Полісся: історія та карта, природа, туризм, фото і культура Полісся

Litvins (lytvyns) and modern Poleshuks or Polesians, Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.

Tours to Polissya: Polesian nature reserve

Polissya nature reserve (Polisky reserve), a giant area of marshes and forests, some 250 kilometers northwest of Kyiv on the border with Belarus. The road we took led to the village the residents of which more than two decades ago were evacuated as being too close to the areas affected by the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear accident. More about Polissya reserve...

Polissya - the land of great swamps

The Polesie region is extremely significant for the history of old contacts between Balts and Slavs, because of its linguistic peculiarities and archaeological monuments, which offer evidence that this could have been the zone where Balts and Slavs first met, the strongest traces of which were impressed in the local place names. More about the origin of the name Polesie / Polissya...

EU-funded project "Integrating Climate Change into Vulnerable Ecosystems Management: natural parks in wetlands and forest areas (Ukraine)"

Increase of the temperature lead to decrease of winter frosts, also more cases of showfalls and heavy graze storms are observed in Polissya. The average values of intensity of precipitation in warm period increased; the frequency of heavy and very heavy rains, rain storms, hails is also increased.

In the same time climate changes in the north of Volyn Oblast and north of Zhytomyr Oblast affect differently...

Українська біржа благодійності: офіційний сайт

УББ (Українська біржа благодійності) - це перший масштабний інтернет-проект, покликаний створити належні умови для максимально ефективної реалізації благодійних проектів.

Зокрема, Українська біржа благодійності спрощує взаємодію між тими, хто потребує фінансової допомоги, й тими, хто готовий її надати, будучи впевненими, що їхні кошти витрачатимуться чесно, чітко та прозоро. Див. докладніше - українська благодійна біржа...

Traveling over Polissya - wetlands of Ukraine and Belarus

Bogs - one of two main features of Polissya land. Even today we have very much of them. And the name Polissia likely comes not from the obvious "forest" (in Ukrainian - "lis") but from the ancient Baltic "pala" - "quagmire."
Travel in a swamp - a dangerous thing, as it is easy to get lost or drown there. So anyone who wanders by Polissya, should know the basic rules of how to walk across bogs...

"I would never believe that only three hundred kilometers north-west of Kyiv there are wild and dense forests, with no villages or any signs of human settlements to be seen for miles and miles, if I did not see it all with my own eyes..."

Trips to Polisky Natural Reserve: Land of Forests and Marshes
The scenery began to quickly change and acquire quite wild and pristine appearance soon after our bus rolled past the town of Ovruch which is a regional center. The road leaves the flat Ovrutsky Kryazh plateau going downhill and plunges into a dense forest. At one point, I discovered there was no mobile telephone service available there which came as another proof of our enfettering utter wilderness. And the road was no longer asphalt but paved with local quartz stones of an amazing pink color. This quartz can be used for decorative purposes in construction and there it was used for paving the road...

Olena Krushynska's story about Polissya Reserve in the northern part of Zhytomyr Oblast of Ukraine

There was no traffic on the road that took us all the way to its end at the village of Selezivka of only seventy households. This village which is situated 70 kilometers from Ovruch, happens to be the center of the Polissya Natural Preserve.
The preserve which is located between the Rivers Ubort and Bolotnytsya, is only a part of an immense stretch of forests that goes all the way into the neighboring state of Belarus. The area is a marshland and marshes have kept that area from being widely cultivated. Hence its pristinely wild condition. The people have been living in that area of sand dunes, marshes and impenetrable forests (known from the times of old as Drevlyan) in isolation from more civilized lands for centuries. At present, they are usually referred to as Polishchuks. They have developed their own distinct culture, customs and habits. They could not grow a lot of grain and had to live off the forest and marshes. As late as in the first half of the twentieth century most of the Polishchuks lived in what was called "khutory" (individual farmsteads, country retreats) rather than in villages. The locals continue to keep traditional beehives which placed in the woods. They use very little or no agricultural machinery still relying on horses and scythes and sickles. Though they are Christians their Christianity is greatly influenced by the primordial pagan beliefs and customs. The locals resent any external administrative pressure, they are wary of strangers, and I was told one should be careful not to offend them by a flippant remark. Many of the locals believe in werewolves, in the magic powers of witches and wizards, and in magic rather than in digital wonders of today.

