Yalivshchyna
FOUR THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY
Yalivshchyna Forest Park is located in the northern part of Chernihiv. This is a unique complex located on the banks of the river Stryzhen, a right tributary of the Desna River. Today its total length is 32 km; the width of the channel varies around 4-5 m. The formation of the river began about 11 thousand years ago during the melting of the Wurm Glacier. The width of the riverbed during the melting period was almost 1 km. This is clearly visible on the routes, one of which is located in Yalivshchyna, and the other at the intersection of the modern Myru Avenue and Kozatska Street. The first information about the river Stryzhen dates back to ancient times, when it appeared on the pages of the Laurentian Codex in 1078. Opanas Shafonskyi wrote back in 1785: "Stryzhen River goes out of this county near the village of Osniaky and passed through the city of Chernihiv only 26 miles, under it fell into the river Desna on the right side." At the same time, Andrii Tarasov recalls that the water in the Stryzhen River at the end of the 18th century was clean and drinkable; it was used by the townspeople.
Today's forest park is located on the eastern terrace of the river Stryzhen, its height ranges from 22 to 25 m. It has quite steep slopes, abundantly cut by hollows and ravines. Particular, this place people liked more than 4000 years ago. For the first time archeological works in Yalivshchyna started in the late 1940s. There were expeditions by Davyd Blifeld and Oleksandr Popko. In 1971, Motrona Popudrenko investigated the findings in Yalivshchyna, and in 1976 Gerard Kuznetsov conducted the research here. In the 1980s, Volodymyr Kovalenko made excavations in Yalivshchyna and the position near it, excavation was continued by Viktor Sokhatskyi, Ihor Ihnatenko, Hennadii Zharov and Viacheslav Skorokhod.
The first settlers of Yalivshchyna were representatives of the Middle Dnieper archeological culture of the Bronze Age, which existed in the second millennium BC. This culture occupies the territory of the middle and upper Dnieper and the Desna Rivers basin within Ukraine and Belarus. It is represented by burial findings in mounds necropolises, earthen cemeteries and open settlements. The settlement of this culture was discovered in Yalivshchyna. These settlers left behind the remains of the inhabitants of the raft structures, which had a rectangular shape and consisted of two rooms, the floor and walls were made of clay, the ceiling was covered with straw or reeds. There were household holes around these dwellings. Representatives of this culture were able to process bronze and make weapons and tools from it. However, mostly, they used stone goods as tools. Their pottery was also interesting: pots and amphorae with a round bottom. These housewares were decorated with various ornaments of shaded triangles, vertical columns, and horizontal stripes. Such ornaments completely covered the entire pot. The Middle Dnieper settlement had close ties with other tribes living in Ukraine, the findings of imported jewelry and tools are evidences of such cooperation.
In the Early Iron Age, I millennium BC representatives of the so-called Milograd culture appeared on the territory of the modern Yalivshchyna forest park. This culture has existed for more than 700 years and is often identified with the Nevrian tribes that were mentioned by Herodotus in his “History”. The carriers of this culture are considered to be representatives of the proto-Baltic ethnic group, from which modern Lithuanians and Latvians later descended. Probably they were the ones who built the first fortifications in the form of an embankment and a moat in the Yalivshchyna on the bank of the Stryzhen River. Such fortifications were extremely necessary, because from the south there was always a danger of attacks by Scythian nomads. The fact that the Scythians attacked the Mylograd settlements in the Yalivshchyna can be evidenced by the findings of arrowheads during the research of the shaft of the already mentioned settlement.
The people of Mylohrad settlement built their houses of wood or raft, sometimes coating them with clay. The house was heated by an open fire. Along with housing, farm buildings such as sheds, barns for cattle, and pits for storing grain were also found. Their pottery differed in variety of shape, but they were mostly spherical pots decorated on the bottleneck with rows of holes, "pearls" or punctures pressed by the fingers. Most tools were made of stone: hoes, graters, grinding wheels, etc. People of Mylohrad also mastered the vertical loom very well; the findings of clay weights, often ornamented were found. Metal products, despite the fact that it was already the Iron Age, were very, very a few. They are mostly represented by hoes, sickles, knives, needles, awls. Sometimes weapons are found during archeological excavations: darts and arrows, the latter usually resembling Scythian ones. In general, the Mylograd culture, stand out from the background of other early Iron Age cultures surrounding it, looked rather modest, especially in comparison with the royal Scythians. Modern researchers believe that the representatives of this culture had a direct influence on the formation of the first Slavic tribes.
