Khreshchatyk street
Khreschatyk street
Ukraine, Kyiv
Khreshchatyk, Ukrainian Khreschatyk is the main street of Kyiv. Length - 1.2 km, direction - from north to south. It starts from European Square, passes through Maidan Nezalezhnosti, and ends with Bessarabskaya Square.
The name of the street comes from Khreshchaty Yar (that is, crossed by transverse gullies). In the documents of the 17th century, this entire area was called the Kreschataya Dolina. The street was created at the beginning of the 19th century. Until that time, Khreshchatyk was the name given to the area along the Dnieper, where Volodymyr the Great baptized his household (at present, Naberezhno-Khreschatytskaya Street runs there). Before the Second World War, Khreshchatyk was built up with buildings, mainly 3-4 floors, which stood as a solid facade. The width of the street was about 35 meters.
The construction of Khreshchatyk began at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century. At first, the section from Konnaya (European) Square to Proreznaya Street, mainly the right side, begins to be built up. In 1803, the left side of the street began to be built up. Then the street was called Teatralnaya (here was the first theater in the city). The street acquires its final shape in the plans of Kyiv in 1837, extended to Bessarabska Square and bears the name Khreschatytska, from 1869 the name Khreshchatyk is fixed. In 1876, the building of the City Duma was built here; In 1892, the first electric tram line in the Russian Empire was laid, which connected Khreshchatyk with Podol. In 1936, the street was asphalted, the tram was replaced by a trolley bus.
In the period from May 14, 1923 to July 13, 1937, the street was named after Vaclav Vorovsky. During the occupation of Kyiv in 1941-43, the Germans renamed the street Eichhornstrasse (in honor of Field Marshal von Eichhorn). On September 24, 1941, a few days after the occupation of Kyiv by German troops, a series of explosions began on Khreshchatyk (ammunition was planted by the NKVD during the retreat from the city). The Children's World was the first to explode (architect V.V. Gorodetsky) at the corner of Khreshchatyk and Prorizna, ammunition detonated in other buildings from the blast wave. The explosions and subsequent fires were so powerful that the city center burned out completely and was not restored during the war. A few days later, on September 27-29, 1941, the commandant of Kyiv, Kurt Eberhard, took advantage of the arson of Khreshchatyk as a formal pretext for the extermination of the Jews of Kyiv at Babi Yar.
After the war, it was decided to rebuild the center, retaining the configuration of the streets, but the buildings were built completely new, in the style of "Stalin's Empire". The street is built up as a single architectural ensemble. The width of Khreshchatyk has been increased to 75 meters. The profile of the street is asymmetric - the carriageway is 24 meters, two sidewalks of 14 meters each, separated from the carriageway by a row of trees, and a boulevard on the right side, which separate the residential area from the carriageway. Since the late 1990s on weekends and holidays, the movement of vehicles along Khreshchatyk is prohibited - the street has become a pedestrian one.
On Khreshchatyk are: the Kyiv City Council and the Kyiv City State Administration, the main post office, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, the Central Department Store, the Ukrainian House, the Khreschatyk and Maidan Nezalezhnosti metro stations.