Polisky Natural Reserve: Werewolves

The director of the Polissya Preserve Serhiy Zhyla found a place for us to stay in the village for two days and offered to be our guide. He is a person of long local experience who loves wild life and the land he lives on. He took us along ecological paths in the forest, he patiently answered many of our sometimes naive or silly questions, he told us many local stories and stories about wild life — and he said almost nothing about himself. He showed us a great many photos he had taken — all kinds of unusually or odd looking plants, huge trees, birds, insects and other animals. He said that some of the photos were "just lucky moments" but to take many others he had had to spend hours in waiting for the right moment to snap a picture. Some of the photos showed a bad forest fire and efforts taken to put it down. Among the photos were those of a baby lynx saved from the fire. After it had been nursed back to health, the lynx was released into the forest.
Quite a few photos showed wolves — "there are quite a few of them here", Serhiy Zhyla said. From his stories it was clear that he knew wolves and their behavior well. He even had domesticated a couple of wolf puppies. He believes that stories about werewolves are not idle fantasies — "local magicians can turn themselves into wolves — not in the sense of they physically becoming four-legged, overgrown with fur and armed with fangs, but in the sense of their mentality and psychology."
Serhiy Zhyla published a book, "Vovche-brate, vybach mene, hrishnoho" (Brother Wolf, Pardon Me, a Sinner That I Am), in which he described relations of man and beast, Polishchuky’s beliefs, local customs and habits. Signing a copy of his book for me, he wrote, "From a werewolf of Polissya Preserve."

Polisky Natural Reserve: Mills and memorial stones

At the edge of the village an old-style wind mill has been recently built. An old mill in the village of Dalety where no one lives now, was taken apart and the parts were brought to the Polissya Preserve where they were reassembled, and the missing parts made and fixed in proper places. The locals did not need any blueprints to erect the wind mill — they still remembered well how a mill should be built and how operated. In fact, this mill was to be more than just an ethnographic decoration — it is in a working condition and will be used for grinding grain grown by the villagers. Millstones were carved from local rocks quarried at the plateau.
At the edge of the forest where we were taken by Serhiy Zhyla, we saw a sort of a monument, the inscription on which said, “It is erected in honor and in memory of the old wise men, magi, Cossacks, witches and all those who died for the old beliefs. May they rest in glory and live in our grieving memory.”
Serhiy Zhyla is of the opinion that historians have never been fair in their attitudes to the people of Drevlyan’ who got a bad reputation thanks to some of the ancient chronicles. "Even the very name of that land is avoided to be mentioned, the area being described as Eastern Volyn', or Northern Zhytomyrshchyna or a generalized word, "Polissya", is used." He claims that the people of Drevlyan’ (Drevlyany were people of the forests, and Drehovychy were people of the marshes) had their own distinct culture and their own traditions some of which have been preserved to the present day.
According to Serhiy Zhyla, some people, even though they may attend church regularly, venerate certain rocks, groves and water wells at places that used to be pagan shrines.
We were shown such a restored pagan shrine with twelve differently shaped megaliths installed there. "People do not come to worship here any longer", he said, "but I wanted to preserve this place as a landmark." He complained that some "tourists" illegally take away with them stone artifacts which can still be found at the plateau.
Among other recreated or restored sights that we were shown were a hut for hunters in winter, a dugout, a furnace for burning wood to ash. During the Second World War, locals were hiding from the occupying Nazis in deep in forests, building makeshift shelters, primitive tent-like huts (locally called kuren') and dugouts. The houses that the locals build now are mostly made of wood, the main carpenter’s instrument used remains to be an ax. Tourists can stay in such houses during their visits — I can assure you it feels so good to spend a night or two in such a house — compared to our urban dwellings it gives you wonderful fresh air to breathe (creature comforts are another matter).

