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Pictures of Kharkov (Kharkiv): Ukraine's Former Capital

Kharkov is Ukraine's 2nd largest city (over two million inhabitants) and was the capital of the newly formed Ukraine Soviet Socialistic Republic from 1917 to 1934. Today Kharkov is known as an "intelligent" city, due to its large number of students and institutes of higher education, and also to strong research and development institutes. Kharkov is not far from the Russian border and is mostly Russian speaking, but the surrounding towns and villages have larger numbers of Ukrainian speakers.

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Kharkiv's train station has a large square in front of it	Blagoveschenskyy cathedral	Artists' market with cathedral in background	Blagoveschenskyy cathedral above the treetops
The cathedral is visible from many places in Kharkiv	Typical ugly Soviet-era avant-garde architecture. This is the side of the opera house	Front of the opera house	Fountain on Victory Square, across from the opera house
Casino on first floor of historic building	Kharkiv's Freedom Square (Ploschad Svobody) is the largest in Europe; only Tiananmen Square in Beijing is larger	Lenin stands proudly at the center of the square	Walls plastered with advertisements
One of the state administrative buildings on Freedom Square with a new white facade	Under the cement arches it is dark and gloomy	Karazin National University, founded in 1904	Lenin pointing the way. Kharkiv was the capital of the Ukraine Soviet Socialistic Republic from 1917 to 1934
Oblast administration building at the other end of Freedom Square	Monument to Yaroslav the Wise (on white background)	Like all big cities in Ukraine, there are plenty of places to sit outside and chat or relax	Street trams run through the center of Kharkiv, exacerbating traffic problems on the narrower streets
Monument to Russian writer Alexandr Sergeevich Pushkin	"Cairo" restaurant	One of the narrow streets in the center of Kharkiv	Around Kharkiv are endless rural areas and patches of forest
Beautiful patch of birch forests and meadows

All photos are the original work of Rick DeLong. To learn about purchasing originals, go here. Please contact me at before using my pictures for any purpose.