STREETS AND NAMES

BORYS HMYRIA

(1903 – 1969)

Borys Romanovych Hmyria is an Ukrainian singer (bass) and a folk artist. He was born into the family of the worker-mason. In 1935 he graduated from the Engineering-building Institute in Kharkiv and in 1939 – from the conservatory in Kharkiv. He has been the soloist of the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Kharkiv and later – the soloist of the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Kyiv. He possessed the beautiful voice of warm velvet timbre, wide range and discriminating artistic taste. In his performing there was inherently complete confluence of dramatic and musical beginning. He came forward as a chamber singer with great success. Borys Hmyria has toured abroad a lot of times. He was the Laureate of the All-union competition of vocalists in 1939. Borys Hmyria received the State Prize in 1952.
He was called “Borys the Great”, his talent was considered miraculous, his voice was regarded to be a perfect bass, his vocal mission was believed to be ideal and unsurpassed by anyone till today. Hmyria was a singer, a philosopher, a unique phenomenon in Ukrainian and world culture.
Let’s make a note that Hmyria’s vocal and epistolary heritage has been collected and kept by the singer’s family in his flat in Kyiv, where the famous singer lived and created.

BORYS HMYRIA STREET

Kyiv – is the biggest city of Ukraine. So many streets are here: short and long, wide and narrow, picturesque and not very exciting. How to remember all of them? What are the characteristic features of every particular street? The answer is: try to find out everything by yourself traveling along this or
that street.
While researching Borys Hmyria Street I found out a lot of interesting information about this street. First of all, it is called after the greatest composer and singer of the 20th century Borys Hmyria. The length of this street is 9.5 kilometers, so you see that it would be quite difficult to go along Borys Hmyria Street at once, especially on foot. There are a lot of different buildings in this street. Each house has its own number and due to this specific feature it is quite convenient, especially for foreigners, to find a concrete house really very quickly.
Going along this street I saw a big road and four bus stops on the opposite sides of the road. On this road I saw a lot of different cars, buses and taxes. And if to speak about buses, there are only two routes of them which take passengers along Borys Hmyria Street and their numbers are 591 and 407.
Due to my pocket map I continued my researching at the end of which I made really interesting conclusion. Now I would like to tell you something about the buildings which are situated in Borys Hmyria Street. In this street there are a lot of different shops, primary schools, kindergartens, yards. The most famous shop is a small supermarket called “Eckos”. You can buy here almost everything you want: different kinds of meals, clothes, toilet means…Next to this supermarket the newest house in this street is situated. To tell the truth, it is really very beautiful and modern. Almost on each old house it is possible to see new graffiti. I do not know if it is bad or good, but in my opinion they are really cool. The most important building in Borys Hmyria Street is a state inspection of the quarantine of the plants in Kyiv. Almost near all old houses there is a car parking on which it is really very convenient to leave your car. There are also two big garages in this street.
Now my researching is finished. Owing to this researching I found out a lot of interesting details about Borys Hmyria Street and I hope that some of these details I will remember for years.

Olexandra Khodak 10-A Form, 16 years
Olexandr Pylypenko 10-B Form, 16 years