My city is Zaporozhye, (part 2)
Part 2. History of my land after Christmas (mine, of course)
As I already wrote here, my birth happened 65 years ago, and this significant event took place in the Sotsgorod I described or in the sixth village of the city of Zaporozhye.
Almost everything was destroyed, but again I cannot but mention the great efforts of all the peoples of the Soviet Union, who revived the Dneproges, factories and my hometown. True, I also retained in my memory the camp of prisoners of war, who also
restored what they had destroyed. On Stalin Avenue (now Metallurgists), the inscriptions “No Mines! ” were not erased for a long time, but the city rose from the ruins and grew and developed with me. For 10 years, everything that the city was proud of before the war was rebuilt in the city.
The city grows out of the tight pants of the pre-war period and the construction of the current central part of the city begins on the site of the former village of Voznesenki. Instead of a wooden bridge - a floor with an embankment, where the tram went to the factories and the station in the Old part of the city, a bridge with a colonnade was built. The new part of the city was built up with houses, as they are now called, of Stalinist architecture. Porticos, columns, sculptures, towers, turrets, etc. This is still, in my opinion, the most beautiful part of the city. I'm posting a photo.
In the early 50s, my family moved to a new house on Stadionnaya Street (now April 12, named after Gagarin's flight), a good place for a kid. Nearby there was and is a sports complex of FC Metallurg, a gym, a football field, basketball and volleyball courts, tennis courts, an ice rink was flooded in winter.
Our happy carefree and reckless childhood! Parents work, and we are left to ourselves, the key to the apartment is around our necks and forward - down the street to the beaches of the Dnieper. I remember the jumping tower at the water station, of course - we are brave! On a dare, we are trying to cross the Dnieper, of course, the older guys are nearby on the boat. And trips to Khortitsa! In the upper part of the island - the rocks from which we jump into the Dnieper, we got tired - we went to the gardens in the central part, feast on fruits, and the most interesting thing is the floodplains in the lower part of the island, the reserved part with channels and lakes, fishing. We knew Khortytsia better than the pantry in our apartment.
As the city matures, so do we. Stalin's time is over, the fight against embellishment, houses are becoming simpler, microdistricts of faceless Khrushchevs are appearing.
But people are getting new housing, steel mills have money to build it for their workers. I think that many have watched the film "Spring on Zarechnaya Street", this is about Zaporozhye. Light film.
That's 50 years ago (anniversary), as I went to study at the metallurgical college. His building above the Dnieper was considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It was built in the 50s, so in the style of pseudoclassicism. Around the building there is a park, a rose garden, down the steps of the park one could go down to the Dnieper, where we often ran to swim after classes in warm weather. Now sand has been washed up there, the Embankment Highway has been laid, where cars scurry about, and the beach is no longer the cozy one it used to be. It was called at that time - Student.
Evening in Zaporozhye. Youth meets on Broadway. Yes, that was the name of a part of Lenin Avenue on the sixth village from Metallurgov Ave. to the dam, where in Metallurgov Park there is a large dance floor, a “live” pop orchestra, where couples get to know each other, hug, kiss, and next to them, the guys from townships to show themselves. Up to 100 people participated, but if a person fell down, they never finished him off with their feet, as now. I am proud when we meet with friends that we did not "graze the rear".
And the city connected its two wings - the New and the Old part, pouring a large dam with a highway on top of it, trolleybuses went from end to end of the city, our avenue became one of the longest main streets in Europe. Its length is 10.8 km. New micro-districts are growing on the outskirts, new streets are emerging, it was decided to build a satellite city behind the island of Khortitsa, for 250 thousand commercials. No sooner said than done, everything is under construction!
But it turned out that the sleeping areas are far from the metallurgical plants and other industries of Zaporozhye, and it became difficult to get to them, the bridges across the Dnieper do not allow such a mass of people to pass without traffic jams. Already in those years, they thought about building new bridges.
Here is an interesting fact, I somehow tried to calculate how many factories in Zaporizhzhia lost their way in the fifth ten. It was good, there was a place to work, but the city and the region were then and until our time financial donors for other subsidized areas. We give money to other regions, but we don’t have the finances for cleaning up gases, for landscaping in the city.
Although, if a good owner is in the city, then somehow it turns out. I remember that Brezhnev was supposed to come, and in just three days a large wasteland in the city center was landscaped, a park with alleys was created, trees were planted, benches were installed.
I remember how, as students, we planted sandy wastelands on Khortitsa with pine branches (the forests were very cut down because of the war). Now there is a pine forest.
