KHARKOV, a town of southern Russia, capital of the above government, in 56° 37′ N. and 25° 5′ E., in the valley of the Donets, 152 m. by rail S.S.E. of Kursk. Oak forests bound it on two sides. Pop. (1867), 59,968; (1900), 197,405. Kharkov is an archiepiscopal see of the Orthodox Greek Church, and the headquarters of the X. army corps. The four annual fairs are among the busiest in Russia, more especially the Kreshchenskaya or Epiphany fair, which is opened on the 6th (19th) of January, and the Pokrovsky fair in the autumn. The turnover at the former is estimated at £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. Thousands of horses are bought and sold. At the Trinity (Troitsa) fair in June an extensive business (£800,000) is done in wool. A great variety of manufactured goods are produced in the town—linen, felt, beetroot sugar, tobacco, brandy, soap, candles, cast-iron. Kharkov is an educational centre for the higher and middle classes. Besides a flourishing university, instituted in 1805, and attended by from 1600 to 1700 students, it possesses a technological institute (400 students), a railway engineering school, an observatory, a veterinary college, a botanical garden, a theological seminary, and a commercial school. The university building was formerly a royal palace. The library contains 170,000 volumes; and the zoological collections are especially rich in the birds and fishes of southern Russia. Public gardens occupy the site of the ancient military works; and the government has a model farm in the neighbourhood. Of the Orthodox churches one has the rank of cathedral (1781). Among the public institutions are a people’s palace (1903) and an industrial museum.
The foundation of Kharkov is assigned to 1650, but there is archaeological evidence of a much earlier occupation of the district, if not of the site. The Cossacks of Kharkov remained faithful to the tsar during the rebellions of the latter part of the 17th century; in return they received numerous privileges, and continued to be a strong advance-guard of the Russian power, till the final subjugation of all the southern region. With other military settlements Kharkov was placed on a new footing in 1765; and at the same time it became the administrative centre of the Ukraine.
KHARPUT, the most important town in the Kharput (or Mamuret el-Aziz) vilayet of Asia Minor, situated at an altitude of 4350 ft., a few miles south of the Murad Su or Eastern Euphrates, and almost as near the source of the Tigris, on the Samsun-Sivas-Diarbekr road. Pop. about 20,000. The town is built on a hill terrace about 1000 ft. above a well-watered plain of exceptional fertility which lies to the south and supports a large population. Kharput probably stands on or near the site of Carcathiocerta in Sophene, reached by Corbulo in A.D. 65. The early Moslem geographers knew it as Hisn Ziyad, but the Armenian name was Khartabirt or Kharbirt, whence Kharput. Cedrenus (11th century) writes Χάρποτε. There is a story that in 1122 Joscelin (Jocelyn) of Courtenay, and Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, both prisoners of the Amir Balak in its castle, were murdered by being cast from its cliffs after an attempted rescue. The story is told by William of Tyre, who calls the place Quart Piert or Pierre, but it is a mere romance. Kharput is an important station of the American missionaries, who have built a college, a theological seminary, and boys’ and girls’ schools. In November 1895 Kurds looted and burned the Armenian villages on the plain; and in the same month Kharput was attacked and the American schools were burned down. A large number of the Gregorian and Protestant Armenian clergy and people were massacred, and churches, monasteries and houses were looted. The vilayet Kharput was founded in 1888, being the result of a provincial rearrangement, designed to ensure better control over the disturbed districts of Kurdistan. It has much mineral wealth, a healthy climate and a fertile soil. The seat of government is Mezere, on the plain 3 m. S. of Kharput.
(D. G. H.)
KHARSAWAN, a feudatory state of India, within the Chota Nagpur division of Bengal; area 153 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 36,540; estimated revenue £2600. Since the opening of the main line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway through the state trade has been stimulated, and it is believed that both iron and copper can be worked profitably.
KHARTUM, the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on the left bank of the Blue Nile immediately above its junction with the White Nile in 15° 36′ N., 32° 32′ E., and 1252 ft. above the sea. It is 432 m. by rail S.W. of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, and 1345 m. S. of Cairo by rail and steamer. Pop. (1907) with suburbs, but excluding Omdurman, 69,349.
The city, laid out on a plan drawn up by Lord Kitchener in 1898, has a picturesque aspect with its numerous handsome stone and brick buildings surrounded by gardens and its groves of palms and other trees. The river esplanade, 2 m. long, contains the chief buildings. Parallel with it is Khedive Avenue, of equal length. The rest of the city is in squares, the streets forming the design of the union jack. In the centre of the esplanade is the governor-general’s palace, occupying the site of the palace destroyed by the Mahdists in 1885. It is a three-storeyed building with arcaded verandas and a fine staircase leading to a loggia on the first floor. Here a tablet indicates the spot in the old palace where General Gordon fell. In the gardens, which cover six acres, is a colossal stone “lamb” brought from the ruins of Soba, an ancient Christian city on the Blue Nile. The “lamb” is in reality a ram of Ammon, and has an inscription in Ethiopian hieroglyphs. In front of the southern façade, which looks on to Khedive Avenue, is a bronze statue of General Gordon seated on a camel, a copy of the statue by Onslow Ford at Chatham, England. Government offices and private villas are on either side of the palace, and beyond, on the east, are the Sudan Club, the military hospital, and the Gordon Memorial College. The college, the chief educational centre in the Sudan, is a large, many-windowed building with accommodation for several hundred scholars and research laboratories and an economic museum. At the western end of the esplanade are the zoological gardens, the chief hotel, the Coptic church and the Mudiria House (residence of the governor of Khartum). Running south from Khedive Avenue at the spot where the Gordon statue stands, is Victoria Avenue, leading to Abbas Square, in the centre of which is the great mosque with two minarets. On the north-east side of the square are the public markets. The Anglican church, dedicated to All Saints, the principal banks and business houses, are in Khedive Avenue. There are Maronite and Greek churches, an Austrian Roman Catholic mission, a large and well-equipped civil hospital and a museum for Sudan archaeology. Outside the city are a number of model villages (each of the principal tribes of the Sudan having its own settlement) in which the dwellings are built after the tribal fashion. Adjacent are the parade ground and racecourse and the golf-links. A line of fortifications extends south of the city from the Blue to the White Nile. The buildings are used as barracks. Barracks for British troops occupy the end of the line facing the Blue Nile.