Khortytsia
The Dnipro's largest island: an old Rus ford, Cossack memory, cliffs.
Khortytsia stood on the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks": Prince Sviatoslav fell near the island in 972. A description of his appearance was left by the Byzantine historian Leo the Deacon: after the battle of Dorostolon on 21 July 971 the prince came to negotiate with Emperor John Tzimiskes in an ordinary boat, sat at an oar beside the rowers and differed from them only in the cleanliness of his white clothing — of middling height, shaggy brows, bright blue eyes, a snub nose, beardless, with long moustaches; a shaven head with a single lock at one side as a sign of noble birth, and a gold earring with a carbuncle between two pearls. Later the Zaporozhian Cossacks grew around these places — on neighbouring Mala Khortytsia, Vyshnevetskyi raised the castle from which the Sich tradition is traced. Today the island is a national reserve with a Cossack museum and a reconstructed Sich in the north.
A frontline city: the reserve's schedule depends on the security situation; alarms are no formality.