Within the Polesie lowland, the Polesie region is located. This is not only a geographical, but also a historical and cultural region, where its traditions and individual groups of dialects have formed. Most of Polesie is located in the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine.
Where is the region located?
Polesie stretched a long strip, covering four states: Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Its total area is approximately 270 thousand square kilometers. Most of its territory runs along the sides of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.
On the map of Belarus, the region occupies 30% of the territory, on the map of Ukraine - 19%. On the western side, it covers a small part of the Ljubljana Voivodeship of Poland, on the eastern side - a small segment of the Bryansk region of Russia.
Polesie lowland arose in the places of troughs of tectonic plates. Its flat surface occasionally turns into low hills, not exceeding 320 meters. In the southern part of the lowland, the relief is more undulating, and the composition of the rocks is more diverse.
Polesie is mainly forests, swamps and meadows, alternating between themselves. The lowland landscapes are heterogeneous and rather resemble a mosaic canvas, divided by a dense network of rivers. Typical Polesye landscapes are clearly visible in the paintings of Ivan Shishkin.
In the Polesie region there are rare and unique natural complexes. Such are the Shatsky Lakes National Park and the Shatsky Biosphere Reserve, Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the Pribuzhskoye Polesye Reserve, the Cheremlyansky and Drevlyansky Reserves, the Polessky and Pripyatsky National Parks. Part of the region’s territory suffered from the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as a result of which a radiation-ecological reserve arose in the Gomel region of Belarus.
Belarusian Polesie
On the map of Belarus, Polesie stretched for 500 kilometers parallel to the Pripyat River. Inside the country, it deepens about two hundred kilometers. The rivers Goryn and Yaselda conditionally divide it into Western and Eastern parts. Within Belarus, the region is also divided into five geographical areas: Zagorodye, Brest, Gomel, Mozyr and Pripyat woodlands.
The absolute lowlands on the territory of Belarus do not exceed 150 meters. In some places, moraine ridges and elevations up to two hundred meters appear. The formation of the local relief was influenced by the activity of glaciers, as well as the waters of the Pripyat River. Sod-podzolic, floodplain, peat-boggy soils are found here.
The nature of Belarus in the Polessky region is represented by mixed coniferous and deciduous forests, lowland and flood meadows. In Belarusian Polesie grow oak, hornbeam, spruce, pine, black alder, birch. In lowlands, sedge, grass, mosses and cereals are common. Characteristic natural complexes were preserved on the territory of the Pripyat National Park.
Ukrainian Polesie
Ukrainian woodland is a strip about a hundred kilometers wide from the border with Belarus, which covers the territory of Volyn, Sumy, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr and Kiev regions. Based on the location relative to the Dnieper River, it is divided into right-bank and left-bank.
If the relief is flat in Belarusian woodland, then in Ukraine it is more dissected, especially in the western part. There, Polesie encompasses the northwestern edge of the crystalline shield, which comes to the surface with quartz, granite and gneiss formations. One of them is Slovechansko-Ovruch ridge, stretching for 60 kilometers in length.
The river network of Ukrainian woodland is formed by the Irpen, Desna, Sluch, Grouse, Seim, Stir rivers. Almost all of them are tributaries of the Dnieper and Pripyat. The climate in the region is temperate continental. Up to 700 mm of precipitation falls during the year, which feed the rivers.
Region population
The indigenous population of Polesie is an ethnic group of the Poleschuk. The term is rarely used as a self-name and is coined to refer to the inhabitants of a region. By origin, they are Eastern Slavs, closest in gene pool to Ukrainians and Belarusians.
Within this ethnic group, a community of Western Poleschuk is also distinguished, which have distinctive traditions, but are quite disconnected and did not form a single ethnic group. Presumably, the formation of the Poleschuk was influenced by the tribes of Drevlyans, Dulebs, Yatvyags, Dains, Dregoviches, etc.
Among the Poleschuk distinguish separate small groups:
- bogs - the population living near wetlands;
- field workers live in villages on more or less dry terrain;
- Forest people - residents of near-forest areas.
Ethnographers spoke of the similarity of the nationality with the Ukrainians and Belarusians, but noted some differences both in appearance and in everyday life. However, at the beginning of the XIX century in many atlases they were noted as Ukrainians, and their language was considered a dialect.
Shatsky Lakes
In the western part of Polesie a territory was formed with many closely located lakes, called Shatsky Lake District. It covers more than thirty large lakes concentrated in the Volyn region of Ukraine.
The largest body of water is Svityaz with an area of ​​26 square kilometers. This is the second largest lake in Ukraine. To protect the lakes and the surrounding nature, a national park was created. It covers an area of ​​48 thousand hectares.
Shatsky lakes are full of fish, they live: trout, perch, Chuid whitefish, Amur carp, pike perch, loach, perch, catfish, pike, roach, etc. Waterfowl nest off the coast. The territory of the park is very wetland, in addition to the lakes there are many ponds and swamps. The local vegetation is rich in mosses and algae.
More than 70 species of mushrooms grow in the park, and more than 32 local plants are listed in the Red Book, among which there are several species of paprika, petals, sundews, low birch and venus slippers. There are about 33 rare or endangered species of animals in Shatsky Lakes: copperfish, black storks, yellow herons, aquatic warbler, gray crane and others.
Belovezhskaya Pushcha
Another unique natural complex in Polesie is Belovezhskaya Pushcha. It is located on the territory of Belarus and Poland and occupies 161 thousand hectares. Belovezhskaya Pushcha - a preserved relict plain forest - a landscape located in this area since preglacial times.
The number of plants and animals in Belovezhskaya Pushcha exceeds all natural complexes in Europe. There are more than 500 species of mushrooms, about the same number of mosses and lichens and about 1000 vascular plants. Owls, eagle owls, white-tailed eagles, snake-eaters, badgers, lynxes and even bison live in the forest.
In prehistoric times, such forests covered a fairly large part of Europe, but were eventually destroyed. In its original form, the natural complex has been preserved only here.