The small Ukrainian city of Akhtyrka, part of the Sumy region, is located on the banks of the river of the same name, which flows into the Vorskla River after one and a half kilometers. Akhtyrka is the administrative center of the Akhtyrsky district, but it is not part of it or the Akhtyrsky City Council, which, in addition to it, also includes a number of villages.

The Gusinka and Krinichnaya rivers flow through the city, and the settlement itself is surrounded by forests. Okhtyrka is located in the extreme southern part of the Sumy region and has a temperate climate. Thanks to the picturesque nature, the surrounding area of ​​the city is replete with many holiday homes and cozy resort towns.

As of 2001, the population of Akhtyrka numbered about 50 thousand people.

The history of the town dates back to the times of Ukrainian Cossacks and peasants who migrated from Right Bank Ukraine and founded Okhtyrka on the site where an Old Slavic settlement had previously been located. Akhtyrka was first mentioned in writing in 1641, when it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

After 6 years, the city went to Russia.

In the period 1655-1658. Here the Akhtyrsky Slobodsk Cossack regiment was formed, administratively subordinate to the Belgorod governor. At that time, a regiment was considered not only a military unit, but also the administrative-territorial unit itself in which the regiment was formed and maintained.

After 10 years, by royal decree, Cossack self-government in Slobozhanshchina was liquidated, and Okhtyrka received the status of a county town in the Kharkov province. In 1923, the district was abolished, and the city became the center of the district, and 2 years later - the regional center within the Kharkov district of the capital at that time. In 1932, the Akhtyrsky district became part of the Kharkov region, and after another 7 years, it joined the newly formed Sumy region. The settlement became a city of regional significance in 1975.

First of all, Okhtyrka is known as the oil capital of Ukraine and the largest center of the country's gas production industry. Oil production is the most important sector of the city's economy. However, the map of Okhtyrka also points to interesting attractions here.

The main decoration of the city and its main Orthodox church is, built from 1753 to 1768. Nowadays it is included in the list of historical and architectural monuments of Ukraine that are of national importance.

Made in the Baroque style, the building is built of brick and has a tripartite plan. The interior is decorated with pilasters, modeling and paintings. Having been destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, the cathedral was restored in 1970-1972. It is noteworthy that the structure seems unique in its volumetric-spatial design - it has no analogues in Ukrainian Baroque architecture.

In addition, the ensemble of the cathedral described above includes and. Thus, the church-bell tower, as well as the temple, is made in the Baroque style and has notes of classicism. It consists of three tiers, the first of which houses the church, while the upper two are intended for bells.

The Church of the Nativity, in turn, looks more like a palace than a religious building. It has a unique volumetric-spatial and decorative solution.

The next distinctive structure of a spiritual nature is the majestic one, also called the Yuryevskaya Church. It has a long history - from the time when in the 1660s. The first St. George's Church was erected. Over the years, it fell into disrepair and was reconstructed several times, however, in 1860, it was decided to build a new one in its place. Construction lasted no less than 45 years. Consecrated in 1905, the temple did not function for long, since in 1920 it was closed and partially looted by the Bolsheviks. Only in 1933 the church was transferred to the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

In addition to religious objects, there is also a traditional one in Akhtyrka, which occupies an ancient two-story building in the very center of the city - previously there was a private mansion here. Where else, if not to the museum, should inquisitive travelers who want to learn the history of a particular settlement in detail go? So here, in the Akhtyrsky Museum, antiques, photographs and books on historical topics are displayed. In addition, it also contains personal belongings of the fellow countryman I. Bagryany. Everyone can take advantage of a separate service - a tour conducted by museum staff both around the city itself and its surroundings.

You can enjoy the most beautiful views, and, in addition, see another Akhtyrka attraction, by heading north-west of the city. It is there, on a mountain covered with greenery, that one of the oldest in all of Ukraine flaunts!

The location occupied by the monastery is striking in its beauty, and the delightful landscape is complemented by the Vorskla River, which seems to wrap around the base of this mountain in a circle.

The final part of the trip around Akhtyrka can be a pleasant trip to, located on the territory of Velikopisarivsky, Akhtyrsky and Trostyanetsky districts of the Sumy region. The park is designed to preserve, recreate and rationally use typical and unique natural complexes of the Left Bank forest-steppe. Among them are the floodplains of the Vorskla River, which are of utmost importance in many areas.

The basis of the reserve is the Litovsky Bor tract and the Bakirovsky hydrological reserve. The park is divided into zones: there is a reserve, in which any interference with nature is prohibited, and a recreational zone, intended for people to relax.

Okhtyrka is a cute town bordered by an active oil industry and amazing architectural structures living their leisurely lives. The overall image of the city is crowned by wonderful nature and local rivers, giving coolness and vigor.

Wiki: ru:Okhtyrka en:Okhtyrka uk:Okhtyrka de:Okhtyrka

Okhtyrka in the Sumy region (Ukraine), description and map linked together. After all, We are places on the world map. Explore more, find more. Located 59.5 km south of Sumy. Find interesting places around, with photos and reviews. Check out our interactive map with places around you, get more detailed information, get to know the world better.

There are 3 editions in total, the last one was made 3 years ago by mucha from Pushkino

Akhtyrka is a city in the Sumy region (48 thousand inhabitants) at approximately equal distance from Kharkov, Poltava and Sumy through the shown Trostyanets. In the past, it was the historical center of Sloboda Ukraine, the land reclaimed from the Wild Field, given by the Tsar to those who decided to exchange the right bank of the Dnieper for the right bank of the Don for the sake of preserving the Orthodox faith. Nowadays it is the center of Ukrainian oil production and just a very colorful town, more “eastern” in spirit than “central”.

