Kryvyi Rih

Kryvyi Rih lies at the junction of the Inhulets and Saksahan, where the rivers meet in the southern steppe. Its name means Crooked Horn, recalling the shape of the land at the confluence. The area belonged to the lands of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, whose wintering places and routes connected the river valleys with the Sich.

In 1775 the Cossack leader Petro Kalnyshevskyi reported the establishment of a post station at Kryvyi Rih on the road along the Inhulets. A settlement developed beside the station and became a district centre in 1781. The traveller Vasyl Zuiev noticed iron-bearing rock on the banks of the Saksahan during his visit that year. Its mineral wealth would later transform the town, but in the eighteenth century the post road and the Cossack frontier were central to its story.