Everything flows, everything changes, everything has a beginning and has its end. All that we see now that ever was and ever will disappear. And the people who live and work with us, ever was, and ever will be. And we will desepear ...

When we came to earth, here were a lot of everything - created by previous generations and left us a legacy.  Treated fields and roads, and built city. We are using  that we did not create, and create a what not use ...

In our busy lives often forget about it. Some walks the earth as a "two-legged creature without feathers" unknown kind, type and tribe. And some - like the ancient conqueror (to say the Barbarian) in enemy territory ...

But the area where we are now - is not no man and no desert.

There is no inch of land and, wherever man has gone before, perhaps, no inch of land, not watered human sweat and blood ...

Not only Kyiv, but also our Kyiv Polytechnic has a glorious history, we need to know. It has its history and the modern area of "KPI", what many do not realize. So often behaves in this area as primitive man, when she came to the new land.

To help current Polytechnic realize what a KPI, you might say, "state within a state" (the area in which four times the area of the Vatican), opens our newspaper column "Once, this place ...", which will tell about was once in different places of the modern territory KPI.

Let's start the story from the distant 1898, when - as it is hard to believe - in this area there was nothing. Naked land. In this land came people - with shovels, carts - and began building Kyiv Polytechnic Institute - one in which we work, learn, live.

What was there in the beginning, said in 1913 the first rector of KPI Victor L. Kirpichev:

"Let me remind you that for the construction of the Institute, a territory was given, where before there was a field camp, which was then transferred to another place. You can imagine what a sad sight this territory represented. Not only did it not have a single tree or a bush, but there was not a single blade of grass on it. It was a sandy desert, perforated by canals and dug in pits, traces of former kitchens, canteens, tents. I clearly remember this bookmark day - a stuffy, hot day; A strong wind blew, raising on the deserted territory of the Institute columns of sand and dust. Professor A. F. Fortunatov, who was present at the bookmark, told me several years after that what a difficult impression this area had made on him. Probably, she caused the same feelings among the others present, except those who, like me, were fascinated by the magical uplift of the spirit caused by the opening of the Institute.

A few years after the foundation of the Institute, this sad desert, the territory of the Institute, was turned into a blossoming garden, into a happy oasis, which everyone now admires with the efforts of the professors of the Institute. That's what people can do with love of action. "

We hope that our publication of the CPI reproduce the record at the time. We thank readers for providing photos and memories.