Okhtyrka was founded due to a misunderstanding: in the 1640s, Russia built the Belgorod abatis line along the borders of the Wild Field, with the edge - the Volnov fortress - extending to the peripheries of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Opposite the Russian fortress, the Poles, without being confused, began to build theirs on Akhtyr Mountain, and then SUDDENLY it turned out that they were building it on Russian lands - the border was determined according to the Polyansky Peace of 1635, but they never demarcated it, and after a long litigation the Poles They finally gave the fortress to the Russians a year before the Khmelnitsky uprising. And although the fortifications themselves were razed, the settlement remained and became a natural “condensation point” for the settlers. Their flow did not weaken: at first, there were decades of Ruins on the Left Bank, and as a result, one half of the Ukrainians ended up in Orthodox Russia, but the Poles undertook to reformat the other half with redoubled force - for them, the tsarist government launched the “Sloboda Ukraine” project in the unplowed steppes where nomads walked before. In 1658, Okhtyrka became the center of a regiment of Sloboda Cossacks, the fifth in a row (after Ostrogozh, Sumy, Kharkov and Izyum) and the last. However, the city (which received this status already in 1703) from the very beginning grew more commercial than military (for example, in 1707, the first tobacco factory in Russia was founded here), and by the middle of the 18th century, Okhtyrka was the largest of the cities in Slobozhanshchina. But the center of the Sloboda-Ukrainian province created in 1765 became Kharkov, for some time 5 provinces remained within the borders of the Cossack regiments, but at the end of the 18th century they were also abolished, introducing counties standard for Russia. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Akhtyrochka was a strong county town with 23 thousand inhabitants. Later, it suffered in full from both the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War (in which it was lost and liberated twice), under the Soviets it turned into an industrial town, which somehow subtly reminded me of Little Kharkov. At the time of the trip, even the local toponymy had not yet been decommunized, so I walked in Akhtyrka along the streets of Frunze, Oktyabrskaya, Lenin...

Frunze Street is now called Sumskaya, and on it I left the minibus and walked slowly south, towards the center. On the left is the red brick Agrarian College of the 1920s, an unusual look for its era, semi-pre-revolutionary, semi-Stalinist:

On the right is a hospital from the beginning of the twentieth century, at the sight of which I clearly imagined Doctor Ragin, terrible in his benevolence:

Houses along Sumskaya. As in Kharkov, you can’t tell about many buildings whether they were built before the revolution or after, only in Kharkov you more often see “proto-constructivism” of the 1910s, and in Akhtyrka “belated modernism” of the 1920s:

It is not uncommon to see wooden houses, like somewhere in Russia (even with birch trees):

A wonderful hut with a veranda, the sight of which makes you believe that it was left over from the Cossack regiments:

In one place, an elderly man came up to me, started a conversation with some awkward question, and did not let me go for about 15 minutes, repeating with the refrain “It’s so good that you came here!” (in the sense that he came from Russia).

Close-up of the house from the frame above:

There are few of these left; the city, which was stormed four times, is mostly built up with high-rise buildings. But in Akhtyrka there are extremely beautiful girls:

On the advice of one of the people I met, I looked into a furniture store in the entrance hall of a former medical furniture factory - the fact is that the industrial site was occupied by the barracks of the Akhtyrsky regiment... but no longer the Cossacks - in 1765 the Sloboda Cossacks were replaced by hussars, the most famous of which were the Akhtyrsky in their brown uniforms made from cloth requisitioned from the Parisian Capuchins. The Akhtyrsky regiment reached Paris under the leadership of the well-known general-poet Denis Davydov, and before that he managed to become famous in the wars “with the Turks” near Ochakov and Izmail. The most famous Akhtyrka hussar, however, was Lieutenant Rzhevsky, in fact a fictional character who came into folklore and literature from Davydov’s poems, and who acquired his name only in 1940 in Alexander Gladkov’s novel “A long time ago...”. From the Akhtyrka barracks, alas, only indistinct fragments remain, the best preserved of which is the trumpet room, that is, the utility room of the regimental orchestra.

The next building on Sumskaya is an old gymnasium (1902), originally for men, but most memorable for its homemade school planetarium (!) named after the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution (1977) with a funny racket on the spire:

I approached him and tried to photograph the gallery through the windows, but immediately a lanky, intelligent man, an exemplary school astronomer, appeared behind the glass and waved his hand towards the door, to which he proceeded:
-Why are you here?
- Yes, I’m a tourist, I’m looking at the city. This is your planetarium, isn't it? I read that he was the only one like that in the USSR, at school.
-Yes, at school - the only one. Where are you from?
-From Moscow.
-Oh, we rarely have Muscovites here now. Where will you spend the night?
- Yes, I’m passing through here, but I just arrived from Sumy half an hour ago, I’ll get to the bus station and go to Poltava.
-Have you seen our barracks?
-What kind of barracks?
-Well, of course, the hussar regiment of the barracks where Davydov served. Walk back a little, go to a furniture store and ask them to show you around.
-Thank you! Are they not working?
-No, they haven’t been active for a long time.
-Okay, otherwise I wouldn’t want to go to the active barracks!
“I agree,” the astronomer grinned, “you shouldn’t go to such places now.”

But I’ve already shown the former barracks, so let’s move on. I cut the corner a little and went straight to the square through the gymnasium:

The building in the frame above is the oldest building of the gymnasium, a district school from the 1830s. Its facade looks onto a wide ring with the “Ilyich stump” (it was broken here, by the way, twice, and the first time about a year before “all these events”) and streets in five directions - the former Lenin Square:

At the time of my trip, it was one of the entire city toponyms that had been decommunized, returning the name Uspenskaya Square. But the oldest Assumption Cathedral in Akhtyrka (1728-38) was demolished under the Soviets:

Someone's cry from the heart on Wikimapia describes the movement in the square as follows: the outer circle - in one direction, the inner circle - in the other, and even radial movement between them. Along the edges of the square there is practically nothing for the eye to catch on... well, from the buildings, I mean, there is nothing:

To the left, towards Kharkov, from here goes the former Lenin Street, which in 2016 suddenly became Victory Street. Both names are represented by objects immediately around the bend - on the right is the former women's gymnasium, under the Soviets Lenin School No. 1:

On the left is a small Monument of Glory, judging by its appearance, erected already in independent Ukraine. On the stand is the date of the second liberation (08.28.43) and the inscription in Ukrainian “Remember about those who will never come again!” But among those who returned was Alexey Berest, who on May 1, 1945, together with Smolensk resident Mikhail Egorov and Georgian Meliton Kantaria, raised the Victory Banner over the Reichstag. There is also a monument to him in Akhtyrka, which I either didn’t find or didn’t notice:

The street goes further. In fact, it’s difficult to believe that Akhtyrka has only 40 thousand inhabitants: the most powerful microdistricts, a huge market, from which there are an abundance of people and cars on the streets - “by eye” I would give Akhtyrka 120 thousand. And although there are no series of high-rise buildings here Kharkov, there is some truly Kharkov scope in their appearance:

