Talk:Dubove, Zakarpattia Oblast

Town or Village
I'll be happy to explain why Dubove is a village and not a town. Regarding the Ukrainian version of Dubove, the original authors rightfully categorized it as a village, so I am frankly not sure why another user changed the classification to town. I have changed Dubove's Ukrainian wiki page back to Село міського. I should note that the verifiability of some of the Ukrainian version's claims is questionable. For example, it listed the population as 14,000 inhabitants, a wild exaggeration that may have been accurate 20 years ago in the Soviet times, but is definitely not the case anymore.

Second point: I personally researched and authored the English version of the Dubove site, which you can see is far more comprehensive and superior to the Ukrainian version. Having lived there for two years, I can assure you that there was never any debate about whether Dubove was a village or not. The billboard that welcomes you into Dubove refers to it as a village. The school children wrote poems about their "beautiful village." My Ukrainian colleagues in Dubove would constantly remind me, "Don't forget, you are not in America anymore. You're in a Ukrainian village." The rural, village lifestyle of the people in Dubove truly separates it from places like the nearby town of Tiachiv (which, ironically, has roughly the same population but is definitely a town).


 * Even so, we must follow it's official designation by the Ukrainian parliament as an urban-type settlement (status between that of a village and a city although it's incorrect to label it as a town). See here for more information. BTW, Dubove's population as of the 2001 census was 9,261 (although it may be a little lower now..) —dima/talk/ 04:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Dima. As for the population, the more current figures (2006) have the population at 8,900.


 * A point can be made to consider Dubove as a town on the basis of its economic character (the Zakarpattia Helicopter Production Enterprise) while otherwise it should be considered as a village. In any case a revision has been made in the Ukrainian version with the appropriate source info. Since Category:Towns in Ukraine is a formal category I suggest to use it in this article.--Sk741 (talk) 02:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)