Matera is a city in the region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. As the capital of the province of Matera, its original settlement lies in two canyons carved by the Gravina River; this area, the Sassi di Matera, is a complex of cave dwellings carved into the ancient river canyon cited as "one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world." Over the course of its history, Matera has been occupied by Greeks, Longobards, Saracens, Angevins and Bourbons. By the late 1800s, Matera's cave dwellings became noted for intractable poverty, poor sanitation, meager working conditions, rampant disease. Evacuated in 1952, the population was relocated to modern housing, the Sassi lay abandoned until the 1980s. Renewed vision and investment led to the cave dwellings becoming a noted historic tourism destination, with hotels, small museums and restaurants — and a vibrant arts community. Known as la città sotterranea, the Sassi and the park of the Rupestrian Churches were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

In 2019, Matera was declared a European Capital of Culture. Though scholars continue to debate the date the dwellings were first occupied in Matera, the continuity of their subsequent occupation, the area of what is now Matera is believed to have been settled since the Palaeolithic; this makes it one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world. Alternatively it has been suggested by architectural historian Anne Parmly Toxey that the area has been "occupied continuously for at least three millennia and occupied sporadically for 150-700 millennia prior to this"; the town of Matera was founded by the Roman Lucius Caecilius Metellus in 251 BC who called it Matheola. In AD 664 Matera became part of the Duchy of Benevento. Architectural historian Anne Parmly Toxey writes. In the 7th and 8th centuries the nearby grottos were colonised by both Benedictine and Basilian monastic institutions; the 9th and 10th centuries were characterised by the struggle between the Byzantines and the German emperors, including Louis II, who destroyed the city.

After the settlement of the Normans in Apulia, Matera was ruled by William Iron-Arm from 1043. After a short communal phase and a series of pestilences and earthquakes, the city became an Aragonese possession in the 15th century, was given in fief to the barons of the Tramontano family. In 1514, the population rebelled against the oppression and killed Count Giovanni Carlo Tramontano. In the 17th century Matera was handed over to the Orsini and became part of the Terra d'Otranto, in Apulia, it was capital of the province of Basilicata, a position it retained until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte assigned it to Potenza. In 1927 it became capital of the new province of Matera. Matera has gained international fame for its ancient town, the "Sassi di Matera"; the Sassi originated in a prehistoric troglodyte settlement, these dwellings are thought to be among the first human settlements in what is now Italy. The Sassi are habitations dug into the calcareous rock itself, characteristic of Basilicata and Apulia.

Many of them are little more than small caverns, in some parts of the Sassi a street lies on top of another group of dwellings. The ancient town grew up on one slope of the rocky ravine created by a river, now a small stream, this ravine is known locally as "la Gravina". In the 1950s, as part of a policy to clear the extreme poverty of the Sassi, the government of Italy used force to relocate most of the population of the Sassi to new public housing in the developing modern city; until the late 1980s the Sassi was still considered an area of poverty, since its dwellings were, in most cases still are and dangerous. The present local administration, has become more tourism-orientated, it has promoted the regeneration of the Sassi as a picturesque touristic attraction with the aid of the Italian government, UNESCO, Hollywood. Today there are many thriving businesses and hotels there, the city is amongst the fastest growing in southern Italy. Matera preserves a large and diverse collection of buildings related to the Christian faith, including a large number of rupestrian churches carved from the calcarenite rock of the region.

These churches, which are found in the neighbouring region of Apulia, were listed in the 1998 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. Matera Cathedral has been dedicated to Santa Maria della Bruna since 1389. Built in an Apulian Romanesque architectural style, the church has a 52 m tall bell tower, next to the main gate is a statue of the Maria della Bruna, backed by those of Saints Peter and Paul; the main feature of the façade is the. The interior is with a nave and two aisles; the decoration is from the 18th century Baroque restoration, but a Byzantine-style 14th-century fresco portraying the Last Judgement has been discovered. Two other important churches in Matera, both dedicated to the Apostle Peter, are San Pietro Caveoso and San Pietro Barisano. San Pietro Barisano was restored in a project by the World Monuments Fund, funded by American Express; the main altar and the