Since Uspenskaya Square is the main Akhtyrsky hub, I can also mention here the attractions of the outskirts that I have not seen. In Akhtyrka there is a dead-end station (1895) with a small station, but first of all the city is surrounded by a natural necklace of temples. At the exit to Kharkov there is an unusual Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (1817), almost a rotunda; at the exit to Sumy (where I came from) there is the sophisticated red-brick Church of the Archangel Michael (1884), and on the road to Kiev west of Assumption Square there is the equally red-brick, but much more primitive Yuryevskaya Church (1905) and already outside the city, once one of the most revered on Ukraine, but under the Soviets, the Akhtyrsky Trinity Monastery was almost completely destroyed on the very mountain where the Polish fortress was once built. All of them are shown in Akhtyrchanin’s posts don_serhio , and not only churches, .
From the side of Kievskaya Street, a public garden adjoins Uspenskaya Square, the chapel in which reminds of the lost cathedral:

On the contrary, all that remains of it is the district administration in the building of the parochial school of the early twentieth century:

I crossed the Akhtyrka River along the bridge from the park:

But despite all the “Kharkov” appearance, Akhtyrka is still Sumy, as Altanka and the wooden sculptures on that bank remind us of:

Beyond the river, the “very center” begins along Independence Street, which during the trip was also called Oktyabrskaya - there is a direct analogy here. In essence, this is the same Sumskaya (Frunze), only on the other side of the ring, in a word - part of the city “axis”. Clearly pre-revolutionary houses in clearly Soviet tiled cladding are one of the “chips” of Akhtyrka:

Old power plant with pipe-like towers:

The impressive People's House (1914), or simply a regional recreation center:

The establishment opposite which I remember for its window:

But in general, there is no living tissue in Staraya Okhtyrka, not even the main street - rare and in no way memorable houses among high-rise buildings and vacant lots that have not been built up since the war:

In the future, Independence streets and the cathedral from the title frame, but for now let’s turn into side streets:

In which the crowds of people, the abundance of cars and signs immediately indicate the proximity of the market:

The red side with the remains of an elegant staircase belongs to the former House of Officers (it is also in the frame above behind the branches on the right) - under the Soviets, rocket men replaced the Cossacks and hussars. Here stood those same nuclear weapons, the loss of which many in Ukraine now regret so much.... but Ukraine technically could not save them in the 1990s - the entire control system of the Strategic Missile Forces, including all kinds of “fool-proofing”, was tied to Moscow . I don’t know exactly what’s in the former Officers’ House now:

The green house is known to old-timers as Voentorg, and next to it is the most impressive surviving income house. Inside, the staircase and mosaic floor were preserved, but the door was tightly closed:

I didn’t get to Mirogorod, so here is the Akhtyrsky branch of Mirgorodskaya Luzha:

Having passed through the market district, I found a bus station, and at the ticket office I asked when the nearest one to Poltava was. It turned out that I had a choice of either getting to the center of the neighboring region (alas, Ukraine has the same glitch with regional borders as ours!) in the evening, or running around everything that was left (and the most important thing was left) in half an hour. Without thinking twice, I chose the second option and rushed through the bazaar along the shortest straight line.

Jumping out onto Oktyabrskaya Street near the Church of the Transfiguration (1905):

Such races in the mode of sports local history are not at all uncommon in my travels, although recently there have been fewer of them, as I have learned to actively practice hitchhiking and build routes more rationally. But this is a very strange feeling - the brain seems to be switched to “turbo” mode, the image around it seems to become clearer and more contrasting, highlighting many details, and time... no, it doesn’t slow down, but seems to collapse. I remember the feeling of haste and physical stress from walking quickly under the backpack, but nothing more - remembering what I saw, I don’t feel at all that I was examining it all, counting the seconds.

Independence Street goes from ring to ring. Its southern ring seems to still be called October Square, although before the revolution it was probably Pokrovskaya. On the northern side is the Slavna shopping center, the former recreation center of the abolished Promsvyaz plant:

On the eastern side of the square is a monument to revolutionaries in this stunning expression of the 1920s (although the popular nickname is “a wife leading a drunken husband”):

And a simpler monument at the mass grave. Along the street in the background, I had to run bypassing the market to the bus station, and looking ahead, I’ll say that in the end it was not me who was late, but the bus.

Well, the southern side of the square is the heart of Akhtyrka, an impressive complex of three churches that is not typical for a county, reminiscent of the past of Sloboda Ukraine:

The Central Intercession Cathedral (1753-68), frankly speaking, did not impress me either in photographs or in real life... but this is a matter of taste, and objectively this is one of the most important architectural monuments of Ukraine, which is well known av4 dedicated the article in as many as 4 posts under the general title “Russian-Ukrainian dialogue in church architecture.” The mid-18th century is perhaps the golden age of Russian-Ukrainian relations, in the literal sense of the word, a novel in which Russia was represented by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, and Ukraine by Tsaritsyn’s favorite Alexei Razumovsky. Even earlier, the original architecture of the “Slobozhansky Baroque” had developed, which I would call separate from the “Ukrainian” - at some point, the traditional Ukrainian three-frame wooden churches in Slobozhanshchyna began to be built in stone, and their appearance, on the one hand, was determined by the traditions of the abandoned Right Bank, and on the other hand, the influence of Russian architecture. This is how cathedrals appeared, or in Bryansk Starodub or Voronezh Ostrogozhsk, and as a result of the merging of traditions - the temple in Akhtyrka. In general, although for me it is rather unprepossessing, this temple is the convergence point of several architectural lines. In it, before the revolution, the Akhtyrskaya Icon of the Mother of God, found in 1739, was kept, to which churches are dedicated in other cities. True, the original is now in San Francisco:

Nearby is the squat, somewhat flattened Nativity Church (1825):

On the other side is the Vvedenskaya Church-bell tower (1784):

And the last remarkable incarnation of Akhtyrka is closely adjacent to the cathedrals from the south, and we are not talking about Pavel Grabovsky, a Ukrainian poet from Slobozhanshchina, who spent most of his life in prisons and exile and died in Tobolsk. But he is not the only one who connects these places with the Tyumen region:

This is the Neftyanik stadium, near which there is a composition that is much more familiar in some. It is no secret that on the territory of present-day Ukraine is one of the sources of the oil era - the Galician oil fields (,). However, in Central-Eastern Ukraine, oil was searched for a long time and persistently, and even stands, according to legend, on the site of an exploration well drilled by Tsarist geologists. Those geologists, however, were on the right track: the first Ukrainian SSR oil was found in 1932 under, I already showed traces of oil production in, but in the end the center of the oil basin turned out to be Okhtyrka, production near which began in 1937. The Galician fields have since been exhausted, and now Akhtyrka accounts for half of Ukrainian oil production, Priluki - about 20%, and both Romny and Poltava produce something, and from the same Poltava residents I heard that the authorities are deliberately preventing oil production and gas in Ukraine in order to profit from supply schemes, otherwise the Poltava region alone would be enough to supply the entire country and take away exports to Europe from Russia. These, of course, are myths - both in terms of production and oil reserves, Ukraine ranks somewhere around 50th in the world.

