Ukraine: The Land and Its People. An Introduction to Its Geography.

These periodic floods are the main cause of the continuance of the Polissian swamps. We can find two main types of marshes in the Polissye. In the west and north of the region, great peat moors, with pine woods, predominate; in the south and east treeless marsh meadows, overgrown with willow brush. These are called hala. Many fictions are told by the inhabitants of the Polissye about the swamps and small marsh lakes being bottomless. For a long time it was even believed that the swamps lay lower than the normal surface of the rivers. But exact measurements have proved these “fairy tales” to be false and have shown that the swamps of the Polissye are not deep and lie at a higher level than the rivers. Since 1873 the Russian government has been working to drain the swamps and reclaim them for civilization. Up to 1898, 6000 kilometers of canals are supposed to have been dug and 32,000 square kilometers of ground made usable.

The glacial period was of great importance for the surface configuration of the Polissye. Apart from the traces of the main glacial period, which are met with frequently in southern Polissye, it was the third glacial period that was of marked significance. The water from the Baltic glacier flowed off thru the region of the present Polissye and formed a large lake with the Dnieper as its outlet. The deposits of this lake are to be found especially in the south of the Polissye basin. The lake was then gradually filled in, the northern and western tributaries bringing more sand, the southern ones mud. At the same time the Pripet River cut in more deeply, and was, therefore, constantly more able to carry the waters of the Polissye to the Dnieper River. Swamps have taken the place of the lake and have gradually covered the entire land. The many smaller lakes of the region (the largest of them are Vihonivske Ozero and Knias) are the only remains and proofs of the one-time great lake. Only at the time of high water does the Polissye recall the memory of former times.

Dreary is the Polissian landscape. The dark forest in the deep-bottomed swamps alternate with the open marsh-meadow covered with pools; with gliding flow the many-armed rivers traverse the gloomy country. On yellow-white sand-dunes stand a few log-houses amid wretched little fields and poor meadows, corduroy and brush roads stretching for miles connect small, very sparsely scattered human settlements.

The Polissye Plain also extends to the left bank of the Dnieper, and there imperceptibly passes over into a comparatively narrow lowland district which stretches along the main river of the Ukraine. This is the third member of the series of plains of the Ukraine—the Dnieper Plain. It extends toward the southeast as far as the region of the rapids (porohi) of the Dnieper and rises slowly toward the northeast, passing over into the Central Russian Plateau. The transition takes place so imperceptibly that the difference in the nature of the country only becomes apparent at the furthest bounds of Ukrainian territory, which practically lie in the southern spurs of the Central Russian Plateau.

The Dnieper Plain is quite level only along the river itself. Every year a strip of the plain, in places 10 km. wide, is flooded by the Dnieper River, wherefore it is full of old river beds and swamps, on the Desna and near Cherkassy, where the lowland, too, enters upon the right Dnieper bank, and also of sand-dunes. Near Chernihiv and Uizin the landscape is quite Polissian and the name Polissye, too, is often used here to denote the region. Toward the southeast the Polissian character begins to gradually disappear. Black earth takes the place of the sandy soil, the forest mantle becomes constantly thinner, and the flat, undulating steppe-plain, with its innumerable barrows and plate-shaped depressions of ground, where, in springtime, small steppe lakes glisten in the sunlight, increases very rapidly.

The river valleys, along which the Dnieper Plain intrudes far into the Central Russian Plateau, are very wide valley slopes on the right, and flat slopes on the left side. Sand, swamps and forest terraces cover the flat valley bottoms, which are flooded every spring.

At the porohs of the Dnieper the country rises much higher than at Pereyaslav or Kreminchuk, where the Dnieper Plain rises barely 50 m. above sea-level. At the porohs the landscape on both sides is that of a low rock-plateau. The picturesque rocks of the Dnieper banks, the rapids and ledges of rock in the river bed, everywhere remind us that here the Ukrainian Horst is crossed by the main stream of the Ukraine. Not until we get down to the Zaporoze (land below the rapids) do we find the genuine lowland character again—in the Pontian Steppe-plain.

The transition of the Dnieper Plain to the southern spurs of the Central Russian Plateau is marked only by the rising of the valley slopes of the tributaries of the Dnieper in this region. Beyond that, the surface of the high bog, lying between the rivers, remains as flat and level as on the Dnieper and below the 200 m. level. Moreover, the spurs of the Central Russian elevation nowhere within Ukrainian territory attain the level of 300 m. The spur between the Dnieper and the Desna barely reaches a height of 230–240 m.; near the high Desna bank, the spur between the Desna and the Sem barely 260 m. About the sources of the Sem, Psiol and Donetz, the country attains a summit height of 280 m.; between the upper Donetz and Don only 250–260 m. From these highest regions the country declines imperceptibly but steadily toward the southwest, south and southeast.

The general nature of the land in the region of the southern spur of the Central Russian Plateau is entirely analogous to that of the neighboring Dnieper Plain, except that the river valleys are more deeply cut. The right valley-side descends to the river in a steep slope, furrowed by water rifts. The broad, flat valley bottom is occupied by river branches and old river beds, marshes and marsh meadows, sand areas or dunes. The left bank rises very gently, and we at last come upon the level, or at most slightly undulating surface of the water-shed, between two rivers. It, in turn, declines suddenly to the neighboring river and the succession of land-forms begins anew. This monotony of landscape reminds one of the neighboring Great Russia. The only variety is afforded here by the details of landscape, which appear most numerous in this region of the Ukraine.

These are rain water-rifts (in Ukrainian balka, provallia, yaruha). In this, and often in other plateau and plain lands of the Ukraine, they become a terrible scourge. The heavy mantle of black soil, loess and loam favors the formation of water-rifts as well as the loose chalk and old tertiary strata (marl, sand, clay). The strenuous cutting down of forest in the past century has given the final impulse to the formation of such water clefts. In the loose soil, no longer held together by the forests, the water-rifts grow and spread after every heavy rain with terrible speed, and may, in a few years, reduce a wealthy farmer to the beggar’s staff by transforming his most profitable black-soil fields into a maze of deep, dry ravines. Only a national re-stocking of the forests could bring the land relief. Especially in the neighborhood of the high precipitous banks of the rivers, the water-rifts work their mischief.

The glacial age had no particular significance for the surface configuration of the Dnieper Plain and the adjacent plateau spurs. Only in the north Chernihov country we find real traces of the glacier. The large peninsulas which the southern limit of the glacial boulders forms along the course of the Dnieper and the Don are by no means to be regarded as traces of two great glacial tongues. The sand and loam masses, with enclosed glacial boulders, which are found in the region of these peninsulas, are of fluvio-glacial origin, and were deposited by melted ice from the glacier on its way to the Black Sea. The northern limit of the black soil region is not in the least affected by these problematic glacial peninsulas.

After the glacial period, however, movements of the earth took place in the entire Ukrainian plateau group. It rose considerably, and the erosive action of the rivers began. At the