Dzhankoi [Джанкой; Džankoj], in Crimean Tatar: Canköy (meaning ‘new village’ in the northern dialect of Crimean Tatar). See Google Map; see EU map: VIII-15. City (2021 pop 37,000) in the northeastern Crimea, railway junction, highway junction; a raion center in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

History. Dzhankoi was first mentioned in 1855 as a Tatar village; soon after the Crimean War, however, most of its Tatar residents emigrated to Turkey, while 114 German colonists (grain-livestock farmers) moved in. Thus founded in the second half of the 19th century, Dzhankoi was a village in Perekop county, Tavriia gubrenia. The construction of the Lozova–Sevastopol railway line (1871–75) transformed this rural settlement into a linear worker camp (the present-day Crimea Street) alongside the railway line. The addition of the Dzankoi–Teodosiia branch (1892) made Dzhankoi the transportation hub of the Crimea. This stimulated industrial development: the construction of the largest grain mill in the Crimea (1899), a cast-iron foundry with the production of farming implements (1909), and an agricultural machinery plant (1912). The town had 50 small enterprises (1892), gained a two-classroom school (1896), a church-run school (1900), and a vocational school for railway workers (1908). Its wooden railway station was replaced with a fine masonry structure (1903). During the First World War the foundry was re-purposed for military supply. On 3 June 1917 the town was designated a city; at the time it also had a church, a mosque, a synagogue, three schools, a new gymnasium, a hospital and a movie theater; it had a population of 9,000, with many Ukrainians and Russian administrators.

During the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War Dzhankoi was taken by the Bolshviks (12 January 1918), the Germans (19 April 1918), and briefly welcomed the Zaporozhian Corps of the Ukrainian National Republic (May 1918), then taken by the Bolsheviks (8 April 1919), the ‘White’ Russian Volunteer forces of Gen Anton Denikin (June 1919), and finally the Red Army (12 November 1920).

As part of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, Dzhankoi became an administrative center of its eponymous region: in November 1921, the Dzhankoi okruha, and in October 1923, the Dzhankoi raion. The city’s population increased from 6,095 in 1921 to 8,314 in 1926, when its ethnic composition (in percent) comprised Russians (65.1), Jews (12.3), Ukrainians (5.7), Germans (5.7), Crimean Tatars (3.8), Armenians (3.7), and Greeks (1.0). That year the Soviet government granted Dzhankoi official city status. Between 1928 and 1937 a grist mill, a creamery and a cotton ginning mill were established; its tractor repair plant (which employed 800 workers) was awarded (1939) first prize in its category. While houses of prayer were closed (none of which survived to the present), schools, medical facilities, a house of culture, and a library were built, and a raion newspaper published. By 1939 the population of Dhankoi reached 19,580.

Meanwhile, the Jewish component grew in importance. Not far from Dzhankoi, the Jewish Zionist organization HeHalutz sought (1919) to prepare its youth for agricultural work by establishing two kibbutzim (1922). A split occurred between Zionists and Communists, who formed their Mishmar Commune (1924). On the outskirts of Dzhankoi, a Jewish Agricultural Commune was established (1930), then converted to a collective farm (1933). Moreover, in Dzhankoi itself there lived 1,400 Jews on the eve of the Second World War. During the Nazi occupation (31 October 1941 to 13 April 1944), all identifiable Jews were executed, including those brought from elsewhere. The cotton ginning plant was converted into a concentration camp for Soviet prisoners of war. Wartime losses in the city (both material and human) were enormous. Immediately after the war, all Crimean Tatars were declared traitors and exiled during the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944. Those, who remained and others who came back joined in the city’s reconstruction. Its airfield was improved with a cement runway (1952) and designated for military transport.

In 1954, as part of the Crimea, Dzhankoi became incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. During this period a cannery (where the cotton ginning plant was) and a machine-building plant (making tractor hitches) were built. During the construction of the North Crimean Canal (1957–65), its cement plant provided some of the reinforced concrete components. The city built up its housing and social infrastructure. Its territory expanded and its population grew rapidly from 28,457 (1959) to 43,459 (1970), 48,819 (1979), 53,464 (1989).

Following the 1991 Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence, Dzhankoi, as part of independent Ukraine, experienced the return of Crimean Tatars. An Orthodox cathedral, a mosque, and a Roman Catholic chapel were built. The airport was de-militarized and opened to civil aviation (1994) and certified as an international airport (1999). The Dzhankoi Regional Studies Museum was expanded (1997), featuring the city’s history, ethnography of its people, and the building of the North Crimean Canal. With economic issues and ageing population, the growth of the city’s population slowed down (54,700 in 1992), and then started a slow decline: 48,500 (1998), 42,409 (2003), 38,271 (2008), and 36,086 (1 January 2014). Of the city’s 42,861 residents in 2001, their ethnic identity (in percent) was mainly Russian (59.75), Ukrainian (25.91), or Crimean Tatar (8.09), with undifferentiated Tatars as a small group (0.20) among many other minorities.   

