Fastiv

Fastiv [Фастів; formerly Khvastiv]. Map: III-10. City (2017 pop 46,879) and raion center in Kyiv oblast, situated in the Dnipro Upland on the Unava River, a tributary of the Irpin River. First mentioned in the chronicles in 1390, in 1601 it received the rights of Magdeburg law. From the mid-1680s to the beginning of the 18th century it was a Polish county town and the center of the Cossack Fastiv regiment, whose Cossacks played a key role in Colonel Semen Palii’s anti-Polish rebellion. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, it became a town in Kyiv gubernia in 1797 and an important gubernial grain-trade center. In 1923 the town became a raion center. In 1926 it had a population of 14,200, of which 66 percent was Ukrainian and 25 percent was Jewish. It is an important railway junction and depot; chemical machinery, electrothermal equipment, furniture, clothing, and food products are made there. A regional studies museum, the wooden Church of the Holy Protectress (1779–81), and a large, beautiful Catholic stone church of the Elevation of the Cross (1903–11) are located there.

[This article was updated in 2017.]