Poltava in the 60s: What the city looked like after the war. Archival video

Poltava is an important industrial and cultural center and a major transportation hub. The city has a long history. The first chronicle mention is in the Old Russian Ipatiev Chronicle called "Ltava," and the official year of its foundation is considered to be 899. During the Cossack era and the Liberation War, Poltava was the military and administrative center of the regiment of the same name. In the nineteenth century, Poltava became the capital of the province, so the best architects began to build it up.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Poltava was a typical Ukrainian city with developed crafts, trade, and agriculture. After the war, the city recovered from the destruction and began a new stage of development. The network showed what Poltava was like in the 1960s.

During the Second World War, Poltava, like many other cities in Ukraine, suffered significant destruction. The 1960s were a time of active reconstruction. New residential buildings were built, industrial enterprises were restored, and the city's infrastructure was developed.

The transportation system was also developing. New bus routes appeared. In 1962, the first trolleybuses began to run on the streets.

In the postwar recovery era, the city began to be gasified and television appeared. The Mykola Hohol Theater was rebuilt in 1958 and the unique building of the local history museum was rebuilt in 1964.

In the 1960s, more than 50 large enterprises operated in the city. The first place in terms of share in Poltava's industrial output belonged to food processing enterprises. A glass factory was opened, producing measuring medical and ampoule products for research institutes. There was also a reinforced concrete plant, a ceramic plant for semi-dry brick pressing, a building materials plant, a locomotive repair plant, and a machine-building plant.

In the postwar years, residential construction was active. Residents of other USSR republics, mostly Russians, began to arrive in Poltava on assignment, so the Russian language was heard more and more often in the Ukrainian city.

At that time, there were military educational institutions in the city, including the first military educational institution in Ukraine to train future officers, the Anti-Aircraft Missile Command School and the Institute of Communications. Poltava also had a military air base, where the 13th Guards Heavy Bomber Division was stationed.

Historians say that from about the 1960s to the 1980s, Poltava gradually became a kind of "boarding house" for retired military personnel and their families from all over the USSR.

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