One of my acquaintances once called Zaporizhzhya - “the city of roses”, all corners of the central part of the city were planted with roses. But there was also a joke - “the city of laughter and tears”, because. where the wind turns, people cry from gases and smoke, and the rest rejoice and laugh.
The seventies and eighties, I think, are the heyday of Zaporozhye. It is approaching a million in population, palaces of culture, sports, a new circus, cinemas are being built, in the city of the Children's Railway with a small zoo. Almost every enterprise on the Dnieper has its own recreation center, dispensary. Bases are being built on the Sea of Azov, where factory workers can rest.
Interestingly, at the weekend there was a continuous roar of motors over the Dnieper, people went on vacation in motorboats down the Dnieper to the bases, to the islands, to the banks of the river. "Meteors", "Rockets" rushed along the Dnieper, boats, other ships, in general, life went on.
During these years we built Dneproges-2 (1969-80) with a capacity of 836 MW. The new lock accepts ships, and they stand in line to be locked. There is nothing of this now, when - a rare barge or other ship will never pass. And there are two ports in Zaporozhye!
Time passes, I graduated from a technical school, entered and graduated from the Metallurgical Institute and, of course, began to work in metallurgy, and where else!
You probably noticed that in Zaporozhye everything is connected with metallurgy and Lenin. Metallurgical Institute, Technical School, Metallurgists Avenue, Stalevarov Streets, Blast.
There is Dneproges named after them. Lenin, the upper reservoir is Lenin Lake, on it is Lenin Island, Lenin Avenue begins from Lenin Square, on which there is a monument to Lenin and
After a year of service in the army, I work again in metallurgy. They invited me to work on the construction of a completely new unique production of carbon composites for the rocket industry of the Union. I am proud that I was involved in this, they built it, and then I worked there for another 15 years. I won’t open up much, but there was no such plant in the Union anymore... and it no longer exists.
And then acceleration with perestroika, the collapse of the Union. We are told how rich Ukraine is, and they are slowly ruining it, stuffing their pockets. Rampant crime, my friend died in the city center, right at the crossroads of Lenin and Metallurgists from a bandit's knife. Zaporozhye turned from a city shining with lights into a dark and deserted city, with the darkness of people on the streets becoming less and less. I saw this when I drove home from my shift at 24 o'clock.
Changes began in Zaporozhye when we elected a former police general, Pole, as mayor, who turned out to be a true patriot of Zaporozhye. There was not enough money, but Lenin Avenue was completely transformed. The rails of the tram were removed, due to which its carriageway was widened, long unpainted houses were painted with light paint, which were already dark gray from factory dust. Fountains were built, Shevchenko Boulevard adorned the monument “Lovers' Clock”, there is also a cascade of illuminated fountains, a long-term construction was completed - a stadium, now it is one of the best in Ukraine. But bright people do not live long, the heart could not stand it, he was gone. Then it went, as if on a knurled one, but it was already somehow not so.
And here is the current Zaporozhye. Half, if not most of the factories are standing, or even bankrupt, a car factory is working at a third of its capacity, Akhmetov bought the Zaporizhstal plant, there are layoffs, they are exempted from social programs, they are waiting for the dispensaries of metal plants to be snatched into private ownership for a penny, and these are palaces on Khortitsa and built by all the people.
Recreation centers are falling apart and being plundered, it turns out that people do not need them now. Buildings, if they are being built, are only office, shopping and entertainment centers, cheap temporary huts of supermarkets. As many as years of "independence", bridges across the Dnieper are being built. How long this long-term construction will last, I do not know. True, the authorities promised to build a light and music fountain in the central square, “smaller than anywhere else” by May next year. If we live, we'll see! It reminds me of the Potemkin villages that Potemkin showed Catherine P. I also remembered - for the plebs "bread and circuses! ", instead of bread - beer!
But… I don't want to end my report on a pessimistic note.
Come to us in Zaporozhye. Nature has still been preserved, the architecture of the city has not yet been mutilated. It is a pity that the "fathers" of the city banned such extreme sports as jumping from the arched bridge on the lounge. My guys liked it very much.
You can go to Khortitsa to the Museum of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, see how the Cossacks lived, there is also an equestrian theater, take a walk around Khortitsa in general, absorb all the aroma of the pine forest and the feather-grass-wormwood steppe, maybe you can go to the floodplain with a guide, there you can meet hares and squirrels, partridges and pheasants, wild boars are hiding somewhere, we saw roe deer and deer. This is the aura of ancient Khortitsa. Cruise around Khortitsa on a boat, it's very impressive!
Come, I invite you!!!
P. S. I took some photos from the Internet, because I could not shoot at that time, which is in the photo, but they are in the public domain.
