General information about my country. 

    I was born and grew up in  the Ukraine.
  And I would like to share with you some general information about 
my country.
    Let's start from geographical disposition.  The Ukraine is one
of the Europe nations and is situated in the east of Europe.
It shares its boundaries with such countries like Moldavia,
Romania, Hungary and Slovakia on the south; Poland on the
west; Belorussia and Russia on the north and east. With a total
area of about 603,700 square kilometers (233,090 sq. mi),
Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after Russia.
Country consists largely of fertile black soil steppes; however, you can
find some mountains on the western and southern parts of the
Ukraine.  The highest mountain is Hoverla.  It is situated on
the Carpathian mountain range.  Also there are a lot of rivers.  The biggest are Dnister, South Bug and Dnipro.  In adition, the Ukraine has access to Azov and Black seas on the south.
     Climate of Ukraine is temperate continental with warm summers and mild winters.  However on the peninsula Crimea, which on the south, winter as a season is practically absent.
    The population of the Ukraine is about 51 million people.  Ethnic Ukrainians constitute 72% of the population, about 22% are Russians.  The other minorities include Belorussians, Moldovans, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Poles, and Crimea Tatars.  More than two thirds of the population live in cities and towns.  The biggest cities are Odessa, Charkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Lviv and Simferopol.  The capital of Ukraine is Kiev- one of the oldest towns in Europe and the biggest one in the Ukraine. In Kiev, there are  about  2 million people.  There are a lot of historical buildings and monuments. Some buildings in Kiev are more than a thousand years old.  Mainly they are orthodox churches and monasteries.