Kremenchuk

Kremenchuk is an important industrial city in the Poltava Oblast (province) of central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kremenchutskyi Raion (district), the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located on the banks of Dnieper River.Kremenchuk was supposedly founded in 1571. From its situation at the southern terminus of the navigable course of the Dnieper river, and equally advantageous positioning on the crossway from Muscovy to Black Sea, it acquired a great commercial importance early on, and by 1655, it was a wealthy Cossack town. In 1625, at Lake Kurukove in Kremenchuk, the Treaty of Kurukove was signed between the Cossacks and the Poles.
During World War II (1939-1945), Kremenchuk suffered heavily under Nazi occupation. More than 90% of the city's buildings were leveled over the course of the war, and most of Kremenchuk's once substantial Jewish population was wiped out. September 29, the day when the city was liberated from the Nazis in 1943, is celebrated in Kremenchuk as the City Day. Despite a remarkable post-war recovery and a healthier economy, Kremenchuk lacks much of the architectural charm and distinctly Ukrainian (rather than Russian) character of its sister city, the oblast capital of Poltava. Some people, however, consider a benefit the nearly complete lack of old (pre-World War II) buildings, claiming that it gives Kremenchuk its own special appeal.