Volhynian Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit of the Russian Empire, created at the end of 1796 after the Third Partition of Poland from the territory of the short-lived Volhynian Vice-royalty and Wołyń Voivodeship. After the Peace of Riga, part of the governorate became the new Wołyń Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic, while the other part stayed as a part of the Ukrainian SSR until 1925 when it was abolished on resolution of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and Counsel of People's Commissars; until 1796 the guberniya was administrated as a namestnichestvo. It was centered in Iziaslav and was called the Izyaslav namesnichestvo, it was created out of the Kiev Voivodeship and the east part of the Wolyn Voivodeship. On 24 October 1795 the Third Partition of Poland happened. On 12 December 1796 the Volhynian Governorate was created and included the rest of the Wolyn Voivodeship and Kowel Voivodeship. In 1796 the administration moved to Novograd-Volynsky, but because no buildings were found suited for administrative purposes the seat was moved again to Zhytomyr.

In 1802 Zhytomyr was bought out of the properties of Prince Ilyinsky and in 1804 it became the seat of the Volyn Governorate. From 1832 to 1915 the Volhynian Governorate and the Kiev Governorate and the Podolie Governorate were part of the Southwestern Krai General-Governorate, a type of militarized administrative-territorial unit. In the 1880s the general-governorate was extended and included other governorates. In 1897 the population of the gubernia was 2,989,482 and in 1905 – 3,920,400; the majority of the population of the governorate spoke in old Ukrainian language with slight variety of dialects. During the Ukrainian–Soviet War Zhytomir served as the provisional capital of Ukraine in 1918. After the Polish-Soviet war in 1920 and according to the Peace of Riga most of the territory became part of the Second Polish Republic and transformed into Wołyń Voivodeship with the capital in Łuck; the eastern portion existed to 1925 and split into three okruhas Shepetivka Okruha, Zhytomyr Okruha, Korosten Okruha.

Revkom1919 Mikhail Kruchinskiy Volyn Executive Committee1920 Oleksandr Shumsky 1920 Vasiliy Averin – 1921 Danylevych 1921–1922 Ivan Nikolayenko Cheka1919 Vasyl Viliavko 1919 M. Shuf 1919 Mikhail Kruchinskiy November 1919 – December 1919 Vsevolod Balytsky December 1919 Vasyl Levotsky – 2 November 1921 Semen Kesselman January 1922 – 2 June 1922 Janis BiksonsGPU-1923 Pavel Ivonin March 1923 – October 1923 Foma Leoniuk 1 July 1923 – 1 September 1924 Symon Dukelsky 1924 – 1925 Aleksandr Safes Russian Census of 1897 Zhytomir – 65 895 Rovno – 24 573 Kremenets – 17 704 Kovel – 17 697 Novograd-Volynsky – 16 904 Starokonstantinov – 16 377 Lutsk – 15 804 Ostrog – 14 749 Dubno – 14 257 Zaslavl – 12 611 By the Imperial census of 1897. In bold are languages spoken by more people than the state language. By the Imperial census of 1897. In bold are religions with more members than the Eastern Orthodox

Following are the results of the Ukrainian Football Amateur League 2003 season. Participation is restricted to the regional champions and/or the most regarded team by the respective regional association; this season competition consisted of four stages as the previous. Few little changes were added this season's format. First two stages were organized in regional principal and were played in two rounds where each team could play another at its home ground. On the first stage each group winners and their immediate runners-up were to advance to the next part of the competition; the second stage was split in four groups. On the second stage teams that played each other in the previous one kept their result from the first stage; the semifinals and finals, on the other hand, were played in one round and this year were organized in the cities of Severodonetsk and Rubizhne. The semifinals, in their turn, were split in two groups where first two teams were advancing to the winners final of four, and as the qualifying stages the teams that played in semifinals did not play in the final as their results were kept from that stage.

Note: ZALK stands for the Zaporzhian Aliuminum Plant. KZEZO stands for the Kakhovkan Factory of Electro-Welding Equipment. Note: Some records are not full. Note: Four games were forfeited. Note: Dovira-Nyva Vinnytsia forfeited 6 games. Note: Last two games Ikar MAKBO 94 Kirovohrad forfeited. Nizhyn withdrew after this qualification. Note: KLO-CSKA Bucha changed to FC KLO Bucha. KLO Bucha replaced Fakel Varva in Semifinals