The Dnieper Plateau is important, not only because of its agriculture, cattle-raising and fruit-culture, but also because of a considerable cultivation of commercial plants, because of a developed home and factory industry, and because of a comparatively lively trade. It is one of the central districts of the Ukraine, with typical conditions of settlement. Large agglomerations of dwellings, picturesquely located, consisting of whitewashed, straw-covered clay huts, lie on the rivers and creeks, usually on wide valley bottoms or slightly inclined valley sides, surrounded and dotted with the fresh green of orchards. On the plateau, which is one great wave of never-ending grain-fields, there lie only a few scattered manors of large landowners, single farmhouses, bee orchards, adjoining little woodlands and groves. The number and size of the cities is not great. The prevailing type is that of the village city — a great village with an area of buildings in the middle, which have a city-like character. The streets are broad and unpaved, the green of the gardens being apparent even in the center of the city. Where the northeastern spurs of the Dnieper Plateau reach the Dnieper River, lies the natural capital of the Ukraine, the former "mother of the Ruthenian cities," Kiev (506,000 pop.). Its great history finds expression in an enormous number of architectural monuments, especially churches and convents. (Lavra Pecherska, the Church of Sophia, the Church of Andreas, the Tithe Church, the Golden Gate, etc.). Kiev was the capital of the
ancient Ukrainian Kingdom and its spiritual center; today it is called the "Ukrainian Jerusalem," and is visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year. Besides its historical importance, Kiev possesses also a great geographical significance. Its picturesque position on the lofty right-hand bank of the Dnieper, which is cut up into beautiful erosive hills, offers great geographical advantages. Here, opposite the Desna outlet, the Dnieper, after receiving its two largest tributaries, completes its transformation into the second largest river of Eastern Europe. The waterways of the Pripet, the upper Dnieper and the Desna here form a junction, the importance of which is heightened by the junction of railroads and highways at the same point; such thorofares have always found in Kiev the most convenient crossing over the Dnieper River into the Western Ukrainian lands. This junction of roads favors the rapidly progressing development of Kiev's commerce, which concentrates in the "lower city" (Podil) and in its great river harbor. Kiev is the most convenient emporium for the forest and grain regions of the Ukraine, which border on one another here. In the last decades a considerable factory industry has developed in Kiev, embracing all possible branches of industry. Above all, the sugar industry has its center here. Kiev has a Russian University and a technical college. Ukrainian cultural life, which has always had its main headquarters in Kiev, has experienced an unexpected rise here since 1905.
Not far from Kiev, which is an important fortress today, there lie many places of historical significance, among them the convents of Vidubitsky and Mezihirsky. Rzishchiv is a river port with some grain exportation. On the Stuhna lies the old city of Vassilkiv (18,000 pop.), with an insignificant trade, from a modern point of view. At the point where the borders of the Governments of Kiev, Volhynia and Podolia touch, lies Berdichiv, a city of 83,000, inhabited mostly by Jews, after Kiev the most important emporium for cattle and grain in the country. The products of the industry of this place are offered for sale by Jewish peddlers thruout the entire right half of the Ukraine. In the river region of the Ross we find several cities which are local centers of the sugar and alcohol industry: Skvira (16,000 pop.), in a region covered with ancient walls, with pottery and cap manufactures; the old Cossack city of BilaTserkov (61,000 pop.), famous for the treaty of Khmelnitsky with the Poles (1652), now a lively commercial city, with sugar and machine manufactures; Tarashcha (11,000 pop.), with a considerable wagon industry (the familiar tarantasses are made here). Korsun is noteworthy because of the victory of Khmelnitsky over the Poles (1648). Nearby lie the villages of Kirilivka and Morintzi.the home of the greatest Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko.