Kremenchuk is a city of regional significance, a railway junction, and a river port. Most of the city is located on the left bank of the Dnipro, while the smaller part—the former settlement of Kryukiv—is on the right. The distance to Poltava is 119 kilometers. The population is over 230,000.
From 1667, Kremenchuk was listed as a company town of the Myrhorod Regiment; a hundred years later it became the gubernial city of the newly organized Novorossiysk Governorate. In 1784, the Katerynoslav Viceroyalty was created, and all gubernial institutions moved to Katerynoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk). Five years later, the county institutions also left Kremenchuk and settled in Hradyzk. In 1796, the settlement of Kryukiv was annexed to Kremenchuk, and the city became part of the Chernihiv Governorate.
From the second half of the 19th century, especially with the construction in 1871 of the Kharkiv–Mykolaiv railway, rapid growth of industry and trade began. At that time, railcar repair workshops were founded, which have since grown into a major industrial enterprise—the Kryukiv Railcar Building Plant. Kremenchuk became a major industrial center of the Poltava region.
After the Great October Socialist Revolution, Kremenchuk became a major industrial center. A railcar building plant appeared in place of the Kryukiv railcar workshops. On the basis of the agricultural machinery plant, a large enterprise of road machine building was created—Dormash. Woolen, knitwear, footwear, and garment factories went into operation. Enterprises processing agricultural products were reconstructed and expanded. The city was improved and developed.
In 1925–1927, in Kryukiv, the I. F. Kotlov Railcar Builders’ Club was built to a design by architect F. Mazulenko. The two-story club building is clearly divided into a theater section and a club section. The auditorium has 820 seats. The club section contains rooms for group activities, and the library is also located there. The exterior reflects features of an architectural trend that existed in the 1920s—Cubism—and elements of Ukrainian folk architecture were also used. The building, destroyed by the fascists in 1943, was restored in the 1950s.