Vinnytsia

Vinnytsia is located about 260 km (160 mi) southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, 429 km (267 mi) north-northwest of the Black Sea port city of Odessa, and 369 km (229 mi) east of Lviv.

It is the administrative center of the Vinnytsia Oblast (province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Vinnytsia Raion (district) within the oblast. The city itself is directly subordinated to the oblast.

The town has a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb), similar to northern Pennsylvania however with the precipitation of the Great Plains, summers are warm, hardly hot and humid and winters are cold.[3][4]

A long lasting warm summer with a sufficient quantity of moisture and a comparatively short winter is characteristic of Vinnytsia. The average temperature in January is −5.8 °C (21.6 °F) and 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) in July. The average annual precipitation is 638 mm (25 in).

Over the course of a year there are around 6–9 days when snowstorms occur, 37–60 days when mists occur during the cold period, and 3–5 days when thunderstorms with hail occur.

Historical affiliations

Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1363–1569

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569–1672
Ottoman Empire 1672–1699
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1699–1793
 Russian Empire 1793–1917
Russian Republic 1917
Various Ukrainian states 1917–1920
Soviet Ukraine 1920–1922
 Soviet Union 1922–1991 (Occupied by Nazi Germany between 1941-1944)

 Ukraine 1991–present

Vinnytsia has been an important trade and political center since the fourteenth century, when Fiodor Koriatowicz, the nephew of the Lithuanian Duke Algirdas, built a fortress (1363) against Tatar raiders on the banks of the Southern Bug. The original settlement was built and populated by Aleksander Hrehorovicz Jelec, hetman under Lithuanian Prince Švitrigaila. Aleksander Jelec built the fort, which he commanded as starosta afterwards.

In the 15th century, Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon granted Winnica Magdeburg city rights. In 1566, it became part of the Bracław Voivodeship. Between 1569 and 1793 the town was a part of Poland and in this period, for a short time between 1672 and 1699 was a part of the Ottoman Empire. During period of Polish rule, Winnica was a Polish royal city. On 18 March 1783, Antoni Protazy Potocki opened in Winnica the Trade Company Poland.

After Second Partition of Poland in 1793 the Russian Empire annexed the city and the region. Russia moved to expunge the Roman Catholic religion – Catholic churches in the city (including what is now the Transfiguration Cathedral) were converted to Russian Orthodox churches.

Vinnytsia on a 1910s postcard

According to the Russian census of 1897, Vinnytsia with a population of 30,563 was the third largest city of Podolia after Kamianets-Podilskyi and Uman.

Vinnytsia was occupied by German troops on 19 July 1941 during World War II. In 1943, the Germans exhumed 9,439 bodies, mostly male and ethnically Ukrainian, from mass graves to discredit Soviet Communist government claims that men had been sent to prison, and not executed. The majority of the executions were believed to have happened during the Stalinist Great Purge between 1937–1938 in the Vinnytsia massacre.

Adolf Hitler sited his eastern headquarters, Führerhauptquartier Werwolf or Wehrwolf, at the Wehrmacht headquarters[7] near the town; the complex was built in 1941-1942 by Russian prisoners of war; many of them were subsequently killed.[8] Hitler's accommodation consisted of a log cabin built around a private courtyard with its own concrete bunker[9] but the complex included about 20 other log buildings, a power generating station, gardens, wells, three bunkers, a swimming pool, and wire; it was surrounded by defensive positions.[10] Hitler spent a number of weeks at Wehrwolf in 1942 and early 1943.[11] The few remains of the Wehrwolf site (described by one report as a "pile of concrete", because it was destroyed by the Nazis in 1944,)[12] can be visited but plans to create a full-fledged museum had not come to fruition as of August 2018.[13][14]

Nazi atrocities were committed in and near Vinnytsia by Einsatzgruppe C. Estimates of the number of victims often run as high as 28,000 although historian Oliver Rathkolb states that 35,000 Jews were deported from the Vinnytsia region and most of those later died.[7]

The Last Jew in Vinnitsa

In 1942 a large part of the Jewish quarter of Yerusalimka was destroyed by Germans. One infamous photo, The Last Jew of Vinnytsia, shows a member of Einsatzgruppe D about to execute a Jewish man kneeling before a mass grave.[15] The text The Last Jew of Vinnytsia was written on the back of the photograph, which was found in a photo album belonging to a German soldier. It was captured by the Red Army on 20 March 1944.

Since the end of World War II, Vinnytsia has been the home for major Soviet Air Forces base, including an airfield, a hospital, arsenals, and other military installations. The headquarters of the 43rd Rocket Army of the Strategic Rocket Forces was stationed in Vinnytsia from 1960 to the early 1990s.[16] The 2nd Independent Heavy Bomber Aviation Corps, which later became 24th Air Army, was also stationed in Vinnytsia from 1960 to 1992. The Ukrainian Air Force Command has been based in Vinnytsia since 1992.

Havryshivka Vinnytsia International Airport (IATA: VIN, ICAO: UKWW) is situated near Vinnytsia.

There is a railway station in Vinnytsia, which is a part of 'South-Western Railway'. In 2013 it was named among 10 biggest railway stations in Ukraine[27] Current building of Vinnytsia railway station was built in 1952 and considered to be the 4th railway building in Vinnytsia (previous three were destroyed in different years). Vinnytsia is an important transport point, both for internal and external railway connection. Most of the international trains, which cross through Ukraine, have a stop in Vinnytsia. For example, trains from Moscow and Saint Petersburg (Russia), Minsk (Belarus), Sofia (Bulgaria), Chisinau (Moldova), Bratislava (Slovakia), Belgrade (Serbia), Budapest (Hungary) transit through Vinnytsia.[27] In internal railiway connection, Vinnytsia is also an important transport point for trains, heading to Western Ukraine (Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi) and to South (Odessa), as well as to Central Ukraine (Kiev).

Vinnytsia railway station, Ukraine

The tram is the most popular public transport in Vinnytsia. There are six tram routes in Vinnytsia (1,2,3,4,5,6).[28]

There are a lot of trams in Vinnytsia. The newest ones (blue trams) are from Switzerland.

Old diesel locomotive TEM2M-063 in Vinnytsia railway station, Ukraine

There are the central bus station[29] and the Western bus station in Vinnytsia.[30][31]

Unofficial transit map of Vinnytsia featuring tram, trolleybus, bus and minibus (marshrutka) routes

Modern bus at Western bus station in Vinnytsia

Vinnytsia is twinned with:[32]