Hola Prystan (, ; ) is a city located in

Skadovsk Raion Skadovsk Raion () is one of the five administrative raions of Ukraine, raions (districts) of Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine. Its administrative center is located in the city of Skadovsk. Population: On 18 July 2020, as part of the 2020 admi ...

Kherson Oblast Kherson Oblast (, ; ), also known as Khersonshchyna (, ), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in southern Ukraine. It is located just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson, on the northern or right bank ...

, southern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. It is currently occupied by

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The city serves as the administrative centre of the Hola Prystan urban hromada, one of the

hromada In Ukraine, a hromada () is the main type of municipality and the third level Administrative divisions of Ukraine, local self-government in Ukraine. The current hromadas were established by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine, Government of Uk ...

s of Ukraine. It has a population of The Konka, a tributary of the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

, flows through the city. As of 2025, the city is occupied by

Administrative status

Until 18 July, 2020, Hola Prystan was incorporated as a city of oblast significance and served as the center of

Hola Prystan Municipality Hola Prystan (, ; ) is a city located in Skadovsk Raion, Kherson Oblast, southern Ukraine. It is currently occupied by Russia. The city serves as the administrative centre of the Hola Prystan urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It ha ...

. It also functioned as the administrative center of

Hola Prystan Raion Hola Prystan Raion () was one of the 18 administrative raions (a ''district'') of Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine. Its administrative center was located in the city of Hola Prystan, which was incorporated separately as a city of oblast signi ...

, although it did not belong to the raion itself. As part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, municipality was abolished in July 2020, reducing the number of raions of Kherson Oblast to five. The area that was formerly Hola Prystan Municipality was subsequently merged into Skadovsk Raion.

History

Hola Prystan – literally meaning ''barren pier'' – was founded in 1709 by

Zaporizhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks (in Latin ''Cossacorum Zaporoviensis''), also known as the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the Zaporozhian Host (), were Cossacks who lived beyond (that is, downstream from) the Dnieper Rapids. Along with Registered Cossac ...

of Oleshky Sich as ''Holyi Pereviz'' ('the barren ford'), but has been known by its current name since 1785. Here, in the early 18th century, the Cossacks built boats and went fishing in the

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

estuary, and transported salt from the Prohnoyi salt mines. The conquest of the lands by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in the war with the

Ottoman Porte The Sublime Porte, also known as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte ( or ''Babıali''; ), was a synecdoche or metaphor used to refer collectively to the central government of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. It is particularly referred to the buildin ...

took place in 1774-1783.

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

apparently began to settle in the town at the beginning of the 19th century and by 1897, they numbered 667, or 11 percent of the total population. At the turn of the century, many of the businesses in the town were owned by Jews. In 1905, there was a

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

in which 2 Jewish shops were destroyed. The pogrom was stopped not by the authorities but by the peasants of Hola Prystan, who “with clubs in their hands met the hooligans of other villages eager for a tidbit, and when those started smashing the stores, they fought them”. Under the

Soviets The Soviet people () were the citizens and nationals of the Soviet Union. This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities" (). Nationality policy in the Soviet Union ...

, the Jewish population of Hola Prystan fell, mainly due to migration to larger cities in search of jobs and education opportunities. In 1939, the town's 276 Jews comprised 3.6 percent of the total population. Hola Prystan was occupied by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

on September 13, 1941, and on October 12 the same year, the resident Jews were shot outside the town. It was liberated by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

on November 4, 1943. On 1 August 1997, a Project R1415 (NATO code: Flamingo class) Ukrainian patrol boat was named after the town. Hola Prystan was granted the status of regional town on May 17, 2013.

Russo-Ukrainian War

Hola Prystan was captured by

Russian ground forces The Russian Ground Forces (), also known as the Russian Army in English, are the Army, land forces of the Russian Armed Forces. The primary responsibilities of the Russian Ground Forces are the protection of the state borders, combat on land, ...

on the first day of the

Russian Invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, the second phase of the escalating

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

, when they crossed the nearby border of the already Russian-occupied

Crimean peninsula Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrai ...

. On March 8, 2022, a few thousand people protested the occupation. The town was shelled by Ukrainian forces during the war. In 2023, Russian forces opened fire with multiple launch rocket systems in Hola Prystan and Kherson, damaging residential houses and injuring civilians. Due to the

destruction of the Kakhovka Dam The Kakhovka Dam was Dam failure, breached in the early hours of 6 June 2023, causing extensive flooding along the lower Dnieper, Dnieper river, also called the Dnipro, in Kherson Oblast. The dam was Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast, ...

, Hola Prystan was flooded. According to Svitlana Linnyk, the head of Hola Prystan city military administration, around 80-85% of the city was submerged.

Demographics

Distribution of the population by ethnic groups according to the

2001 Ukrainian census The 2001 Ukrainian census is to date the only census of the population of independent Ukraine. It was conducted by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine on 5 December 2001, twelve years after the last Soviet Union census in 1989.The murder of the Jews of Hola Prystan
during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, at

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

website. {{Authority control Cities in Kherson Oblast Taurida Governorate Cities of regional significance in Ukraine Holocaust locations in Ukraine Populated places on the Dnieper in Ukraine