But opposite “Naftovik” is the “Nefteprommash” plant, which apparently occupied part of the site of that same “Promsvyaz”:

Near the plant there is a chapel in memory of the “Afghans”, and behind it is another old school on Pushkin Street leading towards Poltava, which I photographed from the window of the bus, which I hurried onto from “Naftovik”:

The bus turned out to be a crappy minibus like a Mercedes, which is of course better than a Gazelle, but not much. Although the Bogdanchikov and Etalonchikov factories seem to belong to Poroshenko, since previous visits there have been noticeably fewer of these much more convenient cars on intercity lines. The bus was traveling along the Sumy-Zaporozhye route, about 8 or 10 hours on the road, and was packed to capacity with people and trunks. I squeezed into the back seat, and to my left sat a handsome bearded grandfather like from a Soviet movie, and to my right was a strong, redneck-cheeked guy about my age. A charmingly fidgety girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap, her parents were located on the next pair of chairs. The grandfather was traveling to Dnepropetrovsk, and regularly asked the girl how this or that sign or road sign was translated - he did not speak Ukrainian at all, and the girl did not speak Russian much better. However, they somehow understood each other, perhaps because they wanted to understand. I asked my grandfather how things were in Dnepropetrovsk now, whether it was dangerous, and then a neighbor from the other side joined the conversation:
-Why are you asking such questions? This is not your first day in Ukraine! The Benders haven't eaten you yet?
-Well, they didn’t eat it here...
- Well, don’t believe what they tell you on TV! About the crucified boys there and other fascists.
-No, I would go to Lviv now absolutely calmly, but the Dnieper, Zaporozhye - they’re closer there, to the war, they’re probably more strictly monitored there...
- Well, that’s all nonsense! Hello, we are normal people here!
Then the conversation started about where I was going to spend the night in Poltava, what to see, and so on. When mentioning the hostel on Lidova Street, the interlocutor was slightly upset that there was no hostel there, they had a hostel in a different location, and in the end he even called a friend to clarify, and after the call he admitted that there was now a hostel on Lidova too. He managed to tell me a lot of useful things about the structure of Poltava (but with the statement that 300 thousand live there, not 500, he flatly refused to agree) and about where there are dumplings and what kind of beer to buy, and finally, upon arrival, he went with me by bus to the center (where he himself needed to go) and before leaving to go about his business, he showed me “on the ground” how to go further. This is a long time ago, even before all these events, a paradox I noticed - the desire to show that “everything is not as they tell you” gives rise to miracles of hospitality.
. Monastery.
. Land of the Goryunov.
. Center.
. North of the center.
. South of the center.
. A city with strange geometry.
. The last castle of Ukraine.
Okhtyrka.
Poltava. Center.
Poltava. East of the center.
Poltava. West of the center.
Poltava. In the wake of the Battle of Poltava.
Kremenchug. Median city.
Chigirin and Subbotov. The cradle of independence.
Kirovograd (now Kropyvnytskyi). Center.
Kirovograd (now Kropyvnytskyi). Miscellaneous.
Farewell to Ukraine.
Kyiv before and after Maidan- there will be posts.

The city of Okhtyrka is located on the territory of the state (country) Ukraine, which in turn is located on the territory of the continent Europe.

In what region (region) is the city of Okhtyrka located?

The city of Okhtyrka is part of the region (region) Sumy region.

A characteristic of a region (region) or a subject of a country is the integrity and interconnection of its constituent elements, including cities and other settlements that are part of the region (region).

Region (oblast) Sumy region is an administrative unit of the state of Ukraine.

Population of the city of Okhtyrka.

The population of the city of Okhtyrka is 49,721 people.

Year of foundation of the city of Okhtyrka.

Year of foundation of the city of Okhtyrka: 1641.

Telephone code of the city of Okhtyrka

Telephone code of the city of Okhtyrka: +380 5446. In order to call the city of Okhtyrka from a mobile phone, you need to dial the code: +380 5446 and then the subscriber’s number directly.

Heraldry

A yellow cross on a blue background, which symbolizes a crossroads and a significant number of churches, that is, a “pious city.”
Above there is a golden glow in the form of rays - God's grace over the city. A golden ear of wheat has been added to the modern coat of arms, which indicates the agrarian direction of development of the region.

Coat of arms of the city of Okhtyrka

Date of adoption: 09/21/1781. In a blue field there is a golden cross with a glow at the top, depicting the celebrity of this city due to the great number of pilgrims who come.

Flag of the city of Okhtyrka

The city flag of Okhtyrka consists of two stripes - the lower one, constituting a third of the width of the flag, is green; top, white, top left of the white stripe – coat of arms

Akhtyrka, Akhtyrsky district

The region is located in the temperate climate zone of the extreme southern part of the Sumy region. It borders with Lebedinsky, Velikopisarevsky, Trostyanetsky districts of the Sumy region, Bogodukhovsky district of the Kharkov region, Zinkovsky, Kotelevsky districts of the Poltava region

Settlements: 1 village council and 22 villages

Total area 1.3 thousand square meters. km (5.4% of the territory of the Sumy region). The population of the district is 32,300 people.

Regional center of Okhtyrka

Okhtyrka city

The city of regional subordination, the center of the district, is located at a distance of 83 km from the regional center. The population of the city of Akhtyrka with its subordinate village councils is 53,200 people.

