Monastyrskyi Island (Ukrainian: Монастирський острів, romanized: Monastyrskyi ostriv) is located within the boundaries of the Sobornyi district of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro near the right bank of the Dnieper River.
Native name: Монастирський острів | |
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Geography | |
Location | Dnieper River |
Area | 0.4 km2 (0.15 sq mi) |
Highest point | N/A |
Administration | |
Ukraine | |
Sobornyi District, Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast | |
Demographics | |
Population | 0 |
It is covered with granite rocks to the west which gradually turns into a sandy spit in the east of the island.
Part of the island belongs to the Taras Shevchenko Park. The island is connected to the city by a pedestrian bridge in its northern part.
According to archeological finds, in the Paleolithic period (7—3 thousand Anno Domini) human settlements appear on the island.[1] In 1961 there were found several scraps and sharpener of ancient Stone Age by archaeologists.[2]
The island got its name in the ninth century because of an unconfirmed belief that in that century Byzantine monks founded a monastery on the island, which in 1240 was destroyed by the Mongol-Tatars.[3]
In 1747 Ukrainian Cossacks did build a monastery on the island.[3]
The first monument to the ukrainian political, scientific and artistical figure Taras Shevchenko (1814 – 1861) on the island appeared in the mid-1920s (the exact date has been lost).[4]
On 24 November 2015 the island was officially renamed to Komsomolsky Island (Ukrainian: Комсомольський острів), after the Komsomol political youth organization of the Soviet Union.[5][3][nb 1]
In the 1930s the island had an "allée of writers" where several busts of prominent Ukrainian and Russian writers were located, including a simple gypsum bust of Shevchenko.[4] These two monuments did not survive the heavy fighting in Dnipropetrovsk during World War II.[4]
A new monument to Shevchenko was opened in 1949, only the pedestal has survived from this monument.[4]
The main alley on the island in the 1950s was completed by a monument to Joseph Stalin in the middle of a large flowerbed.[4]
In 1958 a new monument to Shevchenko was installed on the island that was unveiled on 5 November 1959.[4][7] This monument is several times larger than its 1949 predecessor.[4] This 1949 monument was then reinstalled in the Shevchenko neighborhood in Dnipro's Samarskyi District where it was located until October 2007, when it was destroyed.[4] Since then, the 1959 monument has become one of the city's most recognized landmarks.[4]
There is also a memorial cross to the Byzantine monks, erected in 1994.[8][unreliable source?]
In 1999 an Orthodox church of St. Nicholas was built on the northern part of the island.[3]
On 24 November 2015 the island was officially renamed Monastyrskyi Island.[5][3] It was renamed to its current name to comply with decommunization law.[5]
48°27′48″N 35°04′47″E / 48.4632°N 35.0796°E