Sviatoshyn (, ; also or ) is a historical neighborhood and a suburb of Ukraine's capital Kyiv that is located on the western edge of the city area, in an eponymous municipality.
Previously it was a dacha village (summer colony) in a pine grove which was included into the Kyiv city council area in 1919.
Location
The neighbourhood is located in the North-East of the Dnieper Upland, in the western a part of Kyiv city's area.
The suburb is situated on both sides of Kyiv's prospect Peremohy along its western part. Sviatoshyn neighborhood borders the Nyvka River (Borshchahivka River) in the west, that flows through there and falls into the Irpin River of the Dnieper basin. There is the beginning on the opposite side of the Nyvka River.
The east boundary of the suburb is the Kyiv - Kovel railway. There are , and neighbourhoods in the north of Sviatoshyn and Borshchahivka neighbourhood, terrain, village and Petropavlivska Borshchahivka village in the south.
All Sviatoshyn's adjacent neighbourhoods and suburbs belong to the Sviatoshyn Raion as well, except the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka. That village is in Bucha Raion (district) of Kyiv Oblast (region).
By roads, the suburb is located: 13 km to the Kyiv city centre. 10 km to the city's central station - Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi Railway Station. 12 km to Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany) 44 km to the main city's airport, Boryspil International Airport
The core Sviatoshyn road Peremohy Avenue is a part of European route E40, which is the main highway from Kyiv to the most European countries. There is going through the suburb from north to south. It includes and there.
Name
There are two hypotheses of the name of Sviatoshyn existing.
The first one comes from a version that there was a Saint Grove (Sviatyi, Святий гай) in there. That was a sacred place for pagans.
The second version says that the name is derived from the nickname of , the Prince of Chernigov, who lived in the 12th century. His original name was Sviatoslav and he was a son of Davyd Sviatoslavich and a grandson of the Grand Prince of Kyiv Sviatoslav II. It is alleged that he owned a land at neighbouring Borshchahivka village. In 1106 the prince Sviatoslav donated all his property to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and became a monk of it. He took the monk Christian name Nikola (Nikolai, ). Since he had the born name Sviatoslav and was very devout he was given the informal nickname Sviatosha. Sviatosha means a pious, godly religious person.
In itself the Ukrainian word "Sviatoshyn" means "Sviatosha's", that is, something that belongs to Sviatosha.
Name's spellings
In contrast to English speaking countries, the names of a city's suburbs in Ukraine, that belong to city councils areas, do not have so strict spelling rules, because their name do not play any significant roles in an official city's division to local districts (raions) or in the postal system.
The ethnographer in his work "" in 1884 mentioned this place as "a woodland called Sviatoshyn". There is a document "The report of the Committee to facilitate accomplishment of the villa area in the locality Sviatoshyn of the Kyiv province and district. Kyiv, 1903" existing. At the beginning of the 20th century the dacha village was called Sviatoshyn (Святошинъ - in the ).
In the Soviet era there was a trend to change names of settlements, especially small ones, by putting the suffix "-o". So that since the 1930s on all maps of Kyiv, both Russian and Ukrainian languages, the suburb was marked as Sviatoshyno (Святошино). Settlement names with the suffix "-o" are more typical of Russian language than Ukrainian, so sometimes the name Sviatoshyne (Святошине) was used in Ukrainian spelling. Despite of that there is Sviatoshyn (Святошин) article included in that was published by the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia editorial office.
Since the station of the Kyiv Metro, which is the suburb's landmark, was renamed Sviatoshyn (Святошин) station, this variant of suburb spelling has been started broadly used. Ukrainian linguists insist on using Sviatoshyn (Святошин) as the locality name. In spite of this, sometimes the name Sviatoshyno (Святошино) has still been used, even in official documents of the Kyiv City Council.
History
Early time
Before the Kievan Rus epoch it was a territory of Eastern Polans and approximately 10 kilometres to the west, on the left bank of the Irpin River, Drevlians' land began.
At the time of Kievan Rus and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania the land belonged to the Principality of Kyiv.