Today Okhtyrka is known as the largest center of the oil and gas production industry in Ukraine. There are 13 industrial enterprises here: GVU "Akhtyrkanaftogaz" OJSC "Ukrnaft", OJSC "Naftoprommash", OJSC "Okhtyrsilmash", OJSC "Sewing Factory", OJSC "Bread Factory", OJSC "Food Products Plant", OJSC "Brewery Plant", Okhtyrsky branch ATSP "Pravex-brok", KP "Medical Furniture Plant", OJSC "Shoe Enterprise", SKSM "Production of Construction Materials", city printing house.

The city has 11 schools, a gymnasium, a technical school for mechanization and electrification of agriculture, a vocational school, and a branch of the Kharkov Engineering and Pedagogical Academy. There are 15 cultural institutions here: 6 club-type institutions - the district House of Culture, 2 city centers of culture and leisure, the Youth House, the Palace of Culture AT "Naftoprommash", the Palace of Culture AT named after. Petrovsky; 6 libraries; 2 schools for aesthetic education of children - music and art; local history museum.

The city has a central district hospital, which unites city hospitals and rural Fapi.

The city of Okhtyrka is a sports city. Sambo masters Yu.M. live and train here. Meerovich and O.A. Gaponova Akhtyrsky football team "Neftyanik" is the winner of the Ukrainian football championship among physical education teams.

The beautiful Akhtyrsky region has given the world many outstanding people: scientists, writers, singers, artists. This is the poet Ya.I. Shchogoliv (1823-1898), revolutionary poet P.A. Grabovsky (1864-1902), humorist Ostap Vishnya (P.G. Gubenko) (1889-1956), poet, laureate of the State Prize named after. T.G. Shevchenka P.M. Voronko (1913-1988), writer, publicist, public figure I.P. Lozovyagin (Bagryany) (1906-1963), ethnographer, local historian O.D. Tverdokhlebov (1840-1918), engraver G. Srebrenitsky (1741-1773), agronomist, professor A.G. Ternichenko (1882-1927). The first female glider pilot, K.A., was born in Okhtyrka. Grunauer, full member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, Honored Scientist, Professor S.G. Mirotvortsev, founder and first rector of the Perm Polytechnic Institute G.G. Deryukin, singer, People's Artist of the USSR P.S. Bilinnik, singer, Honored Artist of the RSFSR. F. Petrenko, scientist-breeder G.G. Kuchmai, an outstanding archaeologist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, head of the department of primitive archeology of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR G.Ya. Rudinsky, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, economist O.O. Nesterenko, Doctor of Medical Sciences B.Ya. Zadorozhny, artist I.K. Mandrika.

In 1863-1869. Ukrainian teacher and writer V.S. worked at the Akhtyrsky district school. Gnilosirov, who took part in the creation of Sunday schools. Composer A.S. was born in the city. Gussakivsky, one of the members of the “Mighty Handful”, professor of chemistry. An interesting page in the history of the city is associated with the poet and teacher, founder and head of the children's colony in the Trinity Monastery near Okhtyrka G.L. Dovgopolyuk. The writer A.P. visited Okhtyrka. Chekhov, folklorist G.F. Sumtsov, artists V.O. Serov, K.O. Trutovsky, P.O. Levchenko.

Currently, there is a primary organization of writers in the city - the Zapev association, which unites local amateur writers. Well-known members of the association in the city and beyond its borders are Alexander Galkin, Ekaterina Kvitchasta, Nikolai Gliva. Several collections were published by the local poetess, editor of the newspaper "Flag of Victory" Nina Bagata.

History of Okhtyrka

The territory of the city has been inhabited for a long time. Near Akhtyrka, a settlement of the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Early Scythian times, several Severyansky villages and settlements of the VIII-X centuries were discovered. and the times of Kievan Rus.

The history of the city originates from a guard fort, built in 1641 at the direction of the Polish government at the Akhtyrsky settlement, on the right high bank of the Vorskla River, to protect the southern borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the attacks of the Crimean Tatars. Until the end of 1645 there were 50 households here. In 1647, according to the act of demarcation of borders, Okhtyrka went to Russia.

Given the important strategic importance of Akhtyrka, the Russian government stationed a garrison here and included it in the Belgorod defense line. In 1648, the Putivl governor sent 20 servicemen here. At the end of 1653 and at the beginning of 1654, several hundred migrants from Right Bank Ukraine arrived here, who, led by Ataman Ivanov, erected a new fortification on the left southern bank of the small river Okhtyrka. In 1677 the fort was rebuilt again after a fire.

The local government body was the town hall. In 1656, the Russian government sent a governor to Akhtyrka. In 1655-1658. The Okhtyrsky Sloboda Cossack Regiment was formed, the military-administrative center of which was Okhtyrka. Administratively, the city was subordinate to the Belgorod voivode. Through the years, the residents of Akhtyrka carried the memory of the Cossack regiment, calling individual parts of the city hundreds.

The region was quickly populated. In 1692, the Akhtyrsky regiment had 12 cities and 27 villages, in 1732 - 13 cities and towns, 63 villages and settlements, 22 hamlets and settlements. The Cossacks of the regiment took part in the peasant war under the leadership of Stepan Razin (1667-1671), in the war against Turkey during Chigirin’s campaigns (1677-1678), in the Azov campaigns (1695-1696), in the Northern War ( 1700-1721), Russian-Turkish War (1735-1739), Seven Years' War (1756-1763).

In 1765, the Cossack regiment was reorganized into a hussar regiment, and the Cossacks were converted into military ordinary people. Okhtyrka became a provincial and then a regional city in the 20s of the XX century. – district and regional center.

The Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment played an important role in the Patriotic War in 1812. It took part in the battles of Smolensk, Vyazma, Borodin, in 1813 in the blockade of Glogau, in the battle of Bautzen and on the Katzbach River. At the same time, the regiment was awarded badges on the shako with the inscription “For the distinction of August 14, 1813.” On October 5, the Akhtyr people took part in the Battle of Leipzig, and on December 20 they entered France and under the command of D.V. Davidov with battles near Brienne and Montmiral reached Paris. The third military award of the Akhtyrsky Regiment was the St. George Standards with the inscription: “In reward for the excellent courage and bravery shown in the successfully completed campaign of 1814.”

In April 1815, the Akhtyrchan residents were again destined to visit France, where they arrived as part of the army of Field Marshal G.B. Barclay de Tolly. This time they were participants in the famous review of August 29 at Vertue and opened the parade.

