Kevin Hersch, age 14, of Providence, R.I., for his question:
HOW MANY PEOPLE LIVE IN THE UKRAINE?
Ukraine is a rich farming, industrial and mining area in southeastern Europe. It makes up the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union. About 50 million people live in the region.
About 75 percent of the people of the Ukraine are Ukranians, a Slavic nationality group that has its own customs and langauge. Russians, a separate group that speaks the Russian language, make up about 20 percent of the population. About two percent are Jews.
About half of the total population lives in urban areas. Kiev, the country's largest city and also its capital, has a population of almost 2 million.
Most of the urban Ukrainians speak Russian most of the time. In rural areas, however, nearly all of the people speak Ukrainian. Each region of the Ukraine has its own dialect or local form of language. But the schools teach a standardized form.
Rural Ukrainians are known for their strong ties to their families and farms. Villagers build their homes and barns on whitewashed stone or adobe, with thatched roofs. Peasant costumes, featuring white blouses or shirts that are heavily decorated with colorful embroidery, are worn by many of the rural people on holidays.
Ukrainians enjoy music and many of them perform in choruses and dance groups. Ukrainian music often features a stringed instrument called a bandura.
The land consists largely of a fiat plain that stretches from the Pripyat Marshes in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The soil is very rich.
Ukrainian farms produce nearly a fourth of the Soviet Union's entire meat and dairy products, a fifth of its grain and more than half of its sugar beets. Ukrainian farmers also raise large crops of wheat, barley, corn, rye and other crops.
The Ukraine has rich deposits of coal, iron ore, mercury, natural gas and salt.
During the ninth century A.D. the Slavic Civilization called Rus grew up at Kiev and at other points along the river transportation routes from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In time, Kiev became the first of the independent Russian city states.
During the 1200s, Mongol tribes later known as Tartars swept across the Ukrainian plains from the east and conquered the region. Beginning in the early 1300s, Lithuania and Poland took control of the Ukraine.
Most of the Ukraine remained under Polish rule until the 16009. The Cossacks, who had arrived during the 1400s, opposed Polish efforts to make them leave the Eastern Orthodox Church and join the Roman Catholic Church. In 1654, this dispute led to the Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky to join an alliance with the Eastern Orthodox czar of Russia.
By the mid 17009, Russia had gained control over almost all the Ukraine.
In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution led to the establishment of a Communist government in Russia. Efforts to form an independent Ukrainian state failed. In 1922, the Ukraine became one of the four'original republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.