The Middle Dnipro Region, or Middle Podniprovia, is the agricultural and industrial heart of Ukraine.  In the north there is forest steppe, and in the south it is all rolling grasslands and farmland. Through it’s center, dividing it into left-bank and right-bank, is the mighty Dnipro River.

Within this region are two distinct cultural and historic regions, Kyivshchyna and Poltavshchyna, which do not conform exactly to modern day oblast boundaries.  Kyiv was historically right bank only, and included most of what is now Cherkasy oblast (down to just south of Uman).  Poltava historically included all of left-bank Cherkasy oblast (including my father’s village), as well as some of southern Chernihiv oblast. You can see that on the map of gubernias below, which were a bit more aligned with ethnographic regions than the current oblasts.

Also included within Middle Podniprovia are the oblasts of Kirovohrad (formerly part of Kherson gubernia) and Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk oblast, and Ekaterinoslav gubernia before that).

For the purposes of this site and this section, I will divide the pysanky up more or less by oblast, with these exceptions: left bank Cherkasy I will include with Poltava, and northern Kyiv oblast will be in with Polissia.