Yesterday Wikipedia—the No. 1 site with free term papers on all knowledge—turned 10. It was decided to mark the date with the whole Kharkiv community of Wikipedia contributors.

The meetup began with a visit to the Kharkiv Art Museum. The exhibition of photographs by Alexey Ivanitsky (1854–1920). was visited. Ivanitsky was born in Belgorod, but lived and worked in Kharkiv, and had a photo studio at 22 Yekaterinoslavskaya Street (now Poltavskyi Shliakh). He took portraits, graduation albums, photographed Kharkiv; Ivanitsky is also famous for a series of photographs from the site of the tsar’s train wreck on October 17, 1888, near Borki station outside Kharkiv. The dining car, where Emperor Alexander III and his family were, is the second car from the left, the one that is completely flattened.

Russian_imperial_train_crush1888

The emperor’s family miraculously survived. No one even got a bruise. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior was built at the crash site, but it has not survived to our day. Now only a small chapel reminds one of the Divine Intervention. You can see it if you take a train south from Kharkiv.

The exhibition is not very large; I think no more than 100 photographs, but it is worth visiting. You should hurry: the exhibition runs through January 30. The damage is 7 hryvnias. Museum address: 9 Sovnarkomovskaya.

The main part of the event celebrating Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary took place in the “Tolstyi Dom” cafeteria, at 2 Sumskaya St. Both active contributors with many years under their belts and people who had simply seen the banner with information about the celebration showed up for the meetup. There was also a correspondent from the newspaper Vecherny Kharkov, who interviewed each participant, patiently writing things down and figuring out the tricky technical terms. Don’t forget to buy the newspaper on Monday and read about how the holiday went.

The last part of the celebration (already unofficial) took place at the Lopan/Kharkiv confluence. By that time, of the eight participants only four were left. We looked at the new pedestrian bridge, witnessed them turning on its lighting, admired the new building on the embankment, checked out the new park.

Our city is getting better and better. And that can’t help but make you happy.