In February 2014, as part of the Crimea, Dzhankoi was annexed by the Russian Federation. The city became a military base, its airport housing the 39th Helicopter Regiment with attack, all-purpose, and transport helicopters. Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars who opposed Russian annexation were persecuted. A special census in the Crimea (October 14–25, 2014) found 38,622 residents in Dzhankoi, who identified their ethnicity (in percent) as Russian (66.77), Ukrainian (16.57), Crimean Tatar (7.27), and Tatar (2.15). By comparison to the 2001 census results, there was a significant increase in the share of Russians, a large decline in the share of Ukrainians and a decline in the share of Crimean Tatars, with a slight increase of undifferentiated Tatars and a significant share (1.81) who refused to answer the ethnicity question.

Economy. The city has a large food industry, with plants specializing in canning (tomato paste [1950s], grape juice, marinades, jams, fruit, and meat [1970s–]), winemaking, dairy products, grain milling, vegetable oil extraction, and meat packing (at Azovske, 17 km SE of Dzhankoi). It also has railroad shops, as well as machine building (tractor hitches, car and small truck parts) and machine-repair plants. The building industry is supported with reinforced concrete plant. Its feed processing plant serves the nearby livestock farms.

Commercial services include banks, wholesale and retail stores and markets. Educational services include a professional technical (soil melioration) school, 8 general schools, a school of music, and a sports school. Entertainment includes a cultural center, 2 movie theaters and the ‘Avanhard’ stadium, home of the city’s football team. There is the city hospital and a polyclinic.

Culture. Despite the presence of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in the city, the cultural veneer as expressed in the administration, media, and religious institutions has been and remains Russian. Although the Ukrainian Prosvita organization was successful in organizing Ukrainian schools in the 1990s in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta, Alushta, and Teodosiia, it was not able to reach and influence the school authorities in smaller centers like Dzhankoi. Thus all schooling was done in Russian even when the city was part of independent Ukraine (1991–2014).

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, was in fact Russian Orthodox church and had its Protectress Mother of God Cathedral built (1990–2008) in Dzhankoi. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate was resisted here, as was the Ukrainian Catholic church (which managed to establish the Holy Trinity parish in Dzhankoi, but had no church of its own). Only the Roman Catholic church was allowed to put up its Holy Trinity Chapel. The Crimean Tatars succeeded with the erection of their Dzhankoi Mosque on the NW outskirts of the city.

City Plan. Located on the North Crimean Lowland plain, Dzhankoi commands the rail and road intersections of the Crimea: N-S from Zaporizhia to Sevastopol and E-W from Kerch to Kherson. Its city area occupies 26 sq km that on a map forms an irregular rectangle with a N-S/E-W street grid pattern. Crimea Street and the city center east of it are on the east side of the N-S railway line. The E-W rail line connects to the N-S line so as to pass through the city. The N-S highway (M18) passes through the east side of the city; the E-W highway (M17) passes through the city’s north side. Dzhankoi Airport, within the city limits, is E of the M18 and S of M17, or S of their intersection.

The city center is just NE of the railway station, bound by Crimea Street (W), October Street (E), Lenin Street (S), and Tolstoy Street (N). It contains the Dzhankoi Raion Administration, the City Hall, the City Courthouse, prosecutor’s offices, the main post office, several schools, a movie theater, city’s central park and next to it the Orthodox cathedral, a commercial pedestrian strip and both wholesale and retail markets. Residential areas are generally individual houses. Only along Lenin Street and along the N-S highway there are apartment neighborhoods.

Most industries are located along the railway line south of the railway station in the southern half of the city: the fuel depot, the marshalling yards, the wagon repair depot, and west of it, winery and power station, and south of it, the machine building plant. On the east side of the tracks is the cannery.

The city is flanked by two small rivers (the Myronivka on the west, the Pobidna on the east) flowing NNE, and surrounded by 8 villages. They are, clockwise, from S, Kostiantynivka, Michurinivka, Dmytrivka, Dniprovka, Izumrudne (in the N), Bolotne (NW), Peremozhne (E), and Tarasivka (SE), the last three on the Pobidna River. The North Crimean Canal passes on the N side of Izumrudne (the end-point of its gravitational flow), and then turns south, passing on the east side of Dzhankoi.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
‘Dzhankoi,’ Kryms'ka oblast' u skladi URSR (Kyiv 1970)
‘Dzhankoi,’ Heohrafichna entsyklopediia Ukraïny, vol 1 (Kyiv 1989)
Shkliarenko, L. ‘Dzhankoi,’ Entsyklopediia suchasnoï Ukraïny (Kyiv 2007)
‘Karta Dzhankoia, Kryma, z vulytsiamy’ Mapa Ukraïny https://kartaukrainy.com.ua/Dzhankoy

Ihor Stebelsky

[This article was updated in 2024.]