<p>This late nineteenth century photo<br />

depicts the usage of bicycles during parade drills in the Kyiv<br />

Pechersk men’s gymnasium. Apart from the search of different ways<br />

of using bicycles for recreation, sports, and urban transport, the<br />

possibility of using them for military purposes does not seem to be<br />

out of the question; the bicycle could be used as, let us say, a<br />

substitute for the horse. There are nine bicycles on the photo. The<br />

first two are near some grown-up men in civilian clothes, perhaps,<br />

teachers, the others are the gymnasium students. The last bicycle in<br />

the row belongs to the penny-farthing type (with a large front wheel,<br />

a much smaller rear one and pedals attached directly to the front<br />

wheel). This kind of bicycles was a precursor of the modern type of<br />

the “safe bicycle”. Its presence may indicate that the first<br />

bicycles appeared in the educational institutions of Kyiv as early as<br />

before the 1880s.</p><p>Olga Martyniuk</p>