Polisky Natural Reserve: Marshes and Beavers

On one of our tours of the Preserve we were taken into the marshes — and we rode in a military "all-terrain vehicle" to get there and safely back. When we arrived at our destination, we got out and looked around — we were surrounded by birches and pines; underfoot were grasses, lichens and moss. In response to the interest we showed in this moss, we were told that the scientific name for the moss in those marshes was Sphagnum (in everyday English, it is called bog moss, or peat moss); during WWII local partisans used certain kinds of moss for applying it to the wounds — it was believed to be helpful in the healing process.
All the trees that grow in the bogs are much lower than elsewhere, and a pine can be over a hundred years old yet to be quite small.
We were there on a sunny day, but I could easily imagine how spooky the place must look on a gloomy, foggy or rainy day. It is so easy to get lost in such a place — and one wrong step and you can get sucked into the bog. No wonder, I thought, the Nazi Germans could not capture local partisans!
In the soviet times, marshes and bogs in large areas of Polissya were drained but the land was not properly cultivated and the marshes began to come back. Beavers proved to be the best local environment-protection workers — their dams and underwater lodges helped heal the wounds inflicted on the land by short-sighted “ameliorators”. Some of the beavers’ dams keep the difference in the level of the water as high as almost two meters. We were even asked to test by ourselves for durability one of such dams which was constructed with boles and branches that had been cut down by the beavers’ amazing incisors. We climbed onto one and even jumped in unison — the dyke felt as though it had been made of reinforced concrete. What looked like piles of branches and twigs that we saw in many places turned out to be the tops of beavers’ homes, and they proved also very resistant to any attempts to dislodge them.

Polisky Natural Reserve: Wild bees

Traditional beehives from which the locals got their wild honey are locally called “bort’ ”, and this kind of wild bees’ keeping for their honey is called “bortnytsvo”. Bort is made of a hollowed tree trunk, and they are usually hung up high on a pine.
Instead of smoking out the bees from the nests in the holes in tree trunks to get honey, people, back in the times of old, began making such simple home for the bees, from which it would be possible to get honey more easily.
Bortnytstvo was known not only in Ukraine but in other parts of Europe as well, but today only at very few places this old-style honey procuring business is still practiced the way it was done hundreds of years ago.
In Polissya, borti were passed from father to son for generations. Some of those still used by the villagers of Polissya are more than fifty or even a hundred years old. About one fourth of all the borti that can be found in the vicinity of the village have bee families which provide the locals with honey.
It is rather a tricky business to lure bees into a bort’ — you have to use a lot of skill, patience, ingenuity, and even certain spells to ensure occupation by bees of your bort’. Bortnyky (bee keepers) are particularly superstitious; they keep their secrets and are reluctant to talk to strangers. In olden times, they were even more secretive.

We saw quite a number of borti close to the village and in the forest. One of them had a curious contraption installed — protection against bears. It looked like a pitched roof firmly affixed to the bort’ — no bear would be able to put his paw into it, or tear the roof off. We were told that the borti used to be suspended hanging from a branch on a chain. If the bear climbed up to it, he would attempt to somehow grab it — but pushing or pulling the bort’ he set it into a swinging motion and the bort’ was heavy enough to knock him off the tree. And at the place where he was likely to land there were sharp-pointed sticks dug into the ground. Cruel but effective.
The visit to the Polissya Preserve took me back in time — and to the wonderful, pristine, scenic wild nature."

Olena Krushynska's story about Polissya Reserve in the northern part of Zhytomyr Oblast of Ukraine

More about Polisky Natural Reserve (Поліський природний заповідник) in Ukrainian. Trips booking, English guided tours by polissya(@)torba.com

Podesinnia (Подесіння) also known as Mizhrichya (Міжріччя) is one of the most attractive parts of the Eastern Polissia of Ukraine.

