Okhtyrka

Coordinates: 50°18′N 34°54′E / 50.300°N 34.900°E / 50.300; 34.900

Okhtyrka (Ukrainian: Охтирка; also known by its Russian variant Akhtyrka Russian: Ахтырка) is a small city in Ukraine, a raion (district) centre within Sumy Oblast (region) since 1975. Okhtyrka is a town of Hussar and Cossack Fame. It was also once a regional seat of Sloboda Ukraine and the Ukrainian SSR. Since the discovery of oil and gas in 1961 Okhtyrka has become an "oil capital of Ukraine". It is home to Okhtyrka air base, historical and religious places of interest. Population 50,400 (as of 2001), 25,965 (1900), 17,411 (1867).

The villages of Velyke Osero (274 inhabitants), Saluschany (28 inhabitants), Prystan (7 inhabitants) and Kosyatyn (6 inhabitants) belong to the Okhtyrka city administration which is designated into a separate subdivision of the Sumy Oblast.

Etymology

There are many versions of the city's name origin. According to one of them, the most probable, its name descends from the name of the river with the same name that flows through the city. According to some local historians, the river's name in translation from Turkic language means "lazy river". In opinion of others, the city's name from the same Turkic language is translated as the "place of ambush", "white fort". Yet the Russian philologist Oleg Trubachyov considered that there are no serious grounds to accept the Turkic etymology and that the river's name is "insufficiently clear in origin".

Okhtyrka (air base)

Okhtyrka is an aviation training air base in Ukraine located 8 km east of Okhtyrka city in Sumy Oblast. It is a well-maintained, small military facility. It has been home to 809 UAP (809th Aviation Training Regiment) flying 102 L-39C aircraft as of 1992.