Proud to Be Ukrainian



The TRYZUB (Trident) is the coat of arms of Ukraine. It has been known to have several meanings, although the most common interpretation is that the Ukrainian word for "Freedom" is incorporated into the symbol.

The Ukrainian flag (Blue and Yellow) represents a field of wheat and the blue sky, as seen in the back ground.

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the northeast, Belarus to the north, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest and the Black Sea to the south. The territory of present-day Ukraine was a key centre of East Slavic culture in the Middle Ages, before being divided between a variety of powers, notably Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Austrian Empire, Romania and the Ottoman Empire. A brief period of independence (1917-1921) following the Russian Revolution of 1917 was ended by Ukraine's absorption into the Soviet Union in 1922 and the republic's present borders were only established in 1954. It became independent once more following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.


The etymology of the Ukrainian name Ukrayina stems from the Old Slavic root *kraj-, meaning "cut". Opinions vary as to the immediate derivation:
1. Borderland, frontier (cf. Russian okraina "outskirts"; a semantic parallel to -mark in Denmark, cf. Marches)
2. Ukrainian krajina "country" (this is also one of the meanings of Ukrainian and Russian kraj)
3. Ukrainian verb krajaty "to cut", indicating the land the Ukrainians carved out for themselves

In English, the country is sometimes referred to with the definite article, as the Ukraine, a usage increasingly deprecated in English.

Ukraine is subdivided into twenty-four oblasts (provinces) and one autonomous republic, Crimea. Additionally, two cities, Kiev and Sevastopol, have a special legal status.