Kherson (Ukrainian and Russian: Херсон) is a city in southern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kherson Oblast (province), and is designated as its own separate raion (district) within the oblast. Kherson is an important port on the Black Sea and Dnieper River, and the home of a major ship-building industry.
The current estimated population is 329,000 (as of 2007).
Until 1774, the region belonged to the Crimean Khanate. Kherson was founded in 1778 by Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin, on the orders of Catherine the Great. The city was built on the site of a small fortress called Aleksandr-Shants. The name Kherson is a contraction of Chersonesos, an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2500 years ago in the southwestern part of Crimea.
The last tarpan was caught near Kherson in 1866.
As of Ukrainian National Census (2001), the ethnic groups living within Kherson are:
- Ukrainians - 76.6%
- Russians - 20.0%
- Other - 3.4%
Population
Year Population
1790 24,000
1926 58,000
1939 97,000
1959 158,000
1981 361,000
2004 354,000
2007 329.000
There are three city raions. Two of them still carry mark of a colonial city of Russia.
- Dnipro Raion, named after Dnieper river.
- Komsomol Raion, named after the Russian Communist youth organization, Komsomol.
- Suvorov Raion, named after the Russian General Suvorov.
- Kherson state agrarian university
- Kherson state university
- Kherson national technical university
- Kherson TV Tower — is a famous construction located in the city.
- Spaskiy Cathedral (1781)
- Adziogol Lighthouse, hyperboloid structure designed by V.G.Shukhov, 1911
- Sergei Bondarchuk, Soviet, Ukrainian-born film director, screenwriter, and actor.
- Evgeny Kucherevsky, Ukrainian football coach of Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (died 2006)
- Larissa Latynina, a Soviet gymnast who was the first female athlete to win nine Olympic gold medals
- Tatiana Lysenko, a Soviet and Ukrainian gymnast who won the gold medal on the balance beam at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
- Moshe Sharett, the second Prime Minister of Israel (1953-1955)
- Sergei Stanishev, Ex-Prime Minister of Bulgaria
- Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, a Romanian politician, writer, and jurist
- John Howard (died in Kherson in 1790)
- Salomon Rosenblum, later known as Lieutenant Sidney Reilly, a secret agent and international adventurer and playboy who was at one time employed by the British Secret Intelligence Service. He is reputed to be the real inspiration for Ian Fleming's spy character, James Bond.
- Leon Trotsky, Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist.
- Jefim (Jef) Golyscheff (1897-1970) Painter and composer associated with the Dada movement in Berlin..
- Nikolai Grinko, Ukrainian Soviet-era film actor
- Vladimir Nikolaevich Kravchenko (b.07.07.1947,Kherson city), Ukrainian painter. Мистецтво України, 1997 — С. 331.
- Abram Petrovich Gannibal
- Alexander Suvorov, founder of the city
- Grigory Potyomkin, founder of the city
