My motherland: the place where I live
“My motherland: the place where I live / the place I love the most”
To begin with, I fully agree with the proverb “There is no place like home”. My home is my native city Dnipropetrovs’k, the place I love so much. Dnipropetrovs’k is a regional and district city situated on both banks of the Dnipro River. My city is beautiful at any time of the year.
As for the history of my city, it came into being in May, 1787. While touring Southern Russia, Kateryna the II laid the first foundation stone of the Transfiguration Cathedral. Built much later, the Cathedral was one-sixth of the originally planned size. Today this ancient structure is one of our city’s most magnificent monuments of architecture. The city is rich in museums and exhibition halls, it boasts of five theatres, the Circus, the Organ Music House and of Sports Complex comprising the Aquatic and Ice Palaces and a stadium.
Nowadays Dnipropetrovs’k is a leading economic centre and one of the industrial cities of Ukraine. It is a large machine-building centre. There are a lot of industrial enterprises which produce tractors and automobiles, motorcycles and bicycles, TV-sets and radio sets, watches and refrigerators, electronic computers and food, textile and footwear. It’s also a big traffic centre with large network of railroads, roads, airlines and a metro.
To add more, the city has an interesting cultural life. The Katerynoslav Province has long been famous for its painters who specialize in the ornamentation of walls, furniture and wooden household items. This form of decorative applied art emerged centuries ago at Petrikovka, a nearby village. It is distinguished by floral ornamental motives, clear-cut and graceful tracery, and vividness of colour.
I can’t but mention that Dnipropetrovs’k is also the city of sports. There are good recreations and sport facilities: tennis courts, playgrounds, and swimming pools in various parts of the city. The main sport structures are: the Stadium, the Palace of Sports, and Water Sports Centre.
All in all, I’d never live anywhere else, but here in my beloved city.
