Polesie is a physico-geographical region located on the territory of the Polesie Lowland

Within the Polesie lowland is the region of Polesie. This is not only a geographical, but also a historical and cultural area, where their traditions and separate groups of dialects were formed. Most of Polesie is located on the territory of the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine.

Where is the region located?

Polissya stretched a long strip, covering four states: Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Its total area is about 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 Lublia Voivodeship of Poland, and from the east - a small section of the Bryansk region of Russia.

The Polesie lowland appeared in the places of deflections of tectonic plates. Its flat surface occasionally passes into low hills, not exceeding 320 meters. In the southern part of the lowland, the relief is more wavy, and the composition of rocks is more diverse.

Polesie is mainly forests, marshes and meadows alternating with each other. The landscapes of the lowland are heterogeneous and rather resemble a mosaic canvas, separated by a dense network of rivers. Typical Polesye landscapes can be clearly seen in the pictures of Ivan Shishkin.

In the Polissya region there are rare and unique natural complexes. Such are the national park "Shatskie lakes" and Shatsky biosphere reserve, Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the reserve "Pribuzhskoe Polesie", Cheremlyansky and Drevlyansky reserves, Polessky and Pripyat national parks. Part of the territory of the region was affected by the Chernobyl accident, which resulted in the creation of a radiation-ecological reserve in the Gomel region of Belarus.

Belorussian Polesie

On the map of Belarus Polesie stretched for 500 kilometers parallel to the river Pripyat. Into the country, it deepens about two hundred kilometers. The rivers Goryn and Yaselda conditionally divide it into the Western and Eastern parts. Within Belarus, the region is also divided into five geographical regions: Zagorod, Brest, Gomel, Mozyr and Pripyat.

Absolute heights of the lowland in the territory of Belarus do not exceed 150 meters. In some places, moraine ridges and elevations of up to two hundred meters. The formation of the local relief was influenced by the activity of glaciers, as well as the waters of the Pripyat River. Here there are sod-podzolic, floodplain, peaty-marshy soils.

The nature of Belarus in the Polesie region is represented by mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests, lowland and flood meadows. In the Belarusian Polesie grow oak, hornbeam, spruce, pine, black alder, birch. In the lowlands, sedges, grasses, mosses and grasses are common. The characteristic natural natural complexes were preserved in the territory of the Pripyat National Park.

Ukrainian Polesie

Ukrainian Olesya is a strip about a hundred kilometers from the border with Belarus, which covers the territory of Volyn, Sumy, Chernigov, Zhytomyr and Kiev regions. Based on the location of the Dnieper River, it is divided into the right-bank and left-bank.

If in the Belorussian Polissya the relief is flat, then on the territory of Ukraine it is more fragmented, especially in the western part. There Polissya covers the northwestern margin of the crystalline shield, which comes to the surface with quartz, granite, and gneissic formations. One of them is the Slovene-Ovruch Ridge, which stretches for 60 kilometers in length.

The river network of the Ukrainian woodland is formed by the rivers Irpen, Desna, Sluch, Teterev, Seim, Styr. Virtually all of them are tributaries of the Dnieper and Pripyat. The climate in the region is temperate continental. In a year, up to 700 mm of precipitation falls, which feed the rivers.

Population of the region

The indigenous population of Polissya is the ethnic group of the Polesye. The term is rarely used as a self-designation and was invented to refer to the inhabitants of the region. By origin they are Eastern Slavs, the closest in terms of the gene pool to Ukrainians and Belarusians.

Inside this ethnic group, there is also a commonality of Western Poleschuk, who have distinct traditions, but are sufficiently separated and did not form a single ethnos. Presumably the formation of the Poleschuk was influenced by the tribes of the Drevlyans, Dulebes, Yatvjags, Dainas, Dregovichi, etc.

Among the Poleschuk separate small groups:

• Swamps - the population living near wetlands;
• Poloviks live in villages on a more or less dry terrain;
• Forest people are residents of near-forest territories.

Ethnographers talked about the similarity of the nationality with Ukrainians and Byelorussians, 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.

Lake Shatskie

In the western part of Polissya a territory was formed with a number of closely located lakes, called the Shatsk Lake District. It covers more than thirty large lakes, concentrated in the Volyn region of Ukraine.

The largest reservoir is the Svityaz with an area of 26 square kilometers. This is the second largest lake in Ukraine. To protect the lakes and their surrounding nature, a national park was established. It covers an area of 48 thousand hectares.

Shatskie lakes are full of fish, they inhabit: trout, perch, Chudskoy whitefish, Amur sazan, pike perch, loach, perch, catfish, pike, roach, etc. Waterfowl nest along the coast. The territory of the park is heavily waterlogged, besides lakes there are many ponds and marshes. Local vegetation is rich in mosses and algae.

In the park, more than 70 species of mushrooms grow, and more than 32 native plants are listed in the Red Book, among which are several species of capricorn, love, sundew, low birch and Venus shoe. Rare or endangered species of animals in the Shatskie lakes are about 33: copper coins, black storks, yellow herons, windswept reed, gray crane and others.

Bialowieza Forest

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 is a preserved relict plain forest - a landscape that has been in this area since pre-glacial times.

The number of plants and animals in the Bialowieza Forest exceeds all natural complexes in Europe. Only mushrooms there are more than 500 species, about the same number of mosses and lichens and about 1000 vascular plants. In the forest there live owls, owls, white-tailed eagles, snake-eaters, badgers, lynxes and even bison.

In prehistoric times, such forests covered quite a large part of Europe, but eventually were destroyed. In its original form, the natural complex was preserved only here.