May trip to the northeast (part 7)

Okhtyrka turned out to be an endlessly “long” city, lying slightly to the side of the main road. Or rather, its outskirts looked less like a city and more like a thriving, prosperous village, built up with two-story, good-quality houses; however, it is still a city and a rather large one - about 50 thousand inhabitants, and its center, which we came to later, turned out to be quite urban. From afar we saw a red brick church with funny spherical domes, a lanky bell tower rising above the low buildings - this is the Church of St. Michael.

But there is still no turn off the highway. Finally we turned into the center, left the industrial area behind and entered the main street. An ordinary modern city, although clearly provincial, and, characteristically, not a single hussar!

The history of Akhtyrka began somewhat earlier than the creation of the famous hussar regiment, although the city clearly cannot be called ancient. The first mention occurs in 1641, when the local lands still belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the Peace of Polyanovsky, concluded between the Russians and the Poles in 1634, an agreement was signed on the delimitation of lands, which then took place during the years 1635-1648; according to this agreement, Okhtyrka went to Russia. After this, settlers flocked here. In the early 1650s, during the reign of Alexei Fedorovich Romanov, 456 Cossack families who fled from Right Bank Ukraine came to the banks of the Vorskla in the vicinity of Mount Akhtyr, many of them presumably came from Volyn. The Russians called all Ukrainian Cossacks “Cherkasy,” apparently after the name of the city of Cherkasy, near which the main Cossack troops of Bogdan Khmelnitsky were concentrated. They fled from the oppression of the Polish gentry. As the Cossacks wrote to the Volnovsky governor: “We came last year from distant cities because of the Dnieper... from ruin, from the godless Poles and from the Tatars... and came to the Volnovsky district for urban construction.” The Russian government, to which Slobozhanshchina belonged at that time, treated the “guests” quite favorably, and why not shelter the refugees - the lands were empty anyway. In addition, a number of settlements that quickly grew on the border of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth soon became a reliable defensive line against possible enemy invasions. The first Akhtyrsky Cossack regiment was formed in 1651-57, Ivan Gladky became the first colonel. The regiment included the Cossacks of Murafa, Bogodukhov, Kolontaev, Krasny Kut, Rublyovka, Kotelva and Kolomak. The Cossack regiment initially consisted of five to six hundred, and by the end of the 17th century there were already 9 of them.

Already in 1654, settlers built a wooden fortress.

Plan of the Akhtyrka fortress and surrounding settlement (1787)

As the Oleshnya voivode, who visited here, wrote to Moscow: “The Cherkassy people made a new Akhtyrsky fort in our reserved forest, on the Akhtyrka River... That new Akhtyrsky city and towers with all sorts of fortresses and then I ordered a hut and a necessary bell of the city, a ditch, hollows with service people and Akhtyrsky They’ve completely made Cherkassy.” In 1677, however, the wooden fortress burned to the ground, but it was quickly restored. The main stone construction in the city began only in 1787.

Since the creation of the regiment, from the second half of the 17th century, the Cossacks regularly performed military service. They took part in numerous campaigns against the Nogai and Crimean Tatars and Turks, and carried out border patrols. In 1700, the regiment, part of the troops of Field Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, took part in the campaign against the Swedes, and in 1757, during the Seven Years' War, took part in the battle of Gross-Jägersdorf against the Prussian army of Frederick II. During the Northern War in 1707, Tsar Peter the Great visited Okhtyrka.

St. Michael's Church

In peacetime, the inhabitants of Okhtyrka were engaged in hunting, fishing, distilling, brewing, beekeeping, saltpeter fishing and farming. At the beginning of the 18th century, the first tobacco factory in Russia appeared here, then several stud farms, glass and brick factories.

In addition to the Akhtyrsky regiment, four more Cossack regiments were formed in Slobozhanshchina: Kharkovsky, Sumsky, Ostrogozhsky and Izyumsky. At different times they were subordinate to various Russian departments: the Rank Order, the Ambassadorial Order, the Azov Provincial Chancellery, the Belgorod Provincial Chancellery of the Kyiv District, and the Military Collegium. In 1765, the Cossack service was liquidated, reorganizing the Kharkov Cossack regiment into the Uhlans, and the Akhtyrsky, Sumsky, Ostrogozhsky and Izyumsky into the hussars. Soon, the internal regimental self-government that had been retained for some time was also abolished.

Akhtyrsky Hussars

At that time, the Akhtyrsky regiment already numbered 13 hundred. Count Ivan Mikhailovich Podgorichani (173?-1779), a Serb by origin, was appointed the first commander of the Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment. The Hussar Regiment continued the valiant Cossack traditions. Already in 1768, the Akhtyrsky hussars successfully fought with the Turks at Larga, Kagul and Izmail. In 1774, as part of the troops of Major General Suvorov, the Akhtyrs took part in the siege of the Turkish fortresses Shumla, Rushchuk and Ochakov. In 1794, the hussars, together with the same Suvorov, suppressed the Polish uprising of Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

The Akhtyrsky hussars covered themselves with unforgettable glory during the Patriotic War of 1812, participating in all significant battles. The name of Denis Davydov, the famous war hero, poet, brave and daring partisan, is inextricably linked with the regiment. True, in those days he was still a lieutenant colonel and commanded a battalion, and the commander of the entire regiment was Prince Illarion Vasilyevich Vasilchikov.

I.V. Vasilchikov

D.V. Davydov

Davydov replaced him in this post only in 1814, however, since 1912 the regiment bore his name. More precisely, it was called the 12th Hussar Akhtyrsky Regiment of General Denis Davydov, Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Regiment (the latter became its august patron in 1901). There is one original legend associated with Davydov’s battalion. After the capture of Paris, the troops of the victorious Russian army prepared for the solemn imperial review. Denis Davydov found the condition of his hussars’ uniforms extremely deplorable; it was necessary to somehow get out of the situation. The regiment stood not far from the convent of the Capuchin women, who wore brown robes. Brown was also the traditional color of the uniforms of the Akhtyrka hussars. By order of Davydov, all stocks of cloth were removed from the monastery warehouse, and new uniforms were sewn in the shortest possible time.

Uniform of the Akhtyrsky hussar at the end of the 19th century

At the review, the Akhtyryans looked brilliant. The Emperor, who heard this interesting story, was very pleased with the brave appearance of Davydov’s hussars and ordered them to continue to wear a brown uniform. And from then on, during a merry feast, the hussars always raised the third toast “To the French women who sewed us uniforms from their robes!” The story is not very believable, but it is cute.

