It is still unknown when Poltava was founded, although the town was not attested before 1174. However, municipal authorities chose to celebrate the city's 1100th anniversary in 1999. As part of the 800th anniversary of Poltava celebrations, in 1974, the Urozhai Stadium was reopened after a six year of renovations. The settlement is indeed an old one, as archeologists unearthed an ancient
Paleolithic dwelling, as well as
Scythian remains, within the city limits.
Middle Ages The present name of the city is traditionally connected to the settlement Ltava, which is mentioned in the
Hypatian Chronicle in 1174. According to the chronicle, on Saint Peter's Day (12 July) of 1182,
Igor Sviatoslavich, chasing hordes of the Cuman khans Konchak and Kobiak, crossed the
Vorskla River near
Ltava and moved towards
Pereiaslav), where Igor's army was victorious over the Cumans. Shennikov also claims that the Mansur Duchy joined the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an
associated state rather than a
vassal state, and that the city of Poltava already existed at that time. In 1710 there was a plague in the city and its surrounding area. Since much of that area had only recently been seized from the
Ottoman Empire by Russia, and a large number of Orthodox Greek settlers had been invited to settle in the region, the
imperial government selected a renowned Greek scholar,
Eugenios Voulgaris, to preside over the new diocese. After his retirement in 1779, he was replaced by another Greek theologian,
Nikephoros Theotokis. By the summer of 1944, the
United States Army Air Forces conducted a number of
shuttle bombing raids against Nazi Germany under the name of
Operation Frantic.
Poltava Air Base, as well as
Myrhorod Air Base, were used as eastern locations for landing
B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers involved in those operations. The post-war restoration of Poltava continued in the 1950s and 1960s. The city became an important centre of military education in the
Soviet Union, where missile and communications officers were prepared, and was also home to a
Soviet Air Force division of heavy bombers. Until 18 July 2020, Poltava was designated as a
city of oblast significance and did not belong to Poltava Raion even though it was the center of the raion. As part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Poltava Oblast to four, the city was merged into Poltava Raion. == Demographics ==