Kremenchug

Kremenchuk was supposedly founded in 1571. The name Kremenchuk consists of two words "kremen" - chert (a mineral) because the city is located on a giant chert plate, and "chuk" - from the Ukrainian "chuyu" ("I hear") - a shout of medieval helmsmen in acknowledgement of a warning cry of "Kremen!" sounded whenever their vessels approached the chert rapids while navigating down the Dnieper. An alternative explanation says that "Kremenchuk" is the Turkish for "small fortress". From its situation at the southern terminus of the navigable course of the Dnieper, and equally advantageous positioning on the crossway from Muscovy to the Black Sea, it acquired a great commercial importance early on, and by 1655, it was a wealthy Cossack town. In 1625, at Lake Kurukove in Kremenchuk, the Treaty of Kurukove was signed between the Cossacks and the Poles.

During World War II (1939-1945), Kremenchuk suffered heavily under Nazi occupation. More than 90% of the city's buildings were leveled over the course of the war, and most of Kremenchuk's once substantial Jewish population was wiped out