The rivers that cut across the plains tend to meander, rather than flow in a straight line, and even change their course altogether once in a while. A series of picturesque lakes then form along their previous beds. Every spring, when the water from the melting snow and ice, overfills these rivers, they flood the banks, and the area flooded is called zaplava in Ukrainian.

As a matter of fact, there are only a few big rivers in Europe left which continue to regularly flood the plains (dams, dykes and other measures prevent the flooding), and one of such rivers if the Desna in Ukraine...

Story by Oleksiy VASYLYUK:
The Desna is only one of the six major rivers of Ukraine that has not been dammed the way other rivers have been. In fact, there are no dams across it, no water reservoirs along its course, no canals that would absorb the excess of water. The Desna remains in a sort of a primordial state, meandering the way it chooses, and flooding the plains when the time is due.

The Desna is often referred to as "the enchanted River." Probably, one of the reasons for giving it such an epithet, was the Desna’s frequent change of course — it seems to get bored with flowing along one and the same route for too long and whimsically chooses a different direction. The one thing that does not change is its final destination — the Dnipro River.

Podesinnya, Mizhrichya, Desna: Some facts

In the name "Desna" we can discern, or so the philologists claim, an Indo-European root with the meaning of "scintillate," which may suggest the cleanliness and transparency of the water. The Desna has its source in Russia; after crossing the border with Ukraine it finds its wildly meandering way across Chernihiv and Sumy Oblasts to empty into the Dnipro not far from Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. Its entire length is about one thousand kilometers.
The Ukrainians call the land on both sides of the Desna through which it flows Podesinnya. Among the historical places that are situated within Podesinnya, Chernihiv, Novhorod-Siversky and Oster should be mentioned in the first place. Chernihiv, one of the major political centers of the early-medieval state of Kyivan Rus, is an ancient town and a big tourist attraction. Chernihiv boasts churches that date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries and other architectural landmarks that have survived from the times of old.
Novhorod-Siversky is one of the oldest towns in Ukraine, dating from the tenth century. For a stretch of time it was the capital of one of the principalities of which Kyivan Rus was made up. The great medieval epic The Tale of Ihor's Campaign is directly connected with Novhorod-Siversky.
Oster was founded by Grand Duke Volodymyr Monomakh in 1098 as a bulwark against invading nomads; some of the landmarks from those times have been preserved.
In many of the villages which are situated in Podesinnya, archeologists have found barrows, burial sites and other signs of ancient settlements; a good number of Podesinnya villages, which are mentioned in old chronicles, are anywhere from five to ten hundred years old.
Podesinnya people have preserved many customs, rituals and habits which go back hundreds of years. Decorative and ornamentals elements that adorn their homes are age-old and go back to the pre-Christian times. Water mills, which used to be a standard feature in Podesinnya, are unfortunately to be seen no more.
Kyiv sits on the bank of the Dnipro River, but as its territory has been widely expanding recently, the urban spread has crossed into Podesinnya, and thus Kyiv now claims both rivers, the Dnipro and the Desna, as part of its geography.

Podesinnya, Mizhrichya, Desna: Tourism

Podesinnya has always been attractively scenic but it is only in more recent times that tourism to Podesinnya has developed on a large scale. It’s been known since the times of old that bathing in the Desna was good for health, but this fact has found a scientific explanation fairly recently — the Desna water contains curative doses of ions of iodine. Most of the people, however, who come to spend their weekends or vacations at the Desna, do so not because of the ions but because they enjoy the scenery and are provided with vacationing opportunities. In addition to sunbathers, numerous anglers dot the banks of the river.

All sorts of water sport competitions are held on the Desna in the vicinity of Kyiv. Canoeing down the river is a growing activity too, and many tourist firms offer canoeing tours of various duration. Those of a more adventurous disposition go up into the air to have a bird’s eye view of the river and its banks — hang-gliders and other similar modern inventions are at the tourists’ disposal with instructors taking care of the safety of flights. Once up in the air over Podesinnya, you can glide above the earth for dozens of miles enjoying the beauty of pristine nature not marred by industrial or urban developments. There are not many places left like that in Europe.

