Southern Ukraine is a region of Ukraine adjacent to the Black Sea.
Kherson oblast
Nikolaev oblast
Odessa oblast
Odessa is the administrative center of the Odessa
region, a multinational resort and port city.
Kherson is the
administrative center of the Kherson region.
Nikolaev is the
administrative center of the Nikolaev region.
Belgorod-Dnestrovsky is
a large city, known for its well-preserved fortress.
Askania-Nova - biosphere steppe reserve
Vilkovo - "Ukrainian
Venice", a major center of the Danube Old Believers.
Iron Port is a
seaside resort.
Zatoka is a popular seaside resort.
Skadovsk -
seaside resort
This region primarily corresponds to the former Kherson, Taurida, and
most of Yekaterinoslav governorates, which stretched across the northern
Black Sea coast after the Russo-Ottoman wars of 1768–74 and 1787–92.
Until the 18th century, the territory was dominated by the Ukrainian
Cossack community, better known as the Zaporozhian Sich, and the kingdom
of the Crimean Khanate with its Nogai henchmen, which was an allied
state of the larger Ottoman Empire.
The invasion of
Muscovy (today's Russia) into the region began after the 16th century
after its expansion along the Volga after the Muscovite-Kazan wars and
the conquest of Astrakhan. Further expansion continued with armed
clashes between Moscow and Lithuania.
With the beginning of the
Khmelnitsky uprising within the framework of the Commonwealth in the
middle of the 17th century, Muscovy, under the pretext of protecting
Eastern Orthodoxy, further expanded its influence to the south over the
Cossack communities of the Black Sea steppes (lower Don and lower
Dnieper) and the possessions of the Crimean khans.
At the end of
the 17th century, Bishop Feofan Prokopovich, a native of Kiev, put
forward the idea of a common Russian nation, referring to the ancient
Russian state, whose founder Vladimir the Great was baptized and
converted to Christianity of the Byzantine rite (today known as Eastern
Orthodoxy). in Chersonese Tauride (now in Sevastopol).
In 1686,
an agreement on eternal peace was signed between Muscovy and the
Commonwealth, according to which Muscovy took control of the Left-Bank
Ukraine, the Zaporozhian Sich and Kyiv with the outskirts.
In the
18th century, the Ukrainian line was built, and the lands of the
previously destroyed Zaporozhian Sich were settled by Serbs, creating
the territories of New Serbia and Slavic Serbia.
At the end of
the 18th century, after the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire
and the Treaty of Yassy (Ochakov region, the territory of today's Odessa
and Nikolaev regions), the Russian Empire took full control of the
northern coast of the Black Sea.
For most residents of rural areas, as well as the city of Kherson, the native language is the steppe dialect of Ukrainian. The cities of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi are mainly Russian-speaking. In southern Bessarabia, you can most often meet those who speak Bulgarian, Gagauz and Romanian.
The nature of Southern Ukraine is characterized by a monotonous, flat
landscape, a kind of steppe vegetation and fauna.
The largest
part of southern Ukraine is occupied by the Black Sea lowland, which in
the east passes into the narrow Azov lowland. The Black Sea lowland is
an accumulation plain up to 150 m high, slightly dissected by valleys,
ravines, gullies and ravines. The river network in southern Ukraine is
not dense, but powerful rivers cross it: the Danube, the Dniester, the
Southern Bug with the Ingul, the Dnieper with the Ingulets, Orel, Samara
and other tributaries, and the Don; a number of small rivers flow to the
Black (Kogilnik, Bolshoi and Maly Kuyalnik, Tiligul, etc.) and Azov
(Salgir, Molochnaya, Obitochnaya, Berda, Kalmius, Mius, etc.) seas; most
of them flow into lakes or estuaries.
The distribution of soils
and vegetation in Southern Ukraine shows zoning, depending on humidity;
in the northern, most humid zone, ordinary medium-humus chernozems are
common, and then low-humus chernozems (6–8% humus); in the southern
Steppe, southern chernozems (4–6% humus), which over the sea pass into
dark chestnut and chestnut soils (2, 5– 3% humus) in combination with
solonchaks. Alluvial peat-meadow soils, sometimes chernozem on sands,
are common in river valleys.