"Lviv" a Lviv Travel Page by smschley

Until rather recently the city was called Lvov, the Russian spelling of the name. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine nationalistic pride has them renaiming cities to the the Ukraninan spelling. This was one of the cities that never identified with the Russians.

In the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939), the Soviet Union took Lviv. This lead to the creation of a group of Ukrainian nationalist fighters (UPA) who engaged in a series of guerrilla attacks. A group with strong ties to the Lviv area. The primary purpose of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was to protect the interests of the Ukrainian ethnic group. At various times during the war this group fought a large variety of military forces, including Nazi , the Polish underground army and the Soviets forces. From late spring of 1944, faced with Soviet advances they cooperated with the Germans against the Soviets and Poles. Ths battle continues against the Soviet till 1949. Outside of Western Ukraine, support was minimal for the UPS and majority of the Ukrainian population considered the UPA to have been collaborators with the Germans.

At the end of World War I Lviv became an arena of conflict between the local Ukrainian and Polish-Jewish populations. This battle continued until 1945 when over 100,000 poles were emigrated to Poland. Little remains of Polish culture in Lviv except for the Italian-influenced architecture This strong nationalistic feeling is still very strong in LVIV and the pride they feel over the UPA is still evident. Lviv is the most Ukrainian region of Ukraine; even as a Soviet province, most signs were put only in Ukrainian.

Because of its Polish and Austro-Hungarian history, Lviv has a Central European flair in its architecture that make it one of the most beautiful cities in Eastern Europe. Its tourism is still in its infancy because its infrastructure is rather undeveloped and most people don't speak any foreign languages. Still, while we were there we did see a number of tourists fumbling through its streets, and a number of restaurants had English menus. The city is very clean and has much to over. My biggest complaint was the lack of police around at night. I saw a fight between two large groups of teenagers with no police involvement, despite the fact that it occurred in the cities busiest areas.