A growing number of people come to Podesinnya to spend several days living in tents pitched close to the water, rather than in a greater comfort of tourist camps. Early morning fogs in summer provide photographers, amateur and professional, with opportunities of taking artistic photos. As the sun climbs higher, the fogs lift and the nature sparkles around in its full glory.

Podesinnya, Mizhrichya, Desna: Nature

Podesinnya is known for its great diversity of animal and plant life. Some of the animals to be encountered there are on the engendered-species lists. Such birds as black storks or ernes (white-tailed eagles) are a majestic — albeit rare — sight. About three hundred species of migrating birds stop in the plains of Podesinnya on their way to and from the south. There are several areas in Podesinnya which are under state protection and have been internationally designated as Important Bird Areas. The number of bird watchers is on the rise; a hill in the vicinity of the village of Mezyn is a particularly popular spot for bird watching. Ornithologists pay frequent visits to Podesinnya as well.

The Podesinnya grasses are lush and plentiful, as well as wild flowers. Fragrant hay, after being mowed, is stacked and these stacks form a ubiquitous feature of the local landscapes (grasses grow fast in Podesinnya and hay can be made several times a year). The hay makers take precautions to keep their hay dry during the floods, providing the hay stacks with a sort of foundations — small earth mounds upon which the hay is piled. During the flood, these mounds with hay on top of them form little islands. Flower lovers can even find a rare species of orchids in the plains of Podesinnya.

Podesinnya, Mizhrichya, Desna: Protected areas

Three national parks are to be found in Podesinnya — Mezynsky park, Mizhrichynsky park (in Cherniviv Oblast) and Desnyano-Starohutsky (in Sumy Oblast). The idea of creating protected areas or national parks in Podesinnya emerged in the 1980s, but it was implemented much later. The President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko initiated the establishment of a large natural park which would stretch along the Desna for 600 kilometers, and the work began in 2009. The park, to be named Podesinnya, will be provided with a state protection status. The hay making and domestic animal grazing will not interfere with the status of the park as these activities are a natural part of the local conditions.

As the work on the park continues, a tourist infrastructure will be developed too. In fact, one hopes that the creation of the Podesinnya Park will be conducive to restoration and preservation of natural and man-made landmarks in that area. Tourists will enjoy the scenery, the peaceful sight of storks, of hay stacks and of grazing cows, and have an opportunity to have a big glassful of warm milk, fresh from milking, and free of any preservatives.
Story by Oleksiy VASYLYUK for Welcome to Ukraine magazine

These names are also written as Polissya, Podesinnia (Подесіння), Podesennya (Подесення), Mizhrichchya (Міжріччя).

More details about trips and tours to Mizhrichya, Podesinnya, Chernigiv or other cool spots of Eastern Ukrainian Polissia, please contact icpolissya@gmail.com

The Land of Rivnenshchyna is also known as the Land of Polissia (Полісся), or Pohorynnya (Погориння). Most of it now is in Rivne Oblast, an administrative division of Ukraine.

It is situated in the south-western part of Ukraine. It is a land of forests, lakes, marshes, and numerous species of plants and animals. It is a land of wonderful landscapes. It is a land of ancient cities and trade routes which, in the times of old, used to link East and West. It is a land inhabited by people who, different as they are, are united by the air they breathe, by traditions of their land, by their common history…

Story by Oleksandr IRVANETS
Rivnenshchyna covers a territory of over 20,000 kilometers. How does it compare with, say, some countries of the world? It is as big as the territories of the Czech Republic or Switzerland; it is as big as Lebanon and Cyprus put together; it is as big as Jamaica or Puerto Rico, or El Salvador. When I look at this Central American country on the map, I mentally compare its size with the size of my native Rivnenshchyna.

Rivnenshchyna used to be a borderland. A hundred years ago it bordered on Austria-Hungary; later, its neighboring lands in the west were those of Poland. Rivnenschyna nurtured many Ukrainians who took up arms against both the Soviet Empire and Nazi Germany in the 1940s.
The northern part of Rivnenshchyna differs from its southern part in natural conditions and landscapes. There are many castles and ancient fortresses still to be seen in Rivnenshchyna — in Dubno, Korets, Klevan, Ostroh and Tarakaniv. There are many traces and scars of the last war still to be seen in Rivnenshchyna forests and steppes — ruined blockhouses, overgrown trenches and bomb craters. Architectural landmarks, dating from the times of old and from much more recent times abound in the Land of Rivnenshchyna.

Archeological excavations suggest that people have been living in Rivnenshchyna since Paleolithic times. Many toponyms remind us of much later times, but still a thousand-year distant from our time — Horodyshche, Mezhyrichi.

The Land of Rivnenshchyna has been subjected to many invasions and incursions in its long history — nomads, Mongols, Tartars, the Swedish army of Charles XII in the eighteenth century, Napoleon’s army in the nineteenth century, Polish, German and Soviet armies in the twentieth century. Burned down and plundered cities and villages, devastation, tears and spilled innocent blood, orphans and cripples, suffering and bondage marked their presence in the Land of Rivnenschyna.

Time destroys the sturdiest of buildings, even the longest living trees die, the rivers change their course — although it is often man who does more damage to the land than any natural disasters or implacable time.

I have a feeling though that the landscapes of my native land have changed but little since time immemorial. When I find myself in the country, I look at the low hills and the slowly flowing rivers and I can’t help thinking that all of what I see looked pretty much the same thousands of years ago. It gives me a joy to think that people who lived in Rivnenshchyna hundreds or thousands of years ago saw pretty much the same landscape.

The beauty of Rivnenshchyna is of a quiet kind, as a true beauty must be. Decorative embroideries of Rivnenshchyna reflect the mood and colors of the landscapes, with black being a conspicuous color. The black of the marshes, the black of a rare species of storks, the black of mysterious lakes hiding in the depths of forests add their touches to the subdued colors of Rivnenshchyna landscapes.

Rivnenshchyna is rich in all kinds of natural resources — black basalts, amber, diamonds, phosphorites, mineral waters are among the most important natural treasures to be found in Rivnenshchyna. Sources of mineral water with medicinal properties can be found in Ostroh, Stepan’ and other places. Nitrogen-radon sources in Korets are as good as similar sources in the Caucasus.

Rivnenshchyna is not only a land of developed agriculture — it has a powerful industrial base and maintains trade with many foreign countries. Fabrics, mineral fertilizers, cement, and wood items are among the products Rivnenshchyna exports. Electricity is another product that Rivnenshchyna produces in large quantities.

Polissia of Rivne: Inspiration and continuity

The Land of Rivnenshchyna inspired many writers, often in some mysterious ways, among whom we find Oleksandr Kuprin, Volodymyr Korolenko and Mykola Kostomarov. Today in some of the rural areas of Rivnenshchyna we still can find people who observe certain rituals that have survived since the pre-Christian, pagan times. But Rivnenshchyna is also a land where scientists and poets, thinkers, artists and sages were born. It was in Ostroh in Rivnenshchyna that the first books in Ukraine were printed.

Rivnenschyna is also a land of crafts and craftsmen. Swords made in Kharaluh were famous in the medieval times for their superior quality. Such swords, which could cut through any metal in battle, were called “kharaluzhni.” They are mentioned in the great Ukrainian medieval epic The Song of Ihor’s Host.

Embroideries that decorate traditional dress, white-and-black ceramics, whose shapes and decorative patterns have come down to us from the past, continue to be valued and appreciated.
An academy was established in Ostroh at the end of the Middle Ages and its first president, Herasym Smotrytsky and his son Meletiy were among the enlighteners who developed knowledge in Ukraine. Monks in the monasteries of Dubno, Derman and Ostroh wrote odes and epigrams and poems, and copied ancient manuscripts. Symon Pekalid, Demyan Nalyvayko, Vitaliy the Monk, Kasiyan Sakovych and the author who is known by his initials M.H. were among those who fostered literature and spiritual education.
Rivnenshchyna is a land were many battles were fought, many glorious victories were won and many crushing defeats were suffered. The memory of these events has been preserved in legends, histories, ballads and epic poems. The towns of Ostroh, Dubno, Derman, Korets, Klevan, Stepan’ and others gave Ukraine men and women whose deeds have gone down into history books.
Oleksa Stefanovych, one of the most distinguished poets of the Ukrainian diaspora in America, was born in the village of Mylyatyn, now in Ostroh Oblast, at the very end of the nineteenth century. Borys Tan (penname of Mykola Khomychevsky), a versatile translator of works of classical Antiquity, and Ulas Samchuk, a writer who was nominated for the Nobel Prize, were born and grew up in Derman. Nil Khasevych, an artist who studied at the Krakow Art Academy and who was an ardent Ukrainian patriot, hailed from Dyuksy. Olena Teliha and Oleh Olzhych, poets who wrote excellent poetry filled with the ardent Ukrainian spirit, were natives of Rivne. They died for the freedom of their native land. Streets of Rivne bear their names.

Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of the independent Ukraine (1991–1994), was born in the village of Velyky Zhytyn, not far from Rivne.Hryhoriy Skovoroda, the eighteenth-century itinerant philosopher, Taras Shevchenko, the great nineteenth century poet, Lesya Ukrayinka, the prominent late nineteenth-early twentieth century writer, Panteleymon Kulish and Mykola Kostomarov, the prominent nineteenth-century cultural figures, visited the Land of Rivnenschyna and were inspired by it.
Honore de Balzac, the French writer and a founder of the realist school of fiction (1799–1850), stopped in Rivne on his way to Berdychiv where he married the noble Eveline Hanska.
Jaroslav Hasek, one of the leading Czech authors of the early decades of the twentieth century, who wrote his famous sequence of novels called Osudy dobreho vojaka Svejka za svetove valky, (1921–23; The Good Soldier Schweik; these works set in the collapsing Austro-Hungarian Empire remain widely read to the present day) spent some time in Rivnenshchyna during the First World War. The main protagonist of the novels, Scweik, mentions a friend from Zdolbunov, a town in Rivnenshchyna.

Polissia of Rivne: Past and present

There are a great many graves of soldiers, Ukrainian and foreign, in the Land of Rivnenshchyna. In the crypts of the churches that stand at the sites of battles of yore are sarcophagi with skulls of the Cossacks that bear marks of enemies’ sabers. There are an untold number of unmarked graves in the forests, steppes and along the roads. The First and Second World Wars put thousands upon thousands of soldiers and civilians into the earth. There are also graves of literati and cultural figures to be found in the Land of Rivnenshchyna.

Osher Schwarzman, a Yiddish writer, and Oleko Dundych, a Serb, found their eternal resting place in Rivnenshchyna. Stanislaw-Ignaci Witkievicz, a Polish avant-garde poet and painter, is buried at the cemetery of the village Ozera. Anna Olenina-Andro, the woman whom Aleksandr Pushkin, the great nineteenth-century Russian poet, sang in his poems, is buried in the territory of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Korets.

But life goes on and new generations of young people are growing up in Rivnenshchyna. Schools of all levels, from kindergartens to universities, including the recently re-established Ostroh Academy, annually admit thousands upon thousands of young people eager to acquire knowledge. The cultural and historical continuity has not been disrupted despite many wars and social upheavals.

Many of the natives of Rivnenshchyna have immigrated to North and South America, to Russia, to Australia, France, Germany and other countries but I am sure the memory of their native land continues to live in their hearts. They continue to be connected with Rivnenshchyna by invisible strings.

Rivnenshchyna is actively developing tourism in all of its varieties, including green and cultural tourism. There is a lot that Rivnenshchyna can offer. Come and see.

Text by Oleksandr IRVANETS for Welcome to Ukraine magazine

For more details about trips to Rivne Polissia please contact polissya(@)torba.com