Zmiiv

Zmiiv is a city in Chuhuiv Raion of Kharkiv Oblast in Ukraine, about 42 kilometres from Kharkiv. It hosts the administration of the Zmiiv urban hromada, and until the administrative reform of 2020 it was the centre of Zmiiv Raion. The name almost certainly comes from the Ukrainian word for snakes, and a legend tells of a winged serpent harnessed to a plough whose spoil formed the Zmiiv ramparts. The official date of foundation is 1640, though the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine treats that as legendary and dates the town to 1655. Cossacks built a fort there in the 1650s, it was a company town of the Kharkiv regiment from 1669 to 1765, and from 1797 to 1920 it was the centre of Zmiev uyezd. A paper mill was built between 1891 and 1893 and a machine-building plant in 1956. From 1976 to 1990 the city was named Gotwald after Klement Gottwald. The population fell from 17,063 in 2001 to an estimated 13,737 in 2022.