Kharkiv

Kharkiv (Ukrainian: Харків, also spelt Kharkov, Russian: Харьков), is the second largest city in Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Kharkiv Oblast (province) and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion (district), though administratively it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance and does not belong to the raion.
On March 6, 2022, Kharkiv was awarded the honorary title 'Hero City of Ukraine'.
The city is located in the northeast of the country.
Population: 1,450,082 (2018).


Kharkiv was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew to be a major center of Ukrainian industry, trade and culture in the Russian Empire.

Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934, after that the capital relocated to Kyiv.

The city is one of the main industrial, cultural and educational centers of Ukraine. Its industry specializes mostly in arms production and machinery.
There are hundreds of industrial companies in the city.
Among them are world famous giants like the Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory, leaders in tank production since the 1930s; Hartron (aerospace and nuclear electronics); and the Turboatom turbines producer.

There is also an underground rapid-transit system (metro) with about 35 km of track and 28 stations. A well-known landmark of Kharkiv is the Freedom Square (Maidan Svobody), which is currently the third largest city square in Europe, and the 7th largest square in the world.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kharkiv_(2022)

During the three months of the invasion from February 24 to May 23, 2022, the Russian army destroyed 3,482 houses of various forms of ownership in Kharkiv:
– 2,482 were apartment buildings,
– 1,000 were houses of housing cooperatives and private households.
492 residential buildings are not subject to restoration.

In addition, 490 administrative buildings were damaged, including 109 schools, 98 kindergartens, 55 medical institutions, 46 cultural institutions, 14 higher education institutions, 5 churches and others.
www.city.kharkov.ua/uk/news/u-kharkovi-zruynovano-blizk... (in Ukrainian)