Ukraine & Sumy

Ukraine is one of countries in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after the Russian Federation.

Some little known facts about Ukraine:

George Gershwin wrote one of the world’s most famous songs, “Summertime”, after being inspired by an old Ukrainian lullaby called “Sleep Is Tiptoeing About” performed by the Ukrainian National Chorus.
Arsenalnaya Metro Station located in Kiev is the deepest in the world (105 meters). The station was built in 1960, very close to the House of Parliament. According to some reports, the tunnels near Arsenalnaya house secret shelters built specially for the political elite.
Ukraine has the world’s largest reserves of manganese ore – 2.3 billion tons or about 11% of all deposits of the world.
Ukrainians invented a plane with the largest freight-carrying capacity in the world – the An-225 “Mriya”. Originally, it was designed for spacecraft transportation. Now it specializes in freight haulage.
One of the most famous Christmas songs “Schedrik” (a folk song written by a Ukrainian composer) is known to the rest of the world as “Carol of the Bells” or “Ring Christmas Bells”.
And so on…

Sumy Sights:

The city center is dominated by the large cathedral of the Saviour’s Transfiguration. It is a neoclassical structure of the 18th century, extensively repaired and reconstructed in 1858 and in the 1880s, when the 56 metre (180 ft) high bell tower was added.
The Resurrection Church (1702), the oldest structure in the town, is still in fair preservation, owing to recent restoration work.
The cathedral of the monastery of St. Pantaleon was erected in 1911 to a design by Aleksey Shchusev
A lovely church of Saints Peter and Paul is in the town’s cemetery. It was built in 1851 on the donations of Sumy citizens.
The Cathedral of Holy Trinity was built in 1902-1914 on the same pattern as the Cathedral of St. Isaac in St. Petersburg.