Kharkiv

Settlers fleeing the wars of right-bank Ukraine fortified an abandoned site on the Lopan and Kharkiv rivers in 1654, and the new fortress, with just over 1,000 people, half of them Cossacks, became the centre of Sloboda Ukraine. Its walls enclosed what are now Constitution Square and the streets around the cathedrals. The university, founded through the efforts of Vasyl Karazin in 1804, made the city a centre of scholarship, and by the late 19th century Kharkiv had become a major commercial and industrial city of the Russian Empire.

From December 1919 to January 1934 Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine. The era produced Derzhprom, the first Soviet skyscraper, and a flowering of Ukrainian culture, before the writers of what became known as the Executed Renaissance were purged and Stalin moved the capital to Kyiv. German forces captured the city in October 1941; it was retaken in February 1943 and lost again in March, and by its liberation in August 1943 the population had fallen below 200,000. Between December 1941 and January 1942 an estimated 15,000 Jews were murdered at Drobytsky Yar.

After 1991 the city's heavy industries kept their ties to the former Soviet market and their dependence on Russian oil and gas, and pro-Russian unrest broke out in 2014. In February 2022 Russian forces reached the outskirts but were pushed back towards the border after weeks of fighting, and Kharkiv was named a Hero City of Ukraine. A renewed advance was halted in May 2024, and attacks have continued since; in February 2026 the mayor reported that a quarter of the city had been destroyed.

Kharkiv is an intellectual city. The Karazin university, the polytechnic, the aviation institute and dozens of other institutions made it a student city, and its literary tradition runs from the writers of the 1920s to living writers such as the poet and novelist Serhiy Zhadan, Iryna Yevsa and the fantasy authors who write as Henry Lion Oldie. A literary museum commemorates the writers of the Executed Renaissance. Painters including Ilya Repin, Zinaida Serebryakova and Vasyl Yermilov worked here, and the city has about 20 museums and more than ten theatres.

Architecture is a source of pride: Art Nouveau mansions on the central streets, the constructivist Derzhprom, the railway post office and the railway workers' palace of culture, and the bell towers of the Annunciation and Dormition cathedrals. Football was the most popular sport, with Metalist clubs at the Metalist Stadium, which hosted matches at Euro 2012, and Shakhtar Donetsk playing there from 2017 after leaving the Donbas.

The war has reshaped culture. At least one theatre has performed underground, schools have moved below ground, and the park named after Maxim Gorky was renamed the Central Park in 2023. The city's Jewish community, 62,800 strong in 1970, is served by the old Choral Synagogue.

About 1.43 million people lived in Kharkiv in 2023, making it the second-largest city in Ukraine after Kyiv; before the full-scale invasion its estimated population was about 1.42 million. It is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and Kharkiv Raion, and is divided into nine city districts.

The economy grew on heavy industry — turbines from Turboatom, electrical machinery, tractors and defence plants — and later on an export-oriented IT sector selling mainly to North America and Europe. The Barabashovo market, one of the largest in Europe, is run in large part by the city's Vietnamese community. Since 2022 the Kharkiv Tractor Plant and many other workplaces have been damaged, and energy infrastructure is in a constant state of repair.

Life has adapted to constant danger. The metro, which sheltered residents in the first months of the invasion, again carries commuters; the first underground school opened in 2024, and much of public life has moved underground. Residents live with frequent alerts and an energy system in constant repair.

Kharkiv eats the food of eastern and central Ukraine. Red borscht, made with beets, cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and dill, is the everyday soup, served with sour cream and often with pampushky, small buns seasoned with garlic sauce. Varenyky, dumplings of thin dough most often filled with potato, holubtsi, cabbage rolls, and deruny, potato pancakes with sour cream, are on the tables of canteens and homes alike.

Salo, cured pork fat, kovbasa sausage and kholodets, a meat aspic, are festive standbys, and syrnyky, fried quark fritters served with sour cream, jam or honey, are a favourite. In summer, kholodnyk, a cold beet soup blended with soured milk or kefir and served with a hard-boiled egg, replaces hot borscht for many.

The city's markets supply much of what is cooked at home: the Blahovishchenskyi or Central market, the Sumskyi and Kinnyi markets, and the vast Barabashovo market. Kvass, the fermented drink known since Kyivan Rus, compotes and horilka, the Ukrainian spirit, are the traditional drinks.