Zaporizhzhia Territorial Community

Zaporizhzhia region
Population&Priorities
  • Type: Urban
  • Population: 710,052

People of the community

Anatolii Kurtiev is the acting chairman of the Zaporizhzhia City Council.After the start of the full-scale invasion, many organizations temporarily stopped their activities or changed their focus to meet the needs of wartime. Some helped and are helping the military, some helped internally displaced persons, some built anti-tank defenses of the city or engaged in several fields of work at the same time.

Anatolii Kurtiev
Khortytsia Freedom Festival
Local life

History

People left their first traces on the territory of the future city of Zaporizhzhia 4 thousand years BC. Since those times, there have been many different tribes, peoples, cultures and civilizations on the banks of the Dnipro.

For many thousands of years, life was concentrated mainly on the island of Khortytsia, the largest river island in Ukraine. It was here that the tribes of the Bronze Age left unique buildings – sanctuaries-observatories, and the Scythian tribes left mysterious mounds and unique art in the animal style.

One of the brightest periods in the history of the area of the city of Zaporizhzhia was the Cossack era. In 1553, on the small island of Mala Khortytsia, Prince Dmytro “Baida” Vyshnevetskyi built a fortress, which historians consider the prototype of Zaporozhian Sich. Despite the fact that the fortress existed for only four years, its significance for the history of the whole of Ukraine was extreme. It became a real symbol of the uncompromising struggle of Ukrainians for their freedom, honor and dignity.The Mennonites left behind a huge legacy – powerful enterprises and unique architecture, which attracts many tourists to Zaporizhzhia today.During the last centuries, the banks of the Dnipro around Khortytsia were overgrown with neighborhoods; they acquired the first industrial enterprises and roads, railway tracks, water supply, sewage and power lines. And in 1932, the first electric energy went through these wires from then Europe’s largest hydroelectric power plant – Dniproges. Next to the energy giant, the construction of a powerful industrial complex and a modernist city of the future began.

The Revolution of Dignity became a key event in the history of the city and the country in recent years. In 2013-2014, about 10,000 demonstrators gathered in Zaporizhzhia Maidans. In 2014, the Russian-Ukrainian war began, which significantly affected the city and its residents.

Architecture of Khortytsia Island, Cossack times
Valman Mennonite Castle
Theater Square in old Oleksandrivsk/

Development Strategy

The existing strategy of the city lost its relevance due to the war and other factors.

Today, the public and the municipality of the city want to create a new modern strategy for today’s Zaporizhzhia, which lives the life of a regional center close to hostilities and the front line, which is located near the occupied ZNPP. However, it still wants to develop and become a comfortable city that has potential; strong Zaporizhzhia, which, despite the nightly shelling, conducts a workshop on tactical urbanism, because all representatives of the authorities understand why it is important not to forget about the architectural component and develop it, especially at such a time, to attract internally displaced persons who made a conscious choice to stay in Zaporizhzhia and save a city with great potential.

Soldiers come to the community from shelling and heavy fighting every day to touch peaceful life at least a little. 

The city of Zaporizhzhia needs help and support in regulating the city’s work processes in new existing current conditions. 

Sources

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