From the "Horod" to "Hiroshima"

The "Horod", Perekop and Petropavlivska

The "Horod" was the area inside the fortress walls by today's Soborna Street, hence the old phrase "going to the Horod". Perekop is the ditch the Cossacks dug by hand between the Psel and the Sumka in 1658; its line follows Antonova Street. Petropavlivska has been the most aristocratic street for over a century: the Sukhanov mansion, the Chornobylsky villa, the old secondary school.

• On Palm Sunday, 13 April 2025, two ballistic missiles hit the centre: by 15 April the regional administration reported 36 dead and 127 injured.

Zasumka

The name is simple: "beyond the Sumka". It grew up in the late 17th century and kept a crooked layout that follows the terrain, unlike the grid of the rest of the centre. In 1845 it was one of the city's five parts. Here are the Illinska church, known since 1704–1705, and the Zasumske cemetery. After the electron microscope plant opened in 1959, five-storey blocks appeared.

• By the Illinska church there was a 17th-century graveyard, and during the 1941–1943 occupation a German military cemetery, about 800 burials by historian Yevhen Murza's estimate.

Kholodna Hora

In 1660 a New Town grew up beside the old fortress and was later split into the Novomistenska and Kholodnohirska parts. Historian Yevhen Murza traces the name "Cold Hill" to the cold north winds. The Soviet-era Kholodna Hora district grew around the Frunze plant and its industrial zone: standard panel five-storey blocks went up from 1964, and locals call the curved building on Metalurhiv Street "the Hockey Stick".

• The Kholodna Hora cemetery by the railway has been closed since the mid-20th century.

Khimmistechko ("Khimik")

The chemical plant built this settlement: a superphosphate works rose among collective-farm fields with a "workers' village" next to it, and only later did the city reach it. By 1953 there were two blocks of 37 two-storey brick houses, in 1953–1954 the Khimik Palace of Culture, in 1958 a school for 680 pupils. In the 1960s it got Sumy's first large-panel buildings and the city's first trolleybus route.

• Home to the Khimik Palace of Culture, the Myru market, Durivshchyna park and many colleges.
• On 21 March 2022 shelling caused an ammonia leak at Sumykhimprom; the affected zone was about 2.5 km and the city itself was not at risk.

Microdistricts 9, 10 and 12 — "the Sands"

Until the second half of the 20th century the Psel was the city's eastern edge, with marshy floodplain and farmsteads beyond it. The microdistrict numbers come from the 1961 master plan, and the nickname "the Sands" from the sand pumped out of the Psel and Lake Chekha to build them on. The first five-storey block on Kharkivska went up in 1971; the development plan dates from 1974.

• Lake Chekha is named after the landowner Vasyl Chekh, not after Chekhov.
• On 9 September young people from the "Nine" celebrate "Nine Day".

Zamostia and Kharkivska Street

The land beyond the Psel settled in the 19th century was called the "Kharkiv Dams" and later Zamostia ("beyond the bridge"). Early-20th-century maps show the Psel split into five branches here, each with its own bridge. The branches were filled in and drained, and microdistricts went up along Kharkivska Street in their place. Only two houses remain of the old private homes beyond the bridge.

• The Blue Lakes are former pits that supplied sand for building the microdistricts.

Basy

A former village of about 2,200 people until the 1920s–30s, absorbed by the city in the 1950s–60s. Two farmsteads of this name are recorded, belonging to the officers Hryhorii Kalynnyk and Mykhailo Yuriev. Here stand the 19th-century Sterycheva manor with the Ascension church on its upper floor and the 30-hectare Basy park, once a sanatorium's grounds and now a protected landscape park.

• Today: private houses, late-1980s five-storey blocks, the regional perinatal centre and SumDU's medical institute with many international students.

Luka

The name comes from the sharp southward bend ("luka") the Psel makes here. A settlement of the 8th–10th centuries and the remains of an Old Rus hillfort were found here; some historians link it with the chronicle town of Lypetsk, though this is a hypothesis. The former collective-farm village joined the city in the 1950s–60s.

• Here is the Lintvaryov estate where Chekhov spent the summers of 1888 and 1889; the house museum has been open since 1960, and his brother Mykola is buried in the local cemetery.

Veretenivka

A northern edge by Kovpaka and Veretenivska streets that locals regard as upmarket, with cottages and villas. Its pride is the Veretenivka park, laid out in 1904, about 17 hectares and a protected landscape park. The Popadka stream runs through it, and the park pond is what is left of it.

• Home to the children's hospital, a veterans' home and the agrarian university's college.
• A 500-bed neurological hospital begun in 1988 was 85% complete when the USSR collapsed and still stands abandoned.

Romenka

Named after Romenska Street, the old road to Romny and Kyiv. In the 1970s the pedagogical university campus went up here, with five- and nine-storey blocks, a school and kindergartens along Harbuzivska and Kotliarevskoho streets. "Romenka" also means a large area of private houses that residents describe as "neither town nor village".

• The Panteleimon Bridge, once a notorious unfinished project, is here too.

Kirovskyi microdistrict, "Aeroport"

"Kirovskyi" comes from the former Kirova Street, now Herasyma Kondratieva. Building began in the 1970s after the airport was moved and its runways reoriented, which is why residents still call the area "Aeroport". It is home to the agrarian university, the cadet school, the Eternal Glory memorial and the Afghan war memorial.

"Hiroshima"

Not a residential area but ruins: an unfinished Soviet sports complex on the Psel opposite Studiaha beach, at the edge of Kozhedub Park. After the central market was built, the city planned a sports and entertainment centre: a Moscow institute designed a hockey rink that would double as an open-air stage in summer. The columns went up, but construction stopped when the USSR collapsed.

• The name is a folk nickname: the concrete columns and "towers" reminded people of a bombed city. Some call it "the Sumy Stonehenge".
• The plot was sold in 2003; plans for an entertainment complex and a cottage estate never came to anything. In 2014 artists painted murals over obscene graffiti, and the site became an informal art space.

Karavan

A small settlement on the old Losytsia road to Kharkiv. Historian Viktor Zvahelsky believes it dates back to Old Rus times. The name has survived, though sources do not explain where it comes from, and residents still live somewhat apart from the rest of the city.