Cherkassy is a picturesque town with a centuries-old glorious history, which is located on the right bank of the Dnieper in the embrace of pine forests. From time immemorial it is inhabited by hospitable and friendly people, whose ancestors were participants of dramatic events and their direct heroes and thanks to whom we can still admire picturesque landscapes and sights of Cherkassy.
The first written mention of Cherkassy, at that time already a fortified city, is dated 1305, although until recently this date was considered to be 1394. The official date of foundation of the city is considered to be 1286, and it was laid by Circassians — people of Asian type with Slavic-Tatar dialect, from whose nationality the city got its name. From the first days of its foundation, due to its territorial location, Cherkassy became a kind of outpost (an advanced post put up in the place of the supposed attack of the enemy) on the southern borders of the Kiev lands against nomadic tribes. From the XIV century to the XVII century Cherkassy resisted the Tatar-Mongol invasion, Turkish-Tatar yoke, hordes of Crimean Tatars, oppression of Lithuanian feudal lords and Polish nobility.
Before 1471 Cherkassy was part of the Kiev appanage principality, and after its collapse became part of the Kiev voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the beginning of the XV century the city became the center of Cherkassy starosta, where the headman — the viceroy of the Lithuanian prince, and after the Union of Lublin in 1566 — of the Polish king was permanently located.
Since the XV century the first settlements of Cossacks appeared in Cherkassy lands, who bravely repelled enemy raids. Cherkassy castle played a great role in these battles. At the beginning of the XVI century the castle was fortified, which helped in 1532 to successfully resist the Crimean horde and withstand a thirty-day siege. In 1549, an even more impregnable castle was erected above the Dnieper on Zamkova Hill, around which the city was built, protected by a stockade with two gates.
In the XVI-XVII centuries the city of Cherkassy became so important center of the Cossack movement for the independence of the Ukrainian lands that in official Russian documents the entire population of Ukraine began to be called «Cherkassy people».
The history of Cherkassy is closely connected with the liberation war of the Ukrainian people in 1648-1654 against the Polish nobility under the leadership of Ukrainian Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky. It was in Cherkassy that the first letter of the Great Hetman to the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was written, which reported about the victories over the Polish nobility and the desire of the Ukrainian people to reunite with Russia.
In 1667, after the Treaty of Andrusov, the city was again ceded to Poland, after which it was one of the main centers of the peasant uprising known as «Koliavshchyna».
In the second half of the XIX century, after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the rapid construction of the railroad and the development of shipping, thanks to which the city began to develop rapidly, which was reflected in its architecture. In the neighborhood there were buildings of various forms and styles, such as classical, Gothic and Moorish. The most common structures were one-story houses made of wood or brick, covered with thatch, wood or iron. The facades were decorated with shaped bricks with various ornaments and other relief details. The order of arrangement of streets and squares is rightly considered one of the few monuments of town-planning art of the early XIX century in Ukraine. In 1815 Russian engineer and architect William Geste developed a general plan of the city building. According to this plan the city consisted of wide and long streets crossed at right angles by analogy with ancient Roman cities.
The history of Cherkassy shows that the city repeatedly disappeared from the face of the earth and rebuilt again, because of which only some of the sights of Cherkassy, built in the early XIX century. on the plan of Geste. Examples of earlier styles of architecture can be seen in the Cherkassy Museum of Local Lore. The existing sights of the city include a unique architectural monument — a hyperboloidal structure — a steel openwork water tower built by V.G. Shukhov (there are 20 similar structures out of more than 200 in the world), and Svyato-Mikhailovsky Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Ukraine. Also of great interest are the Shcherbina Palace and the Cybulski House (Kobzar Museum).
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Modern Cherkassy is a beautiful and cozy city drowning in lush greenery with numerous squares and parks, the most beautiful of which is Oktyabrsky, with unforgettable views of the Dnieper. And the historical past and picturesque nature will not leave anyone indifferent, it is not for nothing that almost all excursion routes in this glorious land, which is especially beautiful in spring, when chestnuts bloom.
From the first day of its existence and up to the World War II Cherkassy was assigned by fate the role of the defender of our lands. This freedom-loving city was the place of the most bloody and fateful battles. Today, in peacetime, each of us will have the opportunity to pay tribute and visit the wonderful city of Cherkassy.