The city of Lutsk, first mentioned in the Ipatiyivsky chronicle in 1085, now is an administrative center of the Volyn oblast in the north-west region of Ukraine, surrounding the Styr River.

The city covers 42 square kilometers (10 kilometers from east to west and 15 kilometers from north to south). The Volyn oblast, together with the Beresteishchyna area of Byelorussia and the Lublin “voyevodstvo” of Poland, constitute a single Euro-region “Bug”, creating a unique economic and political situation in the region. There are 2 customs offices on the Ukrainian-Polish border and one customs office on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Lutsk is connected with Kyiv, Lviv, Simferopol, Chernivtsi, Odessa, Berlin and Warsaw by railroad.

According to the All-Ukrainian population census of 2001, Lutsk has population of 209,000. A trend of slow population attrition has occurred due to migration so that by July 2004 the population of Lutsk was only 202,000. Currently, 93% of Lutsk’s population are Ukrainian, 6% are Russian, 0.5% are Byelorussian and 0.2% are Polish. In addition, 65% of the population are of working age and 20% of skilled workers have higher education. In Lutsk, there are two universities, the Volyn State University and the Lutsk Technical University, and six other academic institutions of the 3rd and 4th accreditation levels.

Volyn oblast is largely an agrarian and industrial area and approximately 45% of its industry is concentrated in Lutsk where 52 large and 120 small enterprises produce goods and provide jobs for approximately 20

thousand people. At the beginning of 2004, 6000 legal entities were registered, of which 23% belong to the private sector. The largest sectors are machine-building (55.9%) and the food industry (19.2%). During last four years more than half of all enterprises have shown stable growth in the volume of output, on average by 20% annually.

From a historical and cultural point of view, Lutsk became a famous city in the time of the Lithuanian Principality as the second capital. Many outstanding people representing Ukrainian culture and history, such as Olena Pchilka, Lesya Ukrainka, Yaroslav Halan, Vyacheslav Lypynsky, Modest Levytsky, and others, have lived in Lutsk. All guests of the city are always encouraged to visit the historical and architectural reserve, “Ancient City”, which includes the John the Divine cathedral (12th century), the majestic castle of Lubart (14th century), the St. Protection church (16th century), the Jesuitical monastery, the Catholic St. Peter and Paul cathedral and the synagogue (all 17th century), the building of Lutsk brotherhood of Exaltation of the Cross (1617), and other monuments of city’s history and architecture. Guests can also visit a unique museum of Volyn icons – the only one in Ukraine.

The city is also well-known for its annual festivals “Polissya Summer with Folklore”, “Christmas Mystery”, and the song festival “On the Waves of Svityaz”. St. Nicholas is considered to be the patron of the city and his monument was built in the square near the town council. The image of this saint also became the central part of city emblem, and his holiday is celebrated in December as the Day of Lutsk.