videos! I hope you like my birth city and my country so write to me to let me know what you liked the most!