Mariupol City

Beautiful Old Town near the Azov Sea

Mariupol city center Mariupol center at night

Mariupol beach Mariupol beach

The city was founded in 1778 as Pavlovsk, on the site of a former Cossack encampment. It was renamed Mariupol in 1779 to honour Maria Fyodorovna, the second wife of Crown Prince Paul. In 1780 the city’s population grew rapidly after a large number of Greeks from the Crimean Peninsula were resettled there. In 1882 it was connected by rail to the Donets Basin and developed as a major port for the region. The city was renamed Zhdanov in 1948 for Andrey Aleksandrovich Zhdanov, a recently deceased high-ranking Communist Party functionary who had been born there. The city’s earlier name, Mariupol, was restored in 1989.

Read more about Mariupol as it was before the war