What does “trempel” mean to the people of Kharkiv?
It’s the code by which Kharkivites recognize their own anywhere in the world.
It’s simply Kharkiv. After all, in our minds, “trempel” is undoubtedly synonymous with Kharkiv.
And yet “trempel” is also one of Kharkiv’s greatest mysteries, since despite the abundance of legends, for some reason there is no documentary evidence of “trempel”—or “Trempel,” as it’s sometimes written—in connection with Kharkiv. In the numerous calendars and books of that era, we won’t find a single advertisement containing the word “Trempel” or the surname Trempel.
So just how real is this “trempel”?
In 2006, Oksana Igorevna Vyrostokova will publish her Ph.D. dissertation in history, titled “The Emergence and Development of Social Work in Educational Institutions of the Kursk Governorate in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries.”
In the bibliography of the dissertation, under number 81 or 176 (there is both an abridged version and a full version), we find the following:
“Trempel, A.A. A Brief Description of A.N. Maslova’s Troitskaya Farm in the Novooskolsky District of the Kursk Governorate. Kharkiv, 1887. — 27 pp.”
Thus, we have the following:
1. Trempel of that time was a real person.
2. A.A. Trempel had some connection to Kharkiv.
3. The Kharkiv Governorate of that period had close ties with the Kursk Governorate. These included Dmitry Konstantinovich Kromsky, a native of the Kursk Governorate (founder and owner of the first confectionery factory in Kharkiv), as well as the count’s family, the Kleinmichels, whose estates were in the Kursk region and later also appeared in the Kharkiv Governorate…
In addition to the above, Maxim Rosenfeld and Alexander Stadnik noted that the term “trempel” is also used in Belgorod and Kursk.
So the connection between “trempel” = Kursk Governorate = Kharkiv is entirely understandable.
Thus, Trempel is not a myth after all, but a reality. And for now, the earliest documented mention of this beautiful yet still mysterious Kharkiv story can be dated to 1887.)