Great Lepetiha

Located on the left bank of the Kakhovsky reservoir, 153 km from Kherson.

In ancient times, the finds of clay statues of Tripoli culture (IV — III millennium BC), the remains of two settlements of the Bronze Age (II - beginning of I millennium BC), late Scythian ancient settlement (III century BC AD. - IV century AD.), as well as Scythian burials (IV — III centuries. BC. E.). The burial of the Saltov culture (VIII - the beginning of the X century AD) was investigated, a Polovtsian stone sculpture was found.

At the time of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, on the site of the present Great Lepetikh, there were winter men of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, engaged in fishing and farming. At the end of the 18th century, the tsarist government allocated two noblemen, the emigrants from France, land near Lepetikh gully. One of them received land on the east side of the beam. Here in 1792 the Great Lepetikh arose. Its first inhabitants were 580 immigrants from different provinces of Russia. But the settlement and development of these lands went slowly, so the owner at the end of the XVIII century, sold the village to the treasury. At the beginning of the 19th century, the number of inhabitants — state peasants — increased due to immigrants and in 1822 reached 2,263 people.

In 1832 in the village there were 1,154 audit souls, to whom 21 thousand dessiatines of convenient and 2.5 thousand dessiatines of uncomfortable land were assigned. In accordance with the law of November 24, 1866 on the land tenure of state peasants, the Great Lepetikh received the right of permanent use of the land allotted to them. Every year they had to contribute to the treasury more than 16 thousand rubles. state curse tax. The sum of all payments reached 25.4 thousand rubles. The amount of payments per audit soul was 13.3 rubles. in year. In 1886, the state peasants were transferred to the position of peasant proprietors, they were obliged to buy out their plots. In 1853 a single-year school of the Ministry of Public Education was opened in the village, and in 1867 a parochial school. The Zemskaya one-staffed school began operating in 1883. According to the 1884 census, out of 6,225 inhabitants of the village there were only 261 literate people, or 4.2% of the population. In 1906, 170 boys and 109 girls were enrolled in the village’s schools.

In December 1905, the poor people of the Great Lepetiha, together with the peasants of the nearby villages, defeated Rogachik's economy. In the summer of 1906, the Kakhovskaya group of the RSDLP held a rally in the village. In early August of the same year, the peasants opposed the standing of a detachment of equestrian guards, and on August 27 they attacked the guards and in a skirmish killed one of them, drove the police out of the village, defeated the state-owned wineries, the priest’s house. This spontaneous performance, which lasted 5 days, was crushed by troops arriving from Kherson and Simferopol. Mass arrests and searches, confiscation of weapons began. On September 1, authorities arrested 30 people and threw them in a prison in Melitopol. 120 cavalry guards were sent to the village to restore order.

The oil mill, a sawmill, a stone-sand quarry, 2 mills, and other enterprises, where 200 people were employed, began to operate. The state allocated more than S0 thousand rubles. to renovate the hospital premises.

In 1925 graduates of the Kherson Institute of Public Education came to the Great Lepetikh to teach. In the village there were 12 literacy schools. Worked club, hut reading room, library. At the club, the youth of the village organized theatrical-musical, choral and other circles of amateur performances, set up propaganda work. The cinema, which was opened in 1915, resumed its screening of films. In March 1923, the Great Lepetikh became the center of the Melitopol district, and from February 1932 it became part of the newly created Dnipropetrovsk region.

Significant progress has been made in health development. In 1937, a regional hospital with 40 beds was opened (25 medical workers, including 3 doctors), a pharmacy, a polyclinic, and children's consultations. In the mid 30s. illiteracy among the adult population was completely eliminated in the village. In 1940, in middle, part-time, and three elementary schools, 30 teachers trained over 800 children. The cultural level of the population has increased. Back in 1932, the Great Lepetiha was radioed, 670 radio outlets were installed in the homes of collective farmers. In 1937 the construction of the district house of culture was completed. There was a district library.

