Nikopol is a city in Ukraine,
in the Dnipropetrovsk province, on the right
bank of Dnieper river, about 100 km south-west
of Dnipropetrovsk. It has about 128,900
inhabitants The 1911 edition of Encyclop?dia
Britannica gave the following description
of Nikopol: It was formerly called "Nikitin
Rog", and occupies an elongated peninsula
between two arms of the Dnieper at a point
where its banks are low and marshy, and
has been for centuries one of the places
where the middle Dnieper can most conveniently
be crossed.
In 1900, its 21,282 inhabitants were Ukrainians,
Jews and Mennonites, who carry on agriculture
and shipbuilding. The old sich, or fortified
camp of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, brilliantly
described in N. V. Gogol's novel Taras Bulba
(1834), was situated a little higher up
the river. Numbers of graves in the vicinity
recall the battles which were fought for
the possession of this important strategic
point. One of them, close to the town, contained,
along with other Scythian antiquities, the
well-known precious vase representing the
capture of wild horses. Even now Nikopol,
which is situated on the highway from Dnipropetrovsk
to Kherson, is the point where the "salt-highway"
of the Chumaks (Ukrainian salt-carriers)
to the Crimea crosses the Dnieper. Nikopol
is, further, one of the chief places on
the lower Dnieper for the export of corn,
linseed, hemp and wool.