Representatives of the so-called Zarubynetska archeological culture replace the Mylohrad culture. Archaeological excavations in Yalivshchyna have revealed several of their settlements. They were usually small to two hectares. Their homes were presented in the form of half-dugouts, heated by an open hearth. In addition, numerous household holes up to 1 meter deep, open-air hearths and other farm buildings were found in the settlements. At the same time such settlement could operate from 5 to 20 inhabitants, which were located in compact groups. The utensils of the Zarubynetska culture were molded: polished and rough. Polished - used for dining purposes, it was used for cooking and serving food. Rough dishes were used as snags for food storage. Today it is not known exactly which ethnic group the representatives of the Zarubynetska culture belonged to. Some researchers consider them Proto-Slavs, others - Germans; others agree that it was a symbiosis or synthesis of tribes of the local population with representatives of migrants from Central Europe. The latter opinion is prevalent in science today. However, it is on the basis of the Zarubynetska culture that the archeological cultures of the early Slavs will later begin to form. And this is clearly seen in the example of settlements in Yalivshchyna.
On the site of the settlements of the Zarubynetska culture on the terraces of the Stryzhen River, settlements of the Kyiv archeological culture appeared which is already directly related by scientists to the early Slavic population of Ukraine. In the north of Yalivshchyna was a huge settlement with an area of more than 20 hectares, which was named Oleksandrivka, 1. During the 1980s and 1990s, Chernihiv archaeologist Oleksandr Shekun studied several dozen residential buildings and several hundred household pits on the territory of this settlement. The houses were represented by semi-dugout dwellings ranging in size from 3.5 to 5 meters, sunk by 1 m into the ground, with walls of log or frame structures. An open hearth was also located in the central part of the house, but at this time stoves made of clay began to appear on these territories.
Among the innovations of the time, it can be noted that people began to dig the first wells, instead of meeting their drinking water needs from the Stryzhen River. One of these wells was investigated by archaeologists in the north of Yalivshchyna. Utensils of Kyiv culture remain stucco were also divided into kitchen or dining room and coarse, which was used to store grain and for water. Representatives of this culture contacted with other Polissia tribes of the forest zone. At an early stage, connections were established with the Cherniakhivska culture of the 5th century, which is identified with the Gothic tribes. Kolochynska culture, which is genetically close to it and is directly associated with the Slavs, comes from the Kyiv culture. Kolochyn culture in the VIII century was changed by Volyntsivska. Today, researchers agree that this is the culture of the Slavs, who came under the influence of the Khazar Khaganate and became the ancestors of the chronicle tribe "Siver" or "Sivero", better known to us as Siveriany. Probably, at the turn of the VIII and IX centuries, the Volyntsivske settlement in Yalivshchyna perished during a cataclysm or an unknown to us war. Subsequent settlements have already appeared here during the formation of the Old Rus state.
From the Xth century settlement on the site of the modern Val (Rampart) in Chernihiv began to grow rapidly and turned into a city. Around the same time, settlements appeared in Yalivshchyna that directly formed the Chernihiv agglomeration. Thus, on the site of abandoned fortifications of the Mylograd culture an ancient Rus fortress appeared. Unfortunately, the chronicle did not preserve for us name of this fortified settlement. The first mention of the settlement in Yalivshchyna dating from the 17th century, but at that time it had been abandoned and no fortifications existed there except the old rampart. In the work of Opanas Shafonskyi "Topographical description of the Chernihiv governorship" it is stated: Here in the grove there is a remnant of a small earthen rampart. It is possible that it was inhabited by the former Polish owner of the grove, nicknamed Elotskyi, or it is possible that it was made in the former plagues, where the inhabitants took refuge from it.