Several other famous names are associated with the regiment - the philosopher Chaadaev and the author of romances Alyabyev, who served in the regiment, as well as the Decembrist Artamon Muravyov, who was its commander in 1824. Distant relatives of the poet M.Yu. Lermontov, brothers Vladimir and Alexander Lermontov, also served in the regiment.
I already mentioned the Akhtyrsky Regiment in passing when I wrote about Medzhibozh. A small town in Volyn became the regiment’s last peaceful stopover in Russia.

Volyn. Akhtyrsky hussar demonstrates the skill of a rider

The regiment was transferred here in 1898, and the headquarters and officers' meeting were located on the territory of the ancient Polish fortress. From here in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, the hussars went to the front.
During the Civil War, many Akhtyrka hussars fought on the side of the “whites”, and after the defeat they immigrated. In a foreign land, the Akhtyr people did not lose touch with each other; they also maintained relations with Princess Olga. It was at her home in Toronto that they celebrated the regiment's 300th anniversary in 1951. In 1960, during the funeral of Grand Duchess Olga in Toronto, aged Akhtyrya hussars stood at her coffin; almost all the Akhtyrya hussars who were alive at that time took part in this sad event.

Akhtyrka is famous not only for the exploits of the valiant hussars. Almost simultaneously with the Cossacks, in 1654, 40 elders, led by abbot Father Ioaniky, came here from the devastated Lebedinsky monastery in Volyn. They founded a monastery, initially called Blagoveshchensky. At first, the monks lived in caves, and in 1671-76 the wooden Annunciation Church, a refectory and cells, also made of wood, were built. In 1720, as I already wrote, neighboring Trostyanets Peter the Great gave it to his confessor Timofey Nadarzhinsky. In 1724, the pious elder built here at his own expense a reliable stone fence of the monastery and the first stone church - the Church of the Holy Trinity. At the same time the monastery was renamed Holy Trinity. Nadarzhinsky was soon buried here. After the death of his father, his son built another church in the monastery - the Transfiguration of the Lord. In 1741, the Peter and Paul Church and new cells were built.

Akhtyrsky Holy Trinity Monastery in the image of the late 19th century

The monastery received an endless stream of pilgrims when the miraculous icon of the Mother of God was transferred here from the Akhtyrsky Intercession Cathedral. The monastery flourished. As Kharkov Archbishop Filaret Gumilevsky wrote in his book in 1852: “The Akhtyrka Trinity Monastery, after Svyatogorsk, is the first in the beauty of its location. 4 versts from Akhtyrka to the north stands a round mountain, like a tent, covered with greenery, like a century-old fresh oak. "Vorskla winds at its base and flows almost around it. On this rock a monastery, one of the oldest in Ukraine, was recently restored." The archbishop mentions the rebirth of the monastery, after its closure in 1787 by decree of Catherine the Second. Then the walls, cells and refectory were dismantled into bricks, and the cathedral was turned into an ordinary parish church for residents of the surrounding villages.

The solemn ceremony of the re-opening of the monastery in 1842 (lithograph of that time)

The monastery was closed again by the Bolsheviks in the 20s of the 20th century; most of the buildings were destroyed. Only one dilapidated bell tower has survived to this day. Quite recently, the third revival of the monastery began. New churches and cells have been built, services have resumed, but now we can only see the beautiful ancient buildings, once built with the generous donations of people who once influenced the destinies of Russia, in pictures.

Okhtyrka is also interesting for its architectural monuments. First of all, this is the beautiful Intercession Cathedral, located in the very center of the city.

Intercession Cathedral

Intercession Cathedral

Directly behind the cathedral lies... the city stadium, uglyly displaying its black lighting towers behind the graceful bell towers of the Baroque miracle. And well, nothing can spoil their beauty! The golden-domed cathedral is painted in a soft light green color and looks like a proud ship.

The history of its creation is very interesting.
Once upon a time there was a wooden Church of the Intercession not far from here. On July 15, 1739, the altar server of the church, Father Daniil (Daniil Vasilyevich Polyansky), went beyond the moat of the former fortress with a new scythe to mow the grass. Swinging his scythe a couple of times, he suddenly saw a wonderful radiance rising from the ground - it was an icon depicting the Mother of God. This is a rather rare face - the Mother of God with her head uncovered. The found icon was studied for 16 long years, and finally, by the decision of the Holy Synod and the decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, it was recognized as miraculous: it allegedly healed various ailments - tremors (malaria), obsession, “ache in the joints,” infertility and other unpleasant diseases . Elizabeth, who was reputed to be very devout, although not without sin, ordered the construction of the Intercession Cathedral, unusually huge for such a small village, at the site where the icon was found (80 meters from the small wooden Church of the Intercession).

Copy of the icon of Our Lady of Akhtar

The old church was sold to the congregation of the village of Dorogoshcha instead of the one that burned down. It is believed that the design of the cathedral belongs to Bartolomeo Rastrelli himself, the Empress’s favorite architect. According to other sources, the design of the cathedral belongs to Ukhtomsky. In short, it is difficult to say with certainty who exactly created the project; however, his brainchild turned out to be a success. As they say: “respect and respect for the author.” The construction of the cathedral was long and difficult, associated with many mistakes and misunderstandings. At first, the implementation of the project was entrusted to a local contractor Grigory Zaitsev, a mason originally from serfdom. The work was supposed to be supervised by the St. Petersburg architect Stepan Dudinsky, but he appeared in Akhtyrka on short visits. Construction began on April 25, 1753, on the day of the anniversary of the coronation of Elizabeth Petrovna. On this occasion, the empress's confidant Fyodor Kachenovsky arrived in Akhtyrka - it seems that the same former choirboy who received the gift of land in the Chernigov region, on which the Kachanovka estate later appeared. As you know, Elizaveta Petrovna had a weakness for male singing; Those with a pleasant voice reached unprecedented career heights with her.

