Hola Prystan – literally meaning
barren pier – was founded in 1709 by
Zaporizhian Cossacks of
Oleshky Sich as
Holyi Pereviz ('barren river crossing'), but has been known by its current name since 1785. Here, in the early 18th century, the Cossacks built boats and went fishing in the
Dnipro estuary, and transported salt from the Prohnoyi salt mines. The conquest of the lands by the
Russian Empire in the war with the
Ottoman Porte took place in 1774-1783.
Jews apparently began to settle in the town at the beginning of the 19th century and by 1897, they numbered 667, or 11 percent of the total population. At the turn of the century, many of the businesses in the town were owned by Jews. In 1905, there was a
pogrom in which 2 Jewish shops were destroyed. The pogrom was stopped not by the authorities but by the peasants of Hola Prystan, who "with clubs in their hands met the hooligans of other villages eager for a tidbit, and when those started smashing the stores, they fought them". Under the
Soviets, the Jewish population of Hola Prystan fell, mainly due to migration to larger cities in search of jobs and education opportunities. In 1939, the town's 276 Jews comprised 3.6 percent of the total population. Hola Prystan was occupied by
Nazi Germany on September 13, 1941, and on October 12 the same year, the resident Jews were shot outside the town. It was liberated by the
Red Army on November 4, 1943. On 1 August 1997, a Project R1415 (NATO code: Flamingo class)
Ukrainian patrol boat was named after the town. Hola Prystan was granted the status of regional town on May 17, 2013.
Russo-Ukrainian War Hola Prystan was captured by
Russian ground forces on the first day of the
Russian Invasion of Ukraine, the second phase of the escalating
Russo-Ukrainian War, when they crossed the nearby border of the already Russian-occupied
Crimean peninsula. On March 8, 2022, a few thousand people protested the occupation. The town was shelled by
Ukrainian forces during the war. In 2023, Russian forces opened fire with multiple launch rocket systems in Hola Prystan and Kherson, damaging residential houses and injuring civilians. Due to the
destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, Hola Prystan was flooded. According to Svitlana Linnyk, the head of Hola Prystan city military administration, around 80-85% of the city was submerged. == Demographics ==