One of the first cars in Kyiv was shown online. Photo

It's no exaggeration to say that the invention of the automobile marked the beginning of a new era in human history. The scientific and technological progress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries changed the world.

The starting point was the invention of steam traction. This was followed by the first internal combustion engines, all-wheel drives, fuel injection systems, handbrakes, and gearboxes.

The name Karl Benz is associated with the beginning of the era of automotive technology. This German engineer is considered the inventor of the modern car. Interestingly, the name "diesel" engine is associated with its creator, Rudolf Diesel.

In Ukraine, the first car appeared in Odesa. Vasyl Navrotskyi, editor of the "Odesskyi Lystok," bought the new car.

Rare photos of one of the first cars in the Kyiv region were posted online. The evidence was published only in 2019 in the book "As I Remember Them" by Galina von Meck, the daughter of the wealthy baron Nikolai von Meck. It was a German Daimler Phoenix 8HP. The photo was probably taken in 1898 in the village of Kopyliv, Makariv district, Kyiv region. It depicts the von Meck's summer estate, with the baron himself at the wheel.

The Daimler Phoenix 8HP by von Meck was hardly the first car to appear in the Kyiv region. A year earlier, in 1897, the "Kyivan" newspaper published an enthusiastic article in which eyewitnesses described how they first saw a car on the streets of Podil.

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