A Short Tour Of Ukraine Trivia Quiz

Answer: Blue and Yellow

The flag consists of a band of dark blue above a band of yellow, both bands being the same size. It was first adopted as Ukraine's national flag in 1918, when the country was fighting for its independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was subsequently banned when Ukraine became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922 and was not used again officially until Ukraine regained its status as an independent country following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Answer: Eastern Orthodox Christianity

A 2022 survey indicated that 72% of the population of Ukraine claimed to be a member of one of the Eastern Orthodox Church denominations. Around 10% declared themselves to be atheists, with most of the rest belonging to another Christian denomination.

The number of members of other religions, such as Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, were extremely small - less than 1% each.

Answer: Holodomor

Stalin's collectivisation of agriculture during the 1930s, in which the Soviet state took all agricultural produce for redistribution back to its citizens, is now regarded by historians as a disaster which led to widespread famine across the USSR and the deaths of many millions of people from starvation.

Ukraine was particularly badly hit, and some historians have claimed that the famine was genocide - a deliberate attempt to wipe out the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian word "Holodomor" means roughly "death by hunger", and has similar connotations for Ukrainians as "Holocaust" does for the Jewish people.

The Russian terms "glasnost" and "perestroika" mean "openness" and "reconstruction" and were two key reformist policies introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s.

Answer: Italy

Ukraine's largest border is with Russia (around 1200 miles), while the border with Belarus is 550 miles and Poland 260 miles. The other countries that border it are Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia, as well as a coastal border with the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Italy, however, is somewhat further west, and has no direct border with Ukraine.

Answer: Carpathians

Most of Ukraine is fairly flat, consisting of fertile steppes and low hills. However, to the west of the Dniester River a section of the Carpathian Mountains passes through Ukraine, and this includes the country's highest point, Mount Hoverla, with a height of 6,762 feet (2,061 metres).

As a whole, the Carpathian Mountains stretch for around 930 miles (1500 km) from the Czech Republic through Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia.

Answer: Ivan Franko

Ivan Franko (1856-1916) is regarded as one of the founders of Ukrainian literature, and wrote in a variety of genres, including fiction, poetry, criticism and political theory. He was closely involved in the nineteenth-century Ukrainian Nationalist movement, which he supported through his journalism and other writings.

New versions of the 20-hryvnia note were issued in 1997 and 2003, and these also featured Franko's image.

The writers Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky were both born in Russia, while Glière, although born in Kiev, was a composer.

Answer: Boxing

Vitali (b. 1971) and his younger brother Wladimir (b. 1976) have each won numerous boxing titles, although they never fought each other professionally. They both made their professional debuts at the same event in Hamburg, Germany, in November 1996.

Vitali first won the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) heavyweight title in 1999, and the World Boxing Council (WBC) title in 2003. Of his 47 professional fights, he won 45 and lost two, before retiring in 2012.

Wladimir won the WBO heavyweight title in 2000 (beating Chris Byrd, who had taken the title from Vitali six months earlier), and the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title in 2006. He also won the World Boxing Association (WBA) title in 2011. Of his 69 professional fights, he won 64 and lost five, before retiring in 2017.

Following his retirement, Vitali went into politics and in 2014 was elected Mayor of Kyiv, being re-elected in 2020. He was therefore Mayor when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and remained in the city throughout March, while Russian troops surrounded the city before being forced to fall back following strong Ukrainian resistance.

Answer: Taras Bulba

Taras Bulba is the fictional hero of a short novel by Nikolai Gogol (1809-52). It is a dramatic and gruesome story, with Taras Bulba killing one of his two sons and seeing the other tortured to death, before himself being tied to a tree and burned alive. As such it is an obvious subject for an opera.

Mykola Lysenko was one of the most significant figures of Ukrainian music in the late nineteenth century. He worked on his "Taras Bulba" opera during the 1880s, but it was not performed until after his death. Although Tchaikovsky admired it, and wanted to perform it in Moscow, Lysenko refused to allow the libretto to be translated into Russian, thus effectively preventing foreign performances. It eventually had its premiere in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in 1924.

The other options were all real Cossack leaders from different periods of Russian history.

Answer: Crimea

The political background to Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea is complex and has its roots in the region's history over hundreds of years. Historically and geographically, the region is part of Ukraine, but during the years when Ukraine was part of the USSR it became populated with a high proportion of ethnically Russian people. When the Soviet Union broke up and Ukraine became an independent country, many Crimeans retained loyal to Russia - a fact which Russian president Vladimir Putin used to justify its invasion in 2014, which he claimed was intended to protect "Russian citizens" at a time of unrest in Ukraine.

The fact that the United Nations and the international community meekly stood by and allowed him to do this certainly encouraged Putin to feel he could get away with something similar when Russia invaded the rest of Ukraine in 2022.

Answer: Actor and comedian

Zelensky's road to President of his country was unorthodox. He had previously built up a successful career as actor and comedian, including voicing Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian dubbing of the popular 2014 UK film and its 2017 sequel. Then in 2015 he starred in a television series entitled "Servant of the People", in which he played a schoolteacher who was unexpectedly elected President of Ukraine, running on an anti-corruption ticket. Four years later, in circumstances that eerily reflected the TV show, Zelensky was himself elected President, before being even more unexpectedly thrust further onto the international political stage when his country was invaded by Russia in February 2022.