Seven wonders of ukraine

T: Our young and promising leaders will grow older soon and they’ll have to be able to discuss various adult problems. Besides, they’ll have to present our state on the international scale as in 2012 we are going to host the European Football Championship known as Euro 2012.

They’ll have to describe the unique and unforgettable sights and landmarks of Ukraine. That’s why our students have done a project on the Seven Wonders of Ukraine in the form of an oral journal -

Presenter: Earlier this year, a special committee, headed by Mykola Tomenko launched an ambitious project of finding out which natural and man-made landmarks in this country could be classified as Seven Wonders of Ukraine.

The project has gained a wide popular and political support. Many bids for ‘wonders’ were submitted, and after a thorough analysis the final decision has been reached. They are real treasures of our history and culture. Welcome to our interactive presentation of the Seven Wonders of Ukraine!

SI: This spring we visited and explored the National Historical and Architectural Reserve Kam’yanets’ together with our teachers and made a photo project on this really wonderful place.

According to the medieval chronicles, the fortress in Kam’yanets’-Podil’s’kyi was built in the second half of the 14th century by the Lithuanian prince Koryatovych. Kam’yanets’-Podil’s’kyi is a town that has preserved the spirit of the Middle Ages. Its impressive fortress is a landmark in the history of construction of fortified places and strongholds. The town’s scenic beauty is enhanced by the River Smotrych.

S2: It seems to me that the Kyiv-Pechers’k Lavra Monastery is a spiritual and cultural treasury of the Ukrainian people. The monastery was founded in the 11th century by monks Antoniy and Feodosiy who established their cells in the caves (in Ukrainian: pechery — hence the name Pechers’k).

The monastery soon grew to be a major monastic community with churches, refectories, buildings of monk cells occupying a large territory. Lavra is a title which was awarded only to very large and important monasteries. The Pechers’k Lavra Monastery in Kyiv was a bulwark of Christianity and an important cultural centre.

S3: The beautifully landscaped Park Sofiyivka in the town of Uman’ was laid out in 1796 by the Polish noble Stanislaw Pototski and named after his wife, Sofiya, of Greek descent, to whom he eventually gave the park as a present.

Sofiya was known for her exceptional beauty, and the park turned out to be no less beautiful. Sofiya herself was said to take part in designing some sections of the park — it was she who introduced ancient Greek and Roman mythological motifs. At present, the park occupies a territory of almost 155 hectares (one hectare equals 2.5 acres).

S4: St Sophia’s Cathedral was built in 1037 during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise to commemorate the victory over the Pechenegs and to glorify Christianity. The Cathedral of Holy Sophia (Sophia — God’s Wisdom) was. built in the first half of the 11th century when Kyiv and its lands were ruled by Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise, the son of Volodymyr the Great who had brought Christianity to Kyivan Rus’-Ukraine.

The magnificence of the new church outshone any other church in Kyivan Rus’ and in many other Christian countries of Europe. Its only rival in architectural magnificence was Holy Sophia in Constantinople. The mosaics and frescoes make the interior of the church a visual feast.

S5: The Khotyn fortress is one of the seven wonders of Ukraine. We have also explored this part of our country and made a project about it. It is situated in the town of Khotyn (Chernivtsi region). It lies on the right bank of the Dniester. This fortress was built in the 13th century. At first it was a ground mound with wooden walls and defences. The main task of the fortress was to defend the settlement of Khotyn and the Dniester River crossing.

The fortress was destroyed and rebuilt many times. The Khotyn fortress is a victim of different historic events. It is interesting to know that many episodes of the films “Three Musketeers”, “The Legend of the Heroic Knight Ivanhoe”, “The Prisoner of the Castle If’ were shot in the Khotyn fortress.

S6: When speaking about historic places of Ukraine we can’t but mention Chersonesus in the Crimea. The city of Chersonesus is located three miles west of modem Sevastopol’, Ukraine. The city, of which now we can see only imposing ruins, was founded by Greeks in the 6th century BC. Prosperous from the 4th century BC, it maintained a free constitution of the G reek type and fought for its continued independence against the Scythians of southern Ukraine, against the native Tauri of the southern Crimea, and against the kings of Bosporus in the west.

It traded with Athens and other ancient Greek cities. In the Christian era, it. was an important centre of Christianity and thus influenced the Kyivan Grand Prince Volodyrnyr decision to adopt Christianity Uninhabited since the 14th century, the site of the city contains the remains of the ancient buildings and temples and of churches of Byzantine times.

S7: Now I invite you to make a short tour of the Island of Khortytsia that is in front of you. Khortytsia Island is the largest island in the Dnipro River. It is 12 km long and 2.5 km wide. The island was located on the route “from Varangians to the Greeks”. This plot of land is closely related to almost all the periods of the development of civilisation in Eastern Europe during more than 5 hundred years.

Khortytsia was visited by prominent Ukrainian and Russian people: Taras Shevchenko, Mykola Lysenko, Illia Repin. The history of the island is on the display in the History Museum opened on Khortytsia in October of 1983. The history is only one aspect, making this island unique.

The other feature is the nature of the island. Only in recent decades it has become known that practically all the landscape zones of Ukraine are presented here: forest-steppe, steppe, forest, hills, meadows and flooded woods. This wonderful island has become one of the best places of recreation.

Presenter: All these features made it possible to declare Khortytsia a state historic and cultural reserve. And it is the main wonder of Ukraine as it took the first place in the voting for the ‘Wonders of Ukraine’ in 2007.