Yurivka, Varvarivka. People live in the backwaters too

It is traditionally held that travel means visiting popular tourist locations with famous landmarks. In connection with the latest events on a global scale, travelling pioneers devote themselves and their time to active recreation not in toxic zones, but in corners far from the crush of crowds. Journeys through the rural backcountry are an acquaintance with an unknown tourist space and with people who have changed the life of their region for the better. Arriving in the countryside, you see for yourself that everything depends on the activity of the local residents, and that it is not the place that graces a person, but the person the place. Hikes through the peripheries are special routes bound up with the natural surroundings, springs and ponds, single-storey buildings and places of worship, ethnographic museums and village clubs and, of course, sincere, hospitable people, always ready to give a traveller directions or to talk with him about everyday things.

Yurivka, Dnipropetrovsk region. The floodplain of the Mala Ternivka River

The village of Yurivka was founded in the second half of the 18th century and lies in the north of Dnipropetrovsk region. To the neighbouring Kharkiv region it is a stone's throw - only 7 kilometres by highway - while to the district centre of Pavlohrad it is 25 kilometres along the same road. Tsentralna Street divides Yurivka into two parts; all the public places and landmarks are located on the main thoroughfare, which resembles an avenue in a big city.

 

Yurivka. Tsentralna Street

Yurivka. Tsentralna Street. Shops

Yurivka. Tsentralna Street. The pharmacy

Connoisseurs of industrial architecture will at once notice a three-storey building of red brick, abandoned and cautiously fenced off with warning tape.

 

Built at the beginning of the 20th century, the steam mill was restored with an added third floor in the post-war years, as attested by the inscription '1956' on the pediment. This workhorse processed the wheat of the local collective farms, and the flour was of the highest grade. The mill also served as an oil press, and its output was likewise in demand. With the liquidation of the collective farms, no patron was found for the breadwinner of the whole district; no one protected or cared for the building with the status of a monument of architecture. The equipment has been dismantled, the roof has caved in, and the hexagonal windows in their brick framing look sadly out at the road.

Yurivka. Tsentralna Street. The steam mill

The office of a private agricultural enterprise is housed in a single-storey little building nearby. It is a pity that the successors of the collective farms lacked the courage and the strength to find a use for a fine historic building. Given Yurivka's location, its main highlight could be an attractive object on tourist maps along the 'Mills of Ukraine' route.

Yurivka. Tsentralna Street. The administrative building of the agricultural enterprise

History repeats itself twice across a century. With the founding of the settlement in the former Mala Ternivka in 1781, the Church of St. George was erected. After the October coup, the village's main shrine was destroyed by the militant atheists. Nowadays services are held in an adapted and consecrated room of a residential house.

 

Yurivka. The Church of St. George the Victorious

As far back as the end of the 19th century, a parish school with a library was opened. Since 1966 the young generation of Yurivka has been educated at the school that bears the name of a fellow villager, Hero of the Soviet Union and participant in the liberation of Ukraine, D. P. Zaporozhchenko.

 

Yurivka. The school

The monument to D. P. Zaporozhchenko beside the school

Those wishing to continue their studies and master professions to replenish the ranks of the agricultural sector can do so at Vocational School No. 81.

 

Yurivka. Vocational School No. 81

The zemstvo hospital in the village was opened before the revolution. The treatment buildings of the district institution serve to this day, and the modern two-storey building is adorned with a fresco depicting a medical worker extending a helping hand to a mother with a child. In her other hand, the merciful sister holds a dove - a symbol of peace and purity. At the centre of the mural is depicted not the traditional coiling snake, but a young sprout with buds, signifying rebirth and flourishing.

Yurivka. The hospital

The people of Yurivka build up their health at a new stadium with running tracks, playgrounds and a tennis court.

The administration of the house of culture, with respect for the residents, announces enrolment in creative collectives and clubs.

Yurivka. The house of culture

The renovated park, with firs, chestnuts, lindens, flower beds, avenues and benches, can be considered the green adornment of Yurivka.

