Poltava is a great town. Poltava has museums, churches, beautiful parks and nice old buildings. It stands out between the towns of Ukraine connected past and future.

Poltava is a regional town located on the both banks of the Vorskla-river of the left tributary of Dnipro. Ipatiivsky chronicle remembered the name of «Ltava» for the first time in 1174. The siversky prince Igor «crossed to Vorskl' in Ltava» pursuing polovtsies. But as archaeologists say people began to settle over 1500 years ago on the territory of modern Poltava.

The territory of the present Poltavschina was a part of the Pereyaslavsky principality in the XI-XIII centuries. At the end of the 13 century the settlement was taken by the Mongol-Tatars hordes of khan Batiy. At that time Ltava was destroyed too much and fell into decay.

Poltava is mentioned first under the present name only in 1430. It was a part of Large principality of Lithuanian. The same year the prince Vitovt passed Poltava together with Glinsky (now it is a village of the Sumskay area) to Tatar murzaLeksa who came from the Gold Horde. He had adopted Orthodoxy and took the name Alexander. Then he became the founder of princes of Glinskikh.

Leksa built the Poltava fortress. It was a wooden fortification and earth walls. In 1482 Poltava was destroyed by the Crimean khan Mengly Girey. Poltava belonged to Glinskie till 1537 and then was passed to their descendants Gribunovich-Baybuz.

After the formation of Rech Pospolita in 1596 Poltava had fallen under the power of Poland. In the 17th century Poltava got Magdeburg title. The Poltava fortress was renewed in 1608. Poltava was named first as a city in the document in 1641. Our town had 812 courts after the census in 1647.
In 1657-1658 Poltava became the center of uprising of cossacks and peasants headed by the first Poltava colonel Martin Pushkar. They opposed to the ruling clique with the head the hetman Vigovskiy which wanted to turn Ukraine under the power of Poland.

During the North war (1709-1721) the decisive Poltava battle took place near Poltava in June, 1709. The 300 anniversary of the Poltava battle will be marked in summer 2009.

Poltava was a one of the centers of handicraft production and trading at the beginning of the 18th century. There were about 300 artisans of workshops in 1718. A Russian traveler V. Zyev gave the first description of the city having visited it in 1782. Poltava had about 1000 houses, 2-3 brick houses.

From 1775 Poltava was one of the town of the Novorosiysk province, in 1783-96 - Katerino¬slavsky deputy, from 1796 to 1802 - the Malo¬rosiysk province. From 1802 it was the center of Poltava province. That is why the planning and the rebuilding of Poltava took plase with the participation of the Russian architects. The building expedition and province drawing board were created headed by the architect Amvrosimov. He was invited from Moscow as a Poltava architect. In 1803-1805 he developed the project of the town after which it was named «small Petersburg» although Petersburg was reconstructed later.
The new center was laid on the place of meeting of Peter I with the colonel Kelin and Poltava garrison in 1709 according to the plan of architect Zakharov. It was the Round square in the classicism style. Since the beginning of the Patriotic war in 1812 the Poltava folk militia was created. Poltava became one of the centers of Decembrist movement.

The first high school for boys, the Poltava institute of noble girls, the Poltava seminary, the Poltava school of gardening, the Poltava Petrovskiy cadet corps, the Poltava school of arts were opened in the first half of the 19th century in the town. A lot of scientists, cultural workers and other known personalities came out from the Poltava educational establishments of that period.

55 986 habitats were counted in Poltava after the census of 1910.

On January, 6 in 1918 the Soviet power was proclaimed in Poltava. From 1932 to 1937 Poltava was a regional town of the Kharkov area, from 1937 it was the center of Poltava region. During fascist occupation in the years of the Great Patriotic war (1941 - 1943) Poltava was almost all destroyed. During 1944-1958 the old part of the city was rebuilt; new areas appeared. And from the middle of 1960th new microregions began appear. They are Almazny, Polovki, Brailki, Gardens, Levada.

Poltavites love their green, neat, comfortable town. And the particle of their heart will always belong to our town wherever they live.