Jerusalem,” and is visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year. Besides its historical importance, Kiev possesses also a great geographical significance. Its picturesque position on the lofty right-hand bank of the Dnieper, which is cut up into beautiful erosive hills, offers great geographical advantages. Here, opposite the Desna outlet, the Dnieper, after receiving its two largest tributaries, completes its transformation into the second largest river of Eastern Europe. The waterways of the Pripet, the upper Dnieper and the Desna here form a junction, the importance of which is heightened by the junction of railroads and highways at the same point; such thorofares have always found in Kiev the most convenient crossing over the Dnieper River into the Western Ukrainian lands. This junction of roads favors the rapidly progressing development of Kiev’s commerce, which concentrates in the “lower city” (Podil) and in its great river harbor. Kiev is the most convenient emporium for the forest and grain regions of the Ukraine, which border on one another here. In the last decades a considerable factory industry has developed in Kiev, embracing all possible branches of industry. Above all, the sugar industry has its center here. Kiev has a Russian University and a technical college. Ukrainian cultural life, which has always had its main headquarters in Kiev, has experienced an unexpected rise here since 1905. Not far from Kiev, which is an important fortress today, there lie many places of historical significance, among them the convents of Vidubitsky and Mezihirsky. Rzishchiv is a river port with some grain exportation. On the Stuhna lies the old city of Vassilkiv (18,000 pop.), with an insignificant trade, from a modern point of view. At the point where the borders of the Governments of Kiev, Volhynia and Podolia touch, lies Berdichiv, a city of 83,000, inhabited [325]mostly by Jews, after Kiev the most important emporium for cattle and grain in the country. The products of the industry of this place are offered for sale by Jewish peddlers thruout the entire right half of the Ukraine. In the river region of the Ross we find several cities which are local centers of the sugar and alcohol industry: Skvira (16,000 pop.), in a region covered with ancient walls, with pottery and cap manufactures; the old Cossack city of Bila Tserkov (61,000 pop.), famous for the treaty of Khmelnitsky with the Poles (1652), now a lively commercial city, with sugar and machine manufactures; Tarashcha (11,000 pop.), with a considerable wagon industry (the familiar tarantasses are made here). Korsun is noteworthy because of the victory of Khmelnitsky over the Poles (1648). Nearby lie the villages of Kirilivka and Morintzi, the home of the greatest Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko.