Summer of 2010 [part 1]

It was late spring 2010 and I had joined the course to pursue my post-graduation. The medical jargon for the post-graduate course is 'residency'. The course commenced on the 1st of June and the city of Dnipropetrovsk was to be my home for the next two years. The city is located on the banks of the Dneiper (pronounced as 'Knee-per') river. The river runs north to south diving ukraine. Two-third of Ukraine is to the west of the river and one third of the country lies to it's east. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (Oblast = state/region) spans on either side of the river. It lies in the temperate belt and the weather is hot in summer, very cold in winter and mild usually worsening as the autumn progresses and improving with the progress of spring.

Dnipropetrovsk's historic name is Yekaterinaslav, named after the Russian Czarina Catherine. The city center has some buildings which date back to the 1700s. It is Ukraine's third largest city, after Kiev and Kharkov, with around 1 million inhabitants. Dnipropetrovsk is named after the Bolshovik hero Grigiry Petrovsky. Thus the imperial name Yekaterianoslav changed into Dnipropetrovsk. Dnipropetrovsk houses a missile factory and was a closed city during the Soviet era. The city boasts the longest embankment in all of Europe and is an important industrial and commercial center.

The Dnipropetrovsk State Medical Academy (DSMA) is one of the largest and important universities in Ukraine. The city also is the location of numerous engineering, arts, science and industrial educational institutions. Students from China, India, Middle East, Egypt, Africa and Central Asian post Soviet countries congregate here to prepare for their careers and future life.

The people of Dnipropetrovsk were mainly Russian speaking and belonged to the Orthodox Christian faith. They were all stripes of characters ranging from liberal to conservative, from racist to multicultural, from russians to africans, from filthy rich driving Porsch to destitute poor.

Dnipropetrovsk is filled with Churches and shrines. The Churches were from different stages of the history of the City and commenmorated different events in history. Dnipropetrovsk was one of the battlefields during the second world war and the war museum is quiet popular with the tourists.