Zaporozhye

Zaporozhye (I found this article on the internet) The town of Zaporozhye is more than 200 years old and is situated about 600 KM South-East of Kiev – Ukraine’s capital – and half-way between the fields of iron ore in Krivoi Rog to the West and the coal in the Donetsk basin to the East. The town is built on the wide plains along both banks of the mighty and ancient Dnieper River, which give Zaporozhye a unique atmosphere. The residential areas of Zaporozhye are very spacious with plenty of light and greenery, and the streets crossing Lenin Prospekt – the longest road – slant down towards the Dnieper River. The town stretches out for over 30 kilometers along the river, and in its width the new residential districts extend for 25 kilometers. A most remarkable sight and the pride of Zaporozhye’s citizens is Khortitsa Island, which is the custodian of an antiquity reserve, museum, and a nature reserve, popular with weekend visitors. Railways, highways, airlines and water-ways connect Zaporozhye with Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Poltava, Simferopol and many other cities and towns in our country. Just beyond other borders of the town to the South, you can find the vast Kakhovsky Reservoir, which is often called a sea, and the Sea of Azov – a very popular health-resort area – lies about 150 – 2—kilometers further towards the South. Kakhovsky reservoir finally flows into the Black Sea close to Odessa, one of Ukraine’s major ports. You can travel all the way from Kiev to Odessa by boat on the Ukrainian waterways. Historians and archaeologists tell us that the territory of Zaporozhye had been inhabited by people from time immemorial. This is shown for example by stone tools of the late Paleolithic Age (about 15 thousand years ago), two settlements of the Heolithic Age (6th millennium B.C.), objects of material culture of the late Bronze Epoch (1st millennium B.C.). Both the Scythians (4th Millennium B.C.) and the Samatian (2nd century B.C. – 2nd century A.D.) lived here while in the 9th – 13 centuries the area was already heavily populated by Slavs, which is shown by the remains of 57 Slavonic settlements which were discovered near the Dneproges Hydroelectric Dam. However, according to the historians, most of the Slav dwellers left this area in the 13th century, running away from the Golden Horde invasion, and by the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, Zaporozhye Cossacks became master of the lands beyond the rapids of the Dnieper River. The impregnable Khortitsa Island became one of the centers of Cossack civilization, and became a mighty force for the Ukrainian people in the struggle against foreign invaders and the feudal yoke and for the reunion of the Ukraine with Russia. But the town itself was founded much later, during a period of united struggle of the fraternal people against the Turkish Sultanate. Its origins go back to the end of 1770, when one of the fortresses of the Dnieper fortified line was built at the mouth of the Mokraya Moskovka. Zaporozhye was originally named Alexandrovsk after the commander of the first Russian Army, Prince Alexander Golitsyn. The builders, a battalion of Russian soldiers and toilers “lopatniki” who had come here with their families became the first settlers of the future town. Among them were also Zaporozhye Cossacks, who founded a large village nearby after the abolition of the Zaporozhskaya Sechin 1775. Initially, the settlement grew up very slowly. Plague, epidemics and wartime hardships had a negative effect on its development. At that time, the people were mainly occupied in raising cattle, farming, growing vegetables, hunting and fishing. Handicraft and trade were poorly developed. Present day Zaporozhye has over 1 million inhabitants and is the center of a range of industries and the home to Zaporozhye State University. It now produces nearly half of the stainless steel and ball-bearing steel in the country, a third of the cold-rolled steel sheets and about half of the transformers. It is the first domestic producer of the “Zaporoshyets” mimi-car, and manufactures products from titanium, aluminum, ferroalloys etc. About 400 different products are being exported by the town’s enterprises to more than seventy foreign countries. The town has 100 secondary schools, 14 professional schools, a university, three institutes, 13 technical secondary schools, two medical schools, two pedagogical institutes and a musical college, about 30 scientific research and design institutions. Every fourth inhabitant is a scholar. The community has access to 400 libraries, 50 cinemas, a theater, concert hall, and a circus. Zaporozhye has over 1300 avenues, streets and squares. A child is born every 48 minutes. The public transportation covers routes over 1000 km long. (Zaporozhye from our view point) The drive to Zap was very pleasant. We drove through some beautiful country side and some pretty villages. As we drove into one town we could either take a left to Zap or a right to Dneper. There were numerous dairy farms and horse breeding outfits along the way. We stopped one day at a large horse breeding operation and a lady took us all around the place. We thanked her by giving her a Book of Mormon. We remember seeing a beautiful horse which had a very stubby tail. She laughed about the tail and told us it was a genetic flaw. We loved Zap. The zone meetings there were awesome. The missionaries tried hard to be the most obedient in the mission. We had a small group of people and we could really hold wonderful meetings. The place where we met had green walls. We remember telling everyone to remember the green walls and the feeling we had that day. It seemed that the most spiritual meetings we held with missionaries often took place in Zap. How could anyone forget the blue planner-man zone conference? The missionaries decided to have a skit about the blue planner and they made costumes and provided us with a great deal to theatre while teaching us the importance of the blue planner. I remember my longest missionary interview took place in Zap. It took about 2 ½ hours. We loved the interview process there. We would arrive in the afternoon and hold interviews with the missionaries that afternoon. We would hold member interviews that night. The next day was zone conference. We liked to start early so we could have all day and not be rushed. The hotel we stayed in was within walking distance to the place where we met so that was convenient. Zap also had some good places to shop. We could get .05% milk there for a number of months. This was the best packaged milk available at the time and the shop where we could get it, was right along the way to the meeting location. After zone conferences we usually went to eat at our hotel or a western restaurant, or the pizza place or McDonalds or finally at the Irish Pub. The Irish Pub had a great room we could meet in and a really good schnitzel. We could also relax with the missionaries and enjoy a few moments of fun. Oh, we can’t forget the Chinese place which went out of business. It was a really fun place to eat and they had great Chinese food. It was located right by the Lenin statue just before you went over the dam. We loved the informal conversations and we could watch the interaction of companionships and friendships. Our hotel room was often cold so in the winter time we took our sleeping bags with us to keep warm. During the summer time, we would often wake up and not be able to see the other side of the square. The smog was so dense that we often worried about the air quality. There were rumors that Zap had a very high radiation count but our mission doctor looked into this and found it was no higher than in Salt Lake City. We had one missionary who was in the hospital for a long time. He was from Mongolia and came to the Ukraine with limited Russian and English skills. The missionaries in Zap had to rotate staying with him in the hospital and after he was released he spoke fairly good Russian and English. We visited him one time and we were impressed with the care he got but the facility left a lot to be desired. Zap had one of the longest boulevards in Europe. During our last year, they were doing a lot of work to make it very pretty. They cut down some of the old trees and planted new ones. They have an Afghanistan War Memorial which looks much like our Vietnam War Memorial in the center of town.