20 Facts About Zhytomyr

Important economic activities of Zhytomyr include lumber milling, food processing, granite quarrying, metalworking, and the manufacture of musical instruments.

Zhytomyr Oblast is the main center of the Polish minority in Ukraine, and in the city itself there is a Latin Catholic cathedral and large Roman Catholic Polish cemetery, founded in 1800.

Legend holds that Zhytomyr was established about 884 by Zhytomyr, prince of a Slavic tribe of Drevlians.

In 1320 Zhytomyr was captured by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and received Magdeburg rights in 1444.

In 1667, Zhytomyr became capital of Kiev Voivodeship, and in 1724, a Jesuit school and monastery were opened here.

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In 1793 Zhytomyr was incorporated into the Russian Empire, and in 1804 was named capital of the Volhynian Governorate.

From 1920 Zhytomyr was a part of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

From 1991, Zhytomyr has been part of the independent and sovereign Ukraine.

Zhytomyr had been a Latin Catholic bishopric since 1321, until the see was suppressed in 1789 in favor of the Diocese of Lutsk and Zytomierz, until that was split up again in 1925, when it was restored as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Zhytomyr; that was formally suppressed in 1998 to establish the Diocese of Kyiv–Zytomyr, but actually the city retains the episcopal see in its Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom, while Kyiv only has a co-cathedral.

Zhytomyr apparently had few Jews at the time of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, but by the time it became part of Russia in 1778, it had a large Jewish community, and was a center of the Hasidic movement.

In Imperial Russia, Zhytomyr held the same status as the official Jewish center of southern part of the Pale of Settlement as Vilnius held in the north.

The rabbinical school of Zhytomyr was considered the more Jewish, or rather the less Russianized, of the two.

Zhytomyr is set out on a mostly radial type of street net with the centre at the main public square of the city, named Sobornyi Maidan.

The old part of Zhytomyr is on three rocky hills over the river Kamianka: Okhrimova, Zamkova, and Petrovska.

The main streets connecting Sobornyi Maidan with the outskirts of Zhytomyr are Kyivska Street or Kyiv Street, Velyka Berdychivska Street, Lech Kaczynski Street, and Peremohy Street.

Best-known park of Zhytomyr is named after Yuri Gagarin, in the south of the city, at the left bank of the Teteriv River.

Zhytomyr has three bus stations connecting it with many other cities and villages in Ukraine and abroad.

Zhytomyr has fifteen bridges and junctions built over rivers and roads.

Zhytomyr is the first city in Ukraine to implement e-ticket system in all municipal public transport.

On 27 February 2022, the city's public airport Zhytomyr Airport was directly attacked by 2 Iskander missiles launched from Belarus, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had recently started three days prior to the attack on Zhytomyr Airport.