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. The name Kremenchuk consists of two words "kremen" - chert (a mineral) because the city is located on a giant chert plate, and "chuk" - from the Ukrainian "chuyu" ("I hear") - a shout of medieval helmsmen in acknowledgement of a warning cry of "Kremen!" sounded whenever their vessels approached the chert rapids while navigating down the Dnieper. An alternative explanation says that "Kremenchuk" is the Turkish for "small fortress". From its situation at the southern terminus of the navigable course of the Dnieper, and equally advantageous positioning on the crossway from Muscovy to the Black Sea, it acquired a great commercial importance early on, and by 1655, it was a wealthy Cossack town.