KREMENCHUG-rOLTAVA. 



309 



wretclies, whose common grave is still shown ; Rashorha, where the societies of 

 the Little Kussian hawkers have their head-quarters ; and near it SorocJiintzi, 

 birthplace of Gogol. But the chief commercial centre of the whole of Little 

 Russia is Kremenchug, one of the principal ports of the Dnieper. The loading 

 and transhipment of goods employ large numbers in spring, when the population, 

 including the suburb of Knikov, rises from 30,000 to about 60,000. Krukov is mostly 

 covered by the large Government salt stores, timber and building yards ; and the 

 Kremenchug carriage factories, agricultural implement works, tanneries, steam 

 saw-mills, tobacco factories, supply a large amount of the local consumption. Its 

 most remarkable structure is the tubular railway bridge, 3,080 feet long, on 



Fig. 160. — Kremenchug. 

 Scale 1 : 280,000 



5. -10 L.ofP 



E of G 



5 Miles. 



the Kharkov-Balta line. In spring the town is occasionally almost entirely under 

 w^ater, and it is also frequently devastated by fire, but it constantly rises from its 

 ashes larger and uglier than ever. 



In the basin of the Vorskla, whose windings preserve almost a perfect 

 parallelism with the Psol, are the towns of AhJitîrka, much frequented by pilgrims, 

 and Poltava, capital of the government, near the converging point of all the 

 head-streams, and ever memorable for the sanguinary battle of 1709, in which the 

 meteoric career of Charles XII. was extinguished, and Hussia as it were ceased 

 to be a purely Asiatic state, and suddenly took its place amongst the great 

 European powers. Several monuments in the town and neighbourhood commemo- 