Peaceful life was interrupted by the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union. On June 23, 1941, a crowded rally of workers took place on the central square of the village. Collective farmers, workers, intellectuals made a unanimous decision: to mobilize all forces to fight the enemy. Organized by mobilization in the army. In the first days, 93 residents of the Great Lepetikhi voluntarily left for the front, of whom 60 were communists and Komsomol members. “We never knew such enthusiasm as now,” the workers of one of the collective farms of the Great Lepetikhi wrote in a letter to the editorial board of the district newspaper. “We work with tripled energy.” September 16, 1941 the Germans captured the village. The occupants mocked the inhabitants, robbed the property of collective farms and collective farmers, established a brutal regime of terror. In July 1942, over one night, the Germans shot 48 people. For the three days of October 1943, the Nazis for insubordination to the German authorities publicly executed another 17 Soviet citizens. In total, 80 people died at the hands of the Germans.

In the autumn of 1943, the Germans brought 100 children from the Taganrog orphanage to the village, who were used as donors, intending to destroy them later ^[2] . The rapid advance of the Red Army prevented the Nazis from carrying out this crime. The children were saved. Frontline cameraman Vladimir Sushchinsky , who was able to shoot the scene of the liberation of the children, called his film “Lepetikh Tragedy” ^[2] . Over 35 post-war years, the location of more than 60 former students of the Taganrog orphanage has been established. This is a great merit of M. A. Maltseva, one of the pupils of the orphanage (now works as an engineer).

At the end of 1943 - the beginning of 1944, fierce battles took place on the Nikopol bridgehead , in the territory of which the Great Lepetikh was located. They were led by the 28th Army of the 4th Ukrainian Front under the command of Lieutenant General A.A. Grechkin . On February 8, 1944, the soldiers of the 109th Guards Rifle Division were the first to break into the village and liberated it. The Nazis intended to break through the crossing on the Dnieper, but the Soviet attack planes destroyed it. Losses caused by the occupiers amounted to 10.5 million rubles .. But the villagers healed the wounds of war with selfless labor. Already in the first half of February 1944, the party and Soviet institutions resumed their work. The party organization numbered 35 communists. March 30, 1944 Velikoletetikhsky area became part of the newly formed Kherson region. Soon after the liberation, the Germans received considerable material assistance from the state and the fraternal republics, which sent equipment, machinery, building materials, livestock, seeds, and military units transferred tractors and cars. Already in July 1944, several carriages of construction materials arrived from the Kiev region, which made it possible to proceed with the restoration of the destroyed buildings of the village. In April-May 1945 alone, the collective farms of the region from other regions of the USSR received 355 heads of cattle, 80 horses, more than 1,100 sheep, and in June 1947 2 wagons of building materials.

In 1956, the Great Lepetiha was classified as an urban-type settlement.

In January 1989, the population size was10 750 people ^[3] .

As of January 1, 2013, the population was 8546 people ^[4] .

• Magnetic Elevator
• The Great Food Factory ( food oil from sunflower seeds, flour from soft wheat, durum wheat, white bread, bakery products, pastries).
• River port.

• Velikolshetikhskaya Secondary School I — III Art. No. 1.
• Velikolshetikhskaya Secondary School I — III Art. No. 2
• Vocational school № 22.

• Rozinskaya, Polina Konstantinovna - figure of musical culture of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), propagandist of foreign, Russian, Soviet and Yakut musical classics, author of many arrangements of Yakut songs and melodies of amateur composers, leading accompanist, teacher, public figure.
• Vladimir Davidovich Baranov-Rossine - master of the Russian avant-garde, painter, draftsman and sculptor.
• Igor Yakovlevich Bulgarian - writer, screenwriter, director and teacher.
• Khodos Anatoly Ivanovich - teacher, writer, journalist, author and announcer of his own programs on the radio, editor of the newspaper.

• Card sheet L-36-32 Vel Lepetiha . Scale: 1: 100,000. State of the area in 1986. 1990 edition