My favorite city Nikolaev - Our corner of the world: from settling to the city basis

Humans have lived on the peninsula where Mykolayiv is located for a long time. Scientists believe the first people settled here during the late Paleolithic period, more than fifteen thousand years ago.

At the site of an ancient settlement called "Wild Park", now in the middle of an old part of the city, scientists found bronze implements dating back three thousand years.

During the 9th and 8th centuries B.C. the region was settled by tribes of Cimmerians. Later, they were forced out by Skiffs. Iron implements appeared in Northern Prichernomorye around the same time.

The first Greek settlement in Northern Prichernomorye was on the island of Beresan. Later, around 700 BC, Greek colonists founded a city named Olva on the right bank of the Bug estuary near the present-day village of Porutino. Olvia was a center for trade and culture and became a big slave-holding city-state. Greek and Skiff cultures mixed to form the material culture and spiritual belief systems of the people of Prichernomorye. Greek settlements lifted agriculture and trade in the region to high levels of development.

Slavic tribes came to the territory of modern day Mykolayiv in the first centuries of the new age. Starting around 800 A.D., they fell victim to repeated raids by tribes of Pechenegs, Polovecs and Tatars, and for six hundred years, the region was the arena for multiple military operations. During the 1300s, a Tatar-Mongol horde that sought to control the Black Sea coast forced out the Slavic tribes. But by 1450, control of the territory had shifted to Lithuania. Turkey was in control until around 1475 and still later, Poland. By 1500, the history of the southeastern left bank of the Southern Bug had become entwined with that of the Zaporozhskie Kazaks, who built villages and temporary bridges here.

In a series of wars, from 1787 till 1791, Russia tried to free Slavic territories from Turkish control. The most significant military engagements took place near Kinbur Spit, and Ochakov Fortress (1788). At that time, according to "Yasskiy Mir," Russia took possession of the "Ochakov area" - the right bank of the Southern Bug.

After liberating the territory between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug Rivers and gaining free access to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, the Russian Empire began to create a naval fleet. Russia needed a shipbuilding center somewhere on the Black Sea coast. During this time, the late 1700s, the city of Mykolayiv was founded.

The archeological site "Wild Park" is the location of late bronze period (1300 - 900 B.C.) settlements. It is the only steep settlement found in Ukraine that dates from that period. The settlement at "Wild Park" site was founded 500 years before the Greek city-state of Olvia and existed for 300 years. "Wild Park" was a contemporary of the legendary city of Troy and is the only known example of a Black Sea port city from that period.

"Wild Park" was the trade and cultural center that united the inhabitants of Pobuzhye and southern-western Prychernomorye. The site was discovered by archeologists in the middle of the 20th century when remnants of houses and defense buildings were unearthed. Findings from the site include ceramic and bronze dishes, household implements, animal bones, and foundations for residential structures.