Experience the best of Kharkiv

Kharkiv stands on a plain in north-eastern Ukraine and was founded as a Cossack frontier fortress in the 1650s. It is one of the country's biggest cities and centres of learning. Freedom Square is one of the largest city squares in Europe, and beside it the Derzhprom, a 1920s constructivist complex of linked concrete towers, recalls the city's years as capital of Soviet Ukraine until 1934.

The old centre has the Dormition Cathedral with its tall bell tower, the Annunciation Cathedral and the Pokrovsky Monastery, and Karazin University dates from 1805. Shevchenko Garden, Gorky Park and the Mirror Stream fountain give relief from the traffic, and the zoo is among the oldest in the country. The wooded steppe of Sloboda Ukraine, the old Cossack borderland, spreads out beyond.

Borscht, varenyky and kholodets, a meat jelly, are staples of Kharkiv's tables, and the city's big markets sell pickles, smoked fish and sunflower oil. Bakeries offer pies filled with cabbage, potato or cherry. The seasons are continental, with a hot summer, a frosty winter and a late, golden autumn.