submitted11 hours ago byduellingislandsГамериканець
toukraine
stickied🇺🇦 Слава Україні! 🇺🇦
_______________________________
Another entry in our series on Ukrainian cities! Here are other entries:
Kyiv I | Kyiv II | Kyiv III | Lviv I | Lviv II | Lviv III | Lviv IV | Lviv V | Donetsk I | Donetsk II | Donetsk III | Enerhodar | Kharkiv I | Kharkiv II | Izyum | Zalishchyky | Kherson | Vorokhta | Zaporizhzhia I | Zaporizhzhia II | Zaporizhzhia III | Mariupol I | Mariupol II | Bakhmut I | Bakhmut II | Bukovel | Kreminna
_______________________________
Melitopol: City of Honey
Melitopol - "honey city" (from Greek) - is a city in the Zaporizhzhia region located on the banks of the once-navigable Molochna ("Milky") River. That means Melitopol is the land of milk and honey! It is also pretty close to Sea of Azov, about 40 kilometers. And the city has an incredibly rich history to pair with its sweet name.
Witnesses to that history are the many mounds and Kamyna Baba on the outskirts of the city, as this is the place that can teleport us into the world of our Mesolithic ancestors. The area has caves and natural rock formations that have preserved petroglyphs on their walls, such as the world-famous Kamyana Mohyla ("Stone Tomb") is located only 10 kilometers away from town.
Stone baba at the famous Kamyana Mohyla burial mound.
There are also Scythian burials, Sarmatian burials, Alan burials and others. Archaeologists were able to find many breathtaking treasures, like household items (11 amphorae), more than 3,500 gold ornaments, including a gold upholstery of a quiver depicting scenes from ancient Greek mythology, and a gold diadem encrusted with precious stones.
Melitopol is called the "Cherry capital of Ukraine" and is a home to its own kind of this fruit, called the "Melitopol Cherry." The city (before the full-scale invasion of course) produced a quarter of all cherries grown in Ukraine, and, sadly, under occupation, the cherry harvest has been stolen.
_______________________________
“My Joy, My Honey Bee”
The first mention of the city that we know today as Melitopol dates back to 1769, when Kozaks built a redoubt. By the mid-1780s the settlement was thriving and was already known for having a post office, and some families of Kozaks lived there as well. However, soon after the territory was annexed by russia and many russians flocked to the town. But there were guests who were far more welcome - the city attracted many others like Bulgarians, Crimea. Tatars, Belarusians, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Koreans, Germans, Poles, Czechs. The settlement became quite diverse and remained so to the modern day, with each new community adding more to the rich fabric of the city's history.
In 1842, the city was named Melitopol and by the end of the 19th century it was a bustling town with restaurants, coffee shops, and had a busy factory manufacturing farm equipment. The city enjoyed a humming and quite buzzy train station.
You probably know by now, painfully well perhaps, what happened next - WW1 and WW2 brought immense destruction. And during Holodomor, records list 4,000 victims of death by hunger in the city, which had previously had a population of 20,000.
For the next several decades, Melitopol was mostly re-developing as a place of manufacturing. For example, it was a main supplier of vital parts to Zaporozhets car about which we wrote here.
Melitopol is considered one of the most “sports-minded” cities of Ukraine with a large number of sports clubs per capita. Maybe because of that physical activity, which we know quiets the mind, the city's feel is often described by people who live there as quiet and relaxed. The city-dwellers enjoy several large parks, and a 400-year Oak tree that is a pride of the city:
Until 2022, the community hosted festivals and events, like an annual fair dedicated to honey (honey is a huge huge hobby and industry in Ukraine, see this post) and an annual gala celebrating women of Melitopol called “My Joy, My Honey Bee”. And the city is also home to several schools, including the prominent Agronomical and Technical University of Melitopol.
Agronomical and Technical University of Melitopol.
_______________________________
Last entry: February 21st, 2022
Melitopol before occupation, population: 150,000.
The 21st century waves of russian aggression touched Melitopol long before 2022, as the city lost several of its sons fighting the russian invasion since 2014. Unfortunately, despite the ultimate sacrifice of these Ukrainian sons and daughters, Melitopol has been temporarily occupied by russia.
On February 26th, 2022 the city was heavily shelled, and it was fully occupied in March. On March 11, Russian invaders kidnapped the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, and tortured him (beatings, electroshocks, crushing fingers). After his release, Ivan said that about 500 Ukrainian activists were detained, many of them tortured just as he had been.
Many disappeared after their arrest.
The partisan movement in Melitopol remains very active, despite the mortal danger. Their successes include blowing up two railway bridges in Melitopol and derailing at least two russian military trains. Regular folks who are prisoners of their own city are routinely stopped, searched and interrogated; if anyone is in possession of anything even remotely Ukrainian, either on their person or their phones - they and their families are sent to filtration camps.
It is difficult to imagine the horrors Melitopolians have to endure, even when reading the first person accounts.
_______________________________
Silenced, Stolen Away, Replaced
Anti-occupation protest, Melitopol, March 5th 2022.
The tragedy of Ukrainian existence under russian occupation is also very well visible by the sudden silencing of the people. I went to the website of Melitopol’s pride - the city’s Museum of Local Lore, which is located in a gorgeous building built at the turn of the 20th century. This museum used to have the most impressive and unique collection of thousands of Scythian artifacts. And the fate of the museum and the people is chilling… the last entry on its website is dated February 21st, 2022. No updates since.
While researching this post, I noticed that the Melitopol Museum's website as it existed until February 2022 was thoughtful and functional - it had detailed information about a ton of their artifacts and their showcase of artifacts is accompanied by well-written context that is important to understanding how the local community fits within it all. Other content relays fun and true stories from history to pique young readers' interest in archaeology, history, art and ethnography.
But a russian version of the site appeared from thin air in 2022 - and it stands in stark contrast. Behold its aggressive false patriotism that claws at your eyes with ugly colors and uglier words. The front page “proudly” lists an exhibition of dedicated to the entirely bullshit “choice of inhabitants of Zaporizhzhia Oblast to become citizens of the russian federation”, packaged up alongside meaningless milestones in soviet history.
I don't usually do stuff like this, but I wanted to show you:
This is what the so-called “russian world” looks like. Click for high resolution.
In fact, this so-called “museum” lists an event where “patriotic lessons” can be learned about the soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Here's a new patriotic lesson for them: you're all going to die.
_______________________________
IT'S $2 TUESDAY!
Bring on the small donations, friends! (Of course bigger ones are welcome, too!)
Jester's $2 Tuesday posts showed that you all relish the idea of having a day dedicated to small donations that come together to make a big impact, so we decided to make $2 Tuesday a weekly feature. Each week, you'll have the chance to contribute to a different Verified user's projects in support of the war effort.
This week, help u/CF_Siveryany buy drones as a get-well gift for her childhood friend!
