Sviatoshyn

The neighborhood is located in the North-East of the Dnieper Upland, in the western part of Kyiv. The suburb is situated on both sides of Kyiv's Prospect Beresteiskyi. The neighborhood borders the Nyvka River in the west. begins on the opposite side of the river. The east boundary of the suburb is the Kyiv–Kovel railway. The neighborhoods of , , and are located to the north of Sviatoshyn. The neighborhoods of and Borshchahivka as well as and the villages of and Petropavlivska Borshchahivka are located to the south. All of Sviatoshyn's adjacent neighbourhoods and suburbs belong to the Sviatoshynskyi District with the exception of the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, which is in the Bucha Raion. By roads, the suburb is located: • 13 km to the Kyiv city centre. • 10 km to the city's central station - Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi Railway Station. • 12 km to Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany) • 44 km to the main city's airport, Boryspil International Airport The core road of Sviatoshyn, Peremohy Avenue, is a part of European route E40, which is the main highway from Kyiv to other European countries. goes through the suburb from north to south, and it includes and . == Name ==

There are two hypotheses of the name of Sviatoshyn existing. The first one comes from a version that there was a Saint Grove (Sviatyi, ) there which was a sacred place for pagans. The second version says that the name is derived from the nickname of , the Prince of Chernigov, who lived in the 12th century. His original name was Sviatoslav and he was a son of Davyd Sviatoslavich and a grandson of the Grand Prince of Kyiv Sviatoslav II. It is alleged that he owned land at neighbouring Borshchahivka. In 1106 he donated all his property to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and became one of its monks. He took the monk Christian name Nikola (Nikolai, ). Since he was very devout, he was given the informal nickname Sviatosha, which means a pious, godly religious person. In itself, the Ukrainian word "Sviatoshyn" means ''"Sviatosha's''", that is, something that belongs to Sviatosha. Spelling The ethnographer in his work "" mentioned this place as "a woodland called Sviatoshyn" in 1884. There is also a document called "The report of the Committee to facilitate accomplishment of the villa area in the locality Sviatoshyn of the Kyiv province and district. Kyiv, 1903". At the beginning of the 20th century, the village was called Sviatoshyn ('''' in the ). In the Soviet era there was a trend to change names of settlements, especially small ones, by putting the suffix "-o". Since the 1930s on all maps of Kyiv in both Russian and Ukrainian, the suburb was marked as Sviatoshyno (''). Settlement names with the suffix "-o" are more typical of Russian language than Ukrainian, so sometimes the name Sviatoshyne () was used in Ukrainian spelling despite there being a Sviatoshyn ('') article included in that was published by the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia editorial office. Since the station of the Kyiv Metro, which is the suburb's landmark, was renamed Sviatoshyn (Святошин) station, this variant of suburb spelling has been broadly used. Ukrainian linguists insist on using Sviatoshyn ('') as the locality name. In spite of this, sometimes the name Sviatoshyno ('') has still been used, even in official documents of the Kyiv City Council. == History ==

Early history , a former name - the 5th prosika (cutting glade) Before the Kievan Rus', Sviatoshyn was a territory of Eastern Polans. At the time of the Kievan Rus' and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the land belonged to the Principality of Kiev. It is alleged that in the 12th century the owner of this land was (Sviatoslav), the Prince of Chernigov, who donated it to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Until the beginning of the 17th century, this area belonged to Kyiv's monasteries. The first mention of the area name Sviatoshyn was in 1619, when this land was a part of the Kyiv Voivodeship of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. At that time, the king, Sigismund III Vasa, determined the metes and bounds of Kyiv's land possession in his charter. In particular, it was said that Kyiv's boundary went "through an oak grove to Sviatoshyn side". However, on the south-west edge of Sviatoshyn, the Roman Catholic parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross remained intact while under Communist rule and became the only refuge for Roman Catholics in the Kyiv region. In 1941, during the Second World War, the general staff of the Kyiv Fortified Region was situated in present-day Kyiv secondary school No. 140. There is a complex of monuments located near Soviet soldiers' graves who were killed in the Battle of Kyiv in 1943 at the . At the end of the 1940s, the ownership of Sviatoshyn Airfield was passed over to an aircraft serial production plant that since 1952 has been headquarters of the state-owned Antonovcompany. In 1988, the company produced the largest aircraft in the world, the Antonov An-225 Mriya. Together with the aircraft factory, a new development named (Aviation town in Ukrainian) began being built next to the north-east edge of Sviatoshyn. This locality is also known as Novosviatoshyn (New Sviatoshyn). In 1947 the clothing factory Kashtan ("Chestnut") was launched; it was one of the biggest producer of male shirts in the USSR. In the late 1950s, the new housing estate was built north of Sviatoshyn. Besides residential buildings, there have been numerous research institutes belonging to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences located in the town. Therefore, the suburb got the name Akademmistechko (). In 1971, the Sviatoshyn station of the Kyiv Metro opened on the eastern edge of neighbourhood. In 1982, due to the increasing traffic on Brest-Litovsky Highway, the Sviatoshyn tram line was dismantled. To replace the trams, trolleybuses were launched in the neighbourhood. == Memorial to Chernobyl disaster victims ==

The is located in a landscape park at the intersection of and . The memorial is devoted to people who were killed or injured as a result of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The monument to victims of that tragedy was erected at the initiative of the Chernobyl Disabled Union on 26 April 1994, with funds of the local budget and private donations. The monument was made by sculptor and architect . In 2001, the St church and in 2002 the bell tower museum were built at the monument. In 2011, the memorial avenue "Heroes of Chernobyl" was created at the initiative of "Chernobyl Fire-fighters" NGO. There were erected seven busts of firemen, heroes of Ukraine and the Soviet Union and installed eight memorial plates in memory of died Chernobyl disaster liquidators. == Vasyl Stus Garden Square ==

is located at the corner of and . It is named after the poet and political prisoner Vasyl Stus, who was one of the most significant members of the Ukrainian cultural movement of the sixtiers. He was living close by at 62 from his marriage in 1965 to his first arrest in 1972. The house was demolished in 1979 due to a road interchange being built there. In 2006, at the initiative of the Ukrainian People's Party and , Vasyl Stus garden square was built. The initiative coordinator was Viktor Tkachenko. However, in 2008, the Kyiv City State Administration gave a building permit for the construction of a shopping centre there. The building developer cut down more than 100 trees, including oaks older than 120 years and pines older than 150 years. Litigations began between both parties. In 2010, the Kyiv City Council assigned the name Vasyl Stus to the plot. The garden square was opened on Kyiv Day 2015 by the mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko. Vasyl Stus's widow, sister, granddaughter, friends, public activists, and local community residents attended the ceremony. == Transport ==

All electric multiple unit trains go through when traveling from Kyiv northwest. Some passenger trains that are traveling to Western Ukraine stop at the station as well. The bus station Dachna is located at 142a Peremohy Avenue. The Sviatoshynsko-Brovarska Line of the Kyiv Metro is laid underground. Zhytomyrska metro station, which opened on 24 May 2003, is situated in the centre of Sviatoshyn. The suburb is connected to other neighborhoods by Kyiv's municipal and trolleybuses. == External links ==