This week in history

April 8 1990: The International Renaissance Foundation is established in Ukraine.

1994: The National Bank of Ukraine holds the country’s first auction to sell Russian rubles on the basis of the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Exchange.

April 9 1917: During the First Congress of Cooperative Unions of Ukraine the Central All-Ukrainian Cooperative Union is founded.

1921: The Anton Chekhov House Museum opens in Yalta.

April 10 1944: In the course of Operation Odesa the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front liberate Odesa.

1996: The system of wholesale purchases and sales of electricity is introduced in Ukraine.

April 11 1944: Soviet troops liberate Kerch during Operation Crimea.

1995: The Board of Directors of the World Bank issues a decision to provide Ukraine with 114 million dollars’ worth of soft loans for the technical reconstruction of the electric power industry.

April 12 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to orbit the Earth.

1995: During a meeting of the European Community, European Commission, and the G-7, President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine announces his country’s final decision to shut down the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station by 2000.

April 13 1921: The All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (VUTsVK) and the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR (Radnarkom) resolve to establish Committees of Poor Peasants.

1940: The second stage of deportations, affecting 320,000 people, begins in western Ukraine.

April 14 1768: Koliivshchyna, a major haidamaka rebellion against Polish rule, begins in Ukraine under the leadership of Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Gonta.

1940: The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR adopts a decree instituting civilian registrar’s offices in Ukraine’s western oblasts.