Biliaivka

Biliaivka is a small city in Odesa Oblast in southern Ukraine, set in the Dniester Delta on the left bank of the Turunchuk River, with Lake Safiany lying close by. It is the seat of the Biliaivka urban hromada, one of the territorial communities into which Ukraine's local government is organised, and it now belongs to Odesa Raion after the 2020 administrative reform folded the former Biliaivka Raion into it. The settlement began as a Cossack village called Holovkivka, first recorded in 1792, and settlers from the Poltava region arrived in 1794. The name is tied to the Cossack general judge Antin Holovaty. By 1886 it served as a volost centre of Odesa county, with two Orthodox churches, schools, shops and a river crossing. It was given town status in 1957 and city status in 1975, and the 2022 population estimate was about 12,355.