Konotop is a large international railway junction.
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| Konotop. The railway station |
As they draw near the station, trains slow to a minimum, and beyond the carriage windows, as in a reel of wartime newsreel from the Second World War, mutilated railway buildings open to the view.
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| The railway station. The buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
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| The railway station. The buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
Passengers stare in astonishment at the ruined industrial colossi and almost in chorus read out the building dates preserved on the façades — 1899, 1901, 1903, 1911 ...
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| The ruined buildings of the railway workshops |
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| The railway station. The buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
Local historians believe that the first settlements on these lands existed even before the raids of the Tatar-Mongol horde. In the middle of the 17th century a fortress was built and Konotop received the status of a town; its greatest development began with the building of the railway by order of the Emperor Alexander II in the 1860s.
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| Konotop. The City Duma |
In 1870 traffic was opened through Konotop station on the Kursk-Kyiv Railway, and with it a link between Kyiv and Moscow along the sleepers.
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| Konotop. The city garden |
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| The railway station. 1953 |
After one track had been laid a second was built, and the main line was continued as far as Voronezh. The villages of the Konotop district were joined to the town by the Vorozhba — Konotop branch.
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| The suburban station. Until 1953 – the main station. |
The tsarist government allowed foreign goods, machines and materials to be carried duty-free. A station and a depot appeared.
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| The railway station. 1953 |
To service the railway equipment, workshops were created in 1869, and by the revolution of 1917 the number of their workers had reached almost 3 thousand. The mechanical department and the locomotive assembly department were supplemented by forging, joinery, copper-founding, fitting and turning shops.
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| The workers of the joinery shop of the railway workshops |
The huge enterprise came to be called the Konotop Carriage Repair Works, where passenger carriages were repaired and spare parts and tools were made. In the fateful year of 2014 the works was declared bankrupt.
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
What has become of the production premises is seen by everyone who enters the town. The industrial ruins occupy an enormous area and even in such a state they excite admiration for the inventiveness of the architects and master builders of the pre-revolutionary era.
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
The surviving pediments of the solid buildings are adorned with an ornament of brickwork.
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
These sound buildings were put up under the tsar at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, served for more than 100 years and could have been used for as long again. But what human hands created has been destroyed by those same hands.
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
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| The abandoned buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
They say that lovers of antiquity and collectors pick out the tsarist bricks with their maker's stamp from among the ruins.
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| The abandoned and ruined buildings of the Carriage Repair Works |
The timetable of Konotop railway station now lists 53 long-distance and suburban trains.
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| The railway station. Train No. 124 Kostiantynivka – Kyiv |
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| The railway station. Train No. 124 Kostiantynivka – Kyiv |
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| The railway station. Train No. 784. Kyiv – Shostka. The «Podilskyi Express» |
Without changing you can reach
Kyiv, Kharkiv,
Lviv, Minsk, Moscow, Chisinau and other cities.
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| The railway station. The canopy over the platform |
A particularly large number of passenger trains arrive during the night.
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| The railway station. Train No. 005 Moscow - Chernihiv |
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| The railway station. Train No. 005 Moscow - Chernihiv |
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| Train No. 005 Moscow - Chernihiv. A chocolate-coloured Ammendorf carriage |
Customs control is carried out at the station.
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| Train No. 047 Chisinau – Moscow |
To train working hands, a railway school was built next to the station in 1890.
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| The railway school. 1890 |
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| The railway school. 1890. An architectural monument |
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| The railway school. 1890. An architectural monument |
This is one of the finest buildings of the 19th century in Konotop and the oldest vocational educational institution.
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| The railway school. The teaching block |
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| The railway school. The teaching block |
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| The railway school. The teaching block |
At the end of the 19th century dwelling houses, a school and a hospital were built.
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| Konotop. A dwelling house on Chkalov Street |
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| A service building on Chkalov Street |
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| Konotop. A dwelling house on Borys Oliinyk Street |
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| A dwelling house on Borys Oliinyk Street |
Guessing that I had walked onto the grounds of the railway hospital and was photographing it, I heard a question: «Admiring the beauty?»
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| The railway hospital, 1895 |
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| The railway hospital, 1895. The surgical department |
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| The railway hospital, 1895. The surgical department |
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| The railway hospital, 1895. The surgical department |
A young orderly who was tidying the paths told me which department was where, that all their doctors are good, and that the pay, though small, is paid on time.
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| The railway hospital |
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| The railway hospital. The children's polyclinic |
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| The railway hospital. The children's polyclinic |
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| The railway hospital. The tuberculosis department |
After the fire of 1862, when more than 300 wooden buildings burned down, the town grew with brick buildings. But even now you can come across little wooden houses with openwork ornament.
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| A wooden house on Borys Oliinyk Street |
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| A wooden house on Klubna Street |
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| A wooden house on Klubna Street |
It is gratifying when the date of building is shown on the façade.
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| A house on Klubna Street. 1923 |
It is sad when you see the ruins of the hearths of culture.
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| The ruined cinema |
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| The ruined cinema |
Although my journeys are always made on foot, to be in Konotop and not ride on the tram is simply impossible.
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| The Konotop tram |
The tram line was laid after the Second World War by altruists, by the method of popular construction, which was carried on without a design, using written-off materials, straight along streets that had no hard surface.
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| The Konotop tram |
As we know, initiative gets punished, and the times were hard. Stalin's repressive methods of leadership could not fail to touch the energetic town chiefs, and they were punished for acting without authority. But the town has 3 tram lines, which have largely remained single-track with passing loops.
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| Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Street with the tram line |
The carriages, built at the Ust-Katav Carriage Works (UKVZ) before 1989, run often and to a timetable, from 6 in the morning to 9 at night.
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| Tram No. 2 |
The doors open not to both sides but to one — with a chain.
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| A tram on Myru Avenue |
The fare is only 1.5 hryvnias. The conductor supplies the tickets.
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| A tram on Myru Avenue |
There are several churches in the town, but I managed to see only one — the new Orthodox Church of All Saints.
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| The Church of All Saints |
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| The Church of All Saints |
The names of well-known figures are linked with Konotop. At different times T. H. Shevchenko, P. I. Tchaikovsky, H. F. Kvitka-Osnovianenko, the Lazarevskyi brothers and M. V. Gogol were here. The first monument to the Kobzar was unveiled as long ago as 1939 and stands beside School No. 2. The second was set up in 1993.
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| The monument to T. H. Shevchenko |
The well-known artist Kazimir Malevich, author of the unsurpassed «Black Square», lived in Konotop for 10 years, where his father worked at the railway station. The growing future genius was captivated by the beauty and the scale of the industrial buildings of the workshops and got to know the machinery and the rolling stock.
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| The monument to Kazimir Malevich |
Pushkin never visited Konotop, but since 1947 his dreamy figure has adorned the old park.
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| The monument to O. S. Pushkin |
The park has been modernised with a romantic corner for newlyweds, who in the past carried bouquets to the monuments of the leaders on their wedding day and now fasten ribbons and padlocks as a sign of the binding of family ties.
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| The city park |
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| The city park |
A vintage GZA bus, painted with patriotic symbols and flowery patterns, is used as a summer café.
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| The city park. The bus café |
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| The city park. The patriotic bus café |
The Centre for Children's and Youth Creativity has settled into the former House of Soviets, built in 1927.
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| The House of Soviets. 1927 |
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| The former House of Soviets. 1927. The Centre for Children's and Youth Creativity |
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| The former House of Soviets. 1927. The Centre for Children's and Youth Creativity |
The «Myr» cinema looks very like its contemporaries born in 1959 that bear the same name.
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| The «Myr» cinema |
The Konotop «Passage» on Myru Avenue.
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| The shopping centre on Myru Avenue |
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| Shops on Hoholivska Street |
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| Shops on Bazarna Square |
The town's calling card is the monument to the horse.
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| The monument to the horse |
The versions of the origin of the town's name are bound up with man's friend and helper.
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| The fair square |
Perhaps the one that tells of the enormous number of horses and riders who drowned during the Tatar-Mongol invasion, or the second — about the lost treasures of the tsaritsa, whose escort could not cross the ford and stuck fast in the boggy ground.
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| A street in Konotop |
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| A street in Konotop. The bridge |
Nothing recalls the bog now; the town is clean and there are many flowers.
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| Myru Avenue |
From early morning street sweepers were sweeping everywhere, cleaning the basin of the fountain and watering the flower beds.
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| An administrative building |
I saw far more of them per square kilometre than in regional centres over the same area.
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| Myru Square. The fountain. The «Myr» cinema |
The town's literary brand — the Konotop Witch — I did not meet, but I did meet very friendly, smiling, courteous townspeople, to whom I am grateful for their hospitality and for my good mood.
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| The city park |
It was they who told me that a bus often runs from Konotop to
Baturyn in the neighbouring Chernihiv region, where historical landmarks can be seen. And on the advice of the people of Konotop I hurried off to the bus station, so as to manage to see the Cossack capital that same day, since it lies only thirty kilometres from Konotop.
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| Konotop. The bus station |
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