The masons were hired locally, and the painters were sent from Moscow. The main building material, brick, was produced at a local factory, and sheet iron for the roof was brought from Tula. Unfortunately, the local contractor failed to complete the job. After several years of construction, it became clear that the figure of eight was not folded correctly and the building threatened to collapse at the first strong gust of wind. Dudinsky was urgently called, he gave the necessary instructions and left again; The cathedral began to be rebuilt. The alterations were again unsuccessful; a crack appeared in the vault, which was repaired with straw. Local builders were dispersed, the unlucky Zaitsev was sent to prison, 20 master masons and a new contractor were sent from Moscow, but they, too, could not cope with the work - the dome showed small cracks. Dudinsky was immediately summoned, who received strict instructions not to leave Akhtyrka until the main work was completed, and only after that the cathedral was completed. It took another 8 years, construction lasted a total of 15 years! 32,968 rubles were spent on it, which was a truly huge amount at that time. The iconostasis was carved from wood by local master Sysoy Zotovich Shalmatov; its painting was carried out by the artist Sablukov, and the engraving work was done by the Akhtyrchan resident Grigory Fedorovich Srebrenitsky; their creation has not survived to this day.
Until 1844, the cathedral housed the miraculous icon of the Akhtyrka Mother of God, then it was transferred to the Akhtyrsky Holy Trinity Monastery. In 1903, the icon was sent to St. Petersburg for restoration, but along the way it disappeared without a trace. Over the years of its presence in Akhtyrka, 20 copies were made from it, one of which is still in the cathedral. They say the original was recently discovered in Canada in a private collection.
Cathedral Square, where the Intercession Cathedral and its complex stands, is a noisy and lively place. On a fairly wide area there are several temples, which are the architectural dominant and symbol of the city. Next to the majestic cathedral rises a temple-bell tower - the Vvedenskaya Church. Its construction began in 1774, the project belongs to the Kharkov architect Pyotr Antonovich Yaroslavsky.

Vvedenskaya Church-bell tower

The bell tower also took a very long time to build – 10 years. It is a three-tier belfry, each “floor” of which is decorated with columns of a different type: 1st – Doric, 2nd – Ionic, 3rd – Corinthian. The dome is decorated with a 4-meter figure of St. Andrew the First-Called, the heavenly patron of the Akhtyrsky Regiment, made of wood covered with thin sheets of gilding. After the revolution, the sculpture was thrown to the ground, but it did not break. Believers secretly hid it, and in our time they sacredly returned it to its proper place.
Behind and to the left of the Intercession Cathedral, another church was built - the Exaltation of the Cross, or, as local residents call it from old memory, the Count Church.

Holy Cross (Count's) Church

This name is very suitable for a building in the classicist style, which exudes some kind of provincial landowner charm. Built at the expense of Countess Anna Rodionovna (Irodionovna) Chernysheva, a woman of amazing destiny, inextricably linked with Akhtyrka. She was born in the family of Major General Herodion Kontdatyevich von Wedel and Anastasia Bogdanovna Pasek, the eldest of two daughters. She lived a long life, occupied a very high position in society, was a respected maid of honor, and then a lady of state under Peter III, Catherine II, Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I, however, after the death of her husband, Count Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshev, she moved away from the court and lived on her provincial estates, mainly in Chechersk. There is a legend associated with the unprecedented rise of Anna Raionovna. In 1762, her mother, Anastasia Bogdanovna, traveling with both daughters, stopped in Akhtyrka. There she was overtaken by a serious illness. Waking up early in her youth, she told her confessor that the Mother of God had appeared to her in a dream and said that the sick woman would die in five days. She asked not to worry about her daughters, promising to take care of them. The omen came true - Anna Rodionovna’s mother died five days later. The orphaned girls were presented to the court, where they were granted maid of honor codes. Both later married successfully and lived long lives.
Anna Rodionovna was distinguished by her strong physique and tough temper. Her periods of whims and tyranny were replaced by “attacks” of exceptional piety and piety. There are many legends and anecdotes about her, recorded from the words of her loved ones. So, having learned that her chambermaid wanted to marry her loved one, the countess angrily forbade this and forcibly married her to the one whom she considered necessary. Another terrible act forced the Countess herself to bitterly repent all her life - she once ordered two offending yard girls to be locked in the attic in the bitter winter frost; and the poor things froze to death. And during the invasion of Napoleon, when the countess, who was already in very old age at that time, lived on her Smolensk estate, French soldiers wanted to rob her house. A tall and majestic, formidable lady of state with a blue ribbon on her chest came out to them and gave them such a scolding, threatening to get to Napoleon himself, that the unlucky thieves retreated in fear, muttering apologies. She repeatedly hosted the emperors themselves and members of their families, anonymously engaged in charity work and donated a lot of money to monasteries and churches. (Images of the Countess and archival photos of Akhtyrka churches can be viewed here: http://community.livejournal.com/arch_heritage/5827.html). She built the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross as a family church; she wanted to have several living rooms in it, where she spent a lot of time in prayer. After the revolution, the temple had a weighing workshop, a bus station (?!), and a “lavash” bakery. The church is currently under restoration.
Across the road from the ancient churches, another beautiful temple was built - the Transfiguration Church, which is a little over 100 years old. The author of the project is Vladimir Khristianovich Nemkin, already known to us, who erected the Ascension Church in Trostyanets. The church is very beautiful, although rather shabby.

Transfiguration Church

The attractive building in the Russian-Byzantine style is now being slowly restored. In Soviet times, the church premises housed a sports school and a vocational school gym. The cathedral's bell tower, built according to Nemkin's plans, was dismantled.
On the square near our car, we had a light snack and “admired” the preserved monument to the Akhtyrka Revolutionaries. The sculptural “masterpiece” depicts two persons (apparently of opposite sexes), not distinguished by the subtlety of their features.

“I told you, bastard, have a bite!”

One of the harsh creatures, which in some respects resembles a woman, with an evil face, is carrying the second one, which looks more like a man. Looks a lot like a family of lumpen people returning from a night of drinking. Apparently, the freaks are supposed to represent a mortally wounded revolutionary fighter, tenderly supported by his girlfriend in battle.
We also drove to another church - the brick one that we saw from the road. It bears the name of Archangel Michael and was erected at the end of the 19th century. While we were wandering around with cameras, a short, elderly, fat man, who had climbed out of a Kopek car and was carrying some boxes from the trunk to a nearby store, casually watched us.

St. Michael's Church

Okhtyrka in an old photo

We visited the main attractions that are marked in the guidebook. And in Akhtyrka there is a nice old church in the cemetery and a wooden church somewhere on the outskirts (you can see it here: http://community.livejournal.com/arch_heritage/5494.html). I hope to see them someday if I ever pass through this pleasant city again. Goodbye, Akhtyrka!

Information from Wikipedia, Okhtyrka City Portal,