Foundation of the city. Nikolaev at the end of 18th century.
 Cities, like people, have life stories. From a bird's eye view, Mykolayiv's peninsula is the open palm of a hand, stretched toward the sun. Rivers join here and wrap around the city. A city, founded on this site by the Russian General-Governor Grygoriy Oleksandrovych Potyomkin-Tavriches'kyy could have become the Southern capital of the Russian Empire. А
But Mykolayiv's story took another direction. It became the cradle of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a key shipbuilding center for the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and, finally, for independent Ukraine.
 In the spring of 1789, construction of a dockyard on the Ingul River was begun. Craftsmen, merchants, noblemen, naval officers, jewelers, priests and others streamed into the new city. Enslaved Turks and other bonded workers joined the growing population.
 A city emerged around the shipyard. It was a planned city, laid out with straight streets and geometric blocks. Russian engineer I. I. Starov developed the first plans in 1790, two years before the publication of Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's famous plan for the U.S. capital at Washington, DC. Starov's . plan quickly earned Mykolayiv the rank of city.
In 1794, the administrative headquarters of the Black Sea Admiralty was moved from Kherson to Mykolayiv. And in 1798, a college of ship architecture opened.
At that time Mykolayiv was divided into the following parts: Admiral's quarter, Soldiers' quarter, Civil suburb and Workers' quarter.
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