 

Yurivka. The park

In the Yurivka park, in a common grave, rest the soldiers who fell in 1943 for the liberation of the district, and on the complex's stele the names of 112 fellow villagers who died on the fronts of the Second World War are immortalised.

 

Yurivka. The war memorial

Not forgotten are the participants in the Chornobyl disaster and the young soldiers who carried out their international duty on foreign frontiers.

 

Yurivka, the park. The memorial sign to the Afghan war veterans

The liberator-soldiers of the Yurivka area are honoured with a photo panel bearing a collective snapshot of the war veterans.

 

Yurivka. Tsentralna Street. The photo panel

Yurivka is surrounded by a group of kurgan burial mounds with a thousand-year history, which have fortunately not been ploughed over. But it was not possible to reach the archaeological monument on the western edge of the village. After the rains, the floodplain of the Mala Ternivka River became so overgrown with impassable thickets of weeds that even the local cows have no wish to feed on the prickly fodder.

 

Yurivka. The floodplain of the Mala Ternivka River

The residential sector is represented by private single-storey houses. A few two-storey buildings were put up in the mid-1980s for the workers of the gas utility.

Yurivka. Residential houses

In Yurivka there is a passenger platform at the 969th kilometre of the Prydniprovska Railway, at which suburban trains stop, bound for Lozova, Pavlohrad, Dnipro, Synelnykove, Pokrovsk and Avdiivka.

Yurivka. The passenger platform at the 969th kilometre

If there are a few hours before the electric train arrives, you can pass the time with a walk to neighbouring Varvarivka. The satellite villages are separated by a distance of 4 kilometres; minibuses run between them fairly often, and it seems the main street, with the very same name - Tsentralna - did not even break off.

Varvarivka. Village streets

In the centre is concentrated all of Varvarivka's infrastructure - the village council, shops, the post office, a rural first-aid post and a church, consecrated in honour of the patroness Saint Barbara.

 

Varvarivka. The village council

Varvarivka. The post office

Varvarivka. The rural first-aid post

Old-timers recall with a smile the heyday of the house of culture with its tender name 'Yunist' (Youth) - here, for many people of Varvarivka, spring was born in the soul at film screenings and dance evenings. The spreading linden by this hearth of culture is probably its contemporary, and the bench under the tree is a convenient spot for village get-togethers and for a weary traveller's momentary rest.

 

Varvarivka. The 'Yunist' house of culture

The war memorial, with a common grave of Red Army soldiers who fell during the first and second liberation of the village and with a common burial of civilians, was restored in 2018 with the installation of a marble stele.

 

Varvarivka. The war memorial

A very fine bust of the national poet was unveiled in the school yard in 1989, even before the proclamation of Ukraine's Independence.

 

Varvarivka. The school

Varvarivka. The monument to T. H. Shevchenko beside the school

A monument of the Scytho-Sarmatian period would grace the collection of any local history museum, but this stone warrior is installed as an exhibit and a talisman beneath the windows of the educational institution.

 

Varvarivka. A Scythian baba in the school yard

A certain structure resembling a chapel serves an unclear function. According to the local residents, after a tragic incident the building stands closed.

 

Varvarivka. The school grounds

The homesteads and streets of the small village are drowning in orchards and flowers, and above the green riot rise the silos of the grain elevator.

 

Varvarivka. The grain elevator

The livelihood of the people of Varvarivka is bound up with agriculture, grain-receiving enterprises and the railway station - neat and welcoming, with three railway tracks and two passenger platforms, an island one and a side one.

The Varvarivka railway station

It is just such station buildings that one wants to call palaces - with an attic above the arched entrance, carefully washed windows and a cosy waiting hall, in which caring hands conscientiously keep the relief walls and the stucco moulding on the ceiling clean.

The Varvarivka railway station. The waiting hall

Only suburban trains stop at the station, bound for the neighbouring Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Passengers do not tire of waiting for the electric train in comfortable conditions, and the trains arrive at the well-kept stations without delay, according to the schedule.

The Varvarivka railway station