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People
The people who made Sumy
Colonels and sugar barons, writers and painters, champions and defenders. Some were born here, others came from elsewhere, and each left the city something of their own.
17th–18th c.
Founders
Herasym Kondratiev
d. 1701 · colonel 1658–1701Otaman of Stavyshche in the Bila Tserkva regiment, who led his people east after the defeats of the Khmelnytsky uprising. On 24 June 1655 about a hundred of his Cossacks petitioned for leave to settle on the Psel. For more than forty years, from 1658 to 1701, he was the first colonel of the Sumy Regiment. Under him the 27-tower oak fortress went up, work began on the Resurrection Church, and monasteries (including a convent in Luka) and parish schools appeared; by 1732 Sumy had five. He was buried in 1701 in the crypt of the Resurrection Church. His descendants became one of the richest families in Sloboda Ukraine. Sumy never built a monument to its founder, but one of its main streets bears his name.
Andrii Kondratiev
colonel by 1706The founder's son, who finished the Resurrection Church and inherited the regiment. He was killed by Kondratii Bulavin's Don Cossacks during their revolt.
19th–20th c.
The sugar dynasty and patrons
Ivan Kharytonenko
1822–1891A peasant's son from Nyzhnia Syrovatka (sources give 1820 or 1822). He started in trade, founded the trading house "I. H. Kharytonenko and Son" in the 1860s and in 1869 opened the Pavlivka refinery in Sumy, which is said to have produced 17% of the empire's sugar. He served as mayor, built a hospital and an almshouse, and left money for the cadet school. He died on 30 November 1891. A monument by Opekushin and Croisy went up in 1899; the Bolsheviks destroyed it, and a new one was placed on Pokrovska Square in 1996.
Pavlo Kharytonenko
1853–1914Born on 5 January 1853, Ivan's only son. He inherited seven sugar mills and the refinery, and his share of the family business exceeded 15 million roubles. He completed the cadet school (1899), built the Trinity Cathedral on the model of St Isaac's and invited Nesterov, Petrov-Vodkin and Nivinsky to paint it. He collected art, and Valentin Serov painted his portrait in 1901. Though Orthodox, he gave land for a Catholic church for foreign specialists. He died in 1914 and lies in the family tomb with sculptures by Aristide Croisy.
Mykhailo Sukhanov
d. 1909Sugar manufacturer who, with his uncle Dmytro, paid for the rebuilding of the Transfiguration Cathedral. His 1895 mansion on Petropavlivska is one of the finest in the city.
Yosyp Leshchynskyi
late 19th – early 20th c.The merchant who built the Altanka over a failed oil well. The Leshchynskyi family gave the city the land that is now its biggest park.
Culture
Artists and guests
Anton Chekhov
1860–1904In the summers of 1888 and 1889 Chekhov and his family rented a wing of the Lintvaryov estate in Luka on the Psel. He fished, visited the neighbours and worked on the play The Wood Demon. The second summer was darkened by the death of his brother Nikolai. Leaving in September 1889, the writer said he had left his soul in Luka. The wing has been a house museum since 1960, and in 2013 a bronze Chekhov on a bench appeared in Kozhedub Park.
Nikolai Chekhov
1858–1889Painter and the writer's elder brother. He died of tuberculosis in Luka on 29 June 1889 and is buried in the local cemetery.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
1840–1893The composer stayed at his friend Nikolai Kondratiev's estate at Nyzy near Sumy in 1871–1876, 1878 and 1879, and recalled those quiet summers warmly in his letters. The Kondratiev-Sukhanov estate at Nyzy is now a branch of the regional museum.
Nykanor Onatsky
1875–1937Painter, teacher and local historian. He taught art in Sumy schools, founded the art museum in 1920 and ran it until 1933; the collection grew from that of Oskar Hansen. In 1937 the NKVD shot him. Today the museum on Pokrovska Square bears his name and holds more than 11,000 works.
Oleksandr Oles
1878–1944Lyric poet, born in the village of Kandybyne in Sumy Oblast. Many of his poems became songs and school classics. He died in exile in Prague and was reburied in Kyiv in 2017.
Anatoliy Mokrenko
1933–2020Baritone, born near Sumy in 1933. People's Artist, soloist and in 1991–1999 general director of the National Opera of Ukraine.
Born in Sumy
Sumy natives
Oleksii Alchevsky
1835–1901Born in Sumy in 1835 to a merchant family. He became one of the leading bankers and industrialists of the Russian Empire, founding the Kharkiv Trade Bank and steelworks in the Donbas; the town of Alchevsk is named after him. With his wife, the educator Khrystyna Alchevska, he put up a monument to Taras Shevchenko on their Kharkiv estate in 1899. He died in 1901.
Yekaterina Peshkova
1876–1965Born in Sumy in 1876. Maxim Gorky's first wife, but known above all as a human-rights activist: for decades she headed Pompolit, the aid committee for political prisoners that saved people from Soviet camps and executions.
Karl Burman
1882–1965Estonian architect and painter, designer of Bank of Estonia buildings, born in Sumy.
Dmytro Kuleba
b. 1981Born in Sumy in 1981. Diplomat, deputy prime minister for European integration and Ukraine's foreign minister in 2020–2024, including the first years of the full-scale war.
Sport
Champions
Volodymyr Holubnychy
1936–2021Born in Sumy in 1936 and lived here all his life. A legend of the 20 km walk: Olympic gold in 1960 (Rome) and 1968 (Mexico City), silver in 1972 and bronze in 1964, medals at four Games in a row. He died in Sumy in 2021.
Leonid Zhabotinsky
1938–2016Weightlifter from the village of Uspenka in Sumy Oblast. Two-time Olympic super-heavyweight champion, in Tokyo in 1964 and Mexico City in 1968, and a multiple world record holder.
Kazimierz Gzowski
1901–1986Born in Sumy in 1901. A Polish army cavalry officer and rider who won Olympic silver in team show jumping in Amsterdam in 1928.
Kateryna Samson
b. 1988Goalkeeper with 56 caps for the Ukraine women's team.
Remembrance
Heroes
Serhii "Sever" Tabala
1995–2014Born in Lebedyn in 1995 and schooled in Sumy. He volunteered for the front and was killed defending the Donetsk airport tower on 6 November 2014, aged 18, the youngest of the "cyborgs". Hero of Ukraine (decree of 21 November 2016) and honorary citizen of Sumy; a street was named after him in 2016.
Ivan Kozhedub
1920–1991Born in 1920 in the village of Obrazhiivka in Sumy Oblast. The top-scoring Allied ace of WWII, with about 64 victories, and three times Hero of the Soviet Union. The largest park in Sumy is named after him.
Olena Kohut
d. 13 Apr 2025Organist of the Sumy Philharmonic, killed in the Palm Sunday missile strike.