The settlement in Yalivshchyna is located on a 23-meter cape of the left-bank terrace of the Stryzhen River, on the north-western outskirts of Chernihiv. The settlement itself is small, only 40x40 m. From the north and south it is cut off from the plateau by two deep ravines. On the western side, the settlement is bounded by the edge of the terrace, which overlooks the Stryzhen River and today is actively destroyed on this side. Even 70 years ago, according to the measurements of archaeologists of that time, the settlement was at least 2-3 m longer. The settlement has artificial fortifications only on the eastern side. They are represented by a much silted moat 10 m wide and 1.5 m deep, as well as a shaft 2.5 m high and 8 m wide. Traces of escarpment can also be seen on the north side, as this edge of the settlement was more sloping. The entrance to the site was located in the north-eastern part of the settlement on a small ramp up to 5 m wide, or directly from an unfortified post. In ancient times, there was a wooden wall on the top of the earthen rampart, from which the defenders of the fortress could conduct archery at the attackers. There was probably a wooden tower above the entrance gate.
To the north and east of the settlement there is a large unfortified settlement-post, limited by deep ravines from the south and west, which formed a significant obstacle for the attackers. The total area of the unfortified post and adjacent settlements of the XII century reaches more than 3 hectares. Such an area could accommodate at least three dozen yards, which means that the population of the community near the settlement was at least 150 people, which is a significant figure for the Middle Ages.
It is probable that the settlement in Yalivshchyna in ancient times served as someone's country residence or boyar mansions. Such country yards are often mentioned in chronicles. In general, they were identical to the castles of medieval European knights, which were also mostly wooden until the 13th century. The local feudal lord did not need powerful fortifications to live in, and a small fortified area was enough for his house, stables, and storage facilities. All his people and servants lived in premises, under the walls of the yard. This military-economic complex provided itself with everything it needed, and what was missing could be easily obtained from Chernihiv, which was very close. Another function of the fortifications in Yalivshchyna was the castle-yard, it controlled navigation on the Stryzhen River from the northern rural areas of modern villages Osnyaki, Roishche, which at that time provided Chernihiv with agricultural products, and the fortress acted as an outpost on the outskirts of Chernihiv from the north. We can assume that the yard in Yalivshchyna perished, like most similar fortifications, during the turbulent events of the middle - second half of the thirteenth century. However, the history of the settlement of Yalivshchyna did not end there.
Although settlements on this territory was revived from time to time in the XIV-XVII centuries, but the fortifications no longer played such a role as in ancient times.
Thus, during archeological excavations in the summer of 1994, a half-dugout dwelling dating to the authors of excavations of the 14th – 16th centuries was discovered on the terrace of the Stryzhen River in Yalivshchyna. This indicates that some part of the population during the turbulent times of Mongol rule still survived and continued to live in the tract. It was probably a small hamlet consisting of one or more estates. However, it destroyed in fire in the late XV - or early XVI century. Probably, this happened during one of the military operations that took place during this period between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Muscovy in the struggle for Chernihiv.
In 1618 Chernihiv became part of the United Commonwealth of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And again after that the settlement of Yalivshchyna took place. According to the documents of the XVIII century Yalivshchyna belonged to Yalovytskyi, from whose surname the modern name of the whole tract comes. Yalivshchyna also belonged to him or his descendants at the end of the 17th century as evidenced by one of the universals of Hetman Demian Ihnatovych from 1672. During this period, there was a water mill, which means that the first dam appeared and formed an artificial pond. In the XVIII century Yalivshchyna became the property of the Lyzohub family and in the second half of the same century there was a hamlet of a fellow assessor Vasyl Lyzohub, a representative of the famous Cossack-officer family. In 1816, Mykhailo Markov mentioned: Yalivshchyna, in particular, he noted: The name came from the nobleman Jalockii, who lived here in the Polish possession." Or in 1852, Mykola Markevich wrote: “Yashchovshchyna, from Mr. Yalotskyi, who lived there during the Polish rule; by the name of the neighboring dam, barren, that is, abolished, the original name of this grove has been preserved in people minds; I spoke of it as a folk festival, and mentioning the former barrage on the Stryzhen River; it is a grove on the north side near the city.". The same can be seen from the description of the XIX century. Yalivshchyna was traditionally used by Chernihiv residents as a place for festive festivities and everyday walks.
From the middle of the XIX century began active afforestation of the tract. There were planted heather, pine, spruce, cherry and various bushes. One of the initiators of such activities was a member of the City Duma Vasyl Nerod. In 1880, a pumping station for artesian wells was built in Yalivshchyna, which filled the city's water supply system.
In the postwar period, Yalivshchyna was organized into a city botanical garden. However, its territory was constantly declining, and by the 1980s it had become a forest reserve. Only in 2014 the tract was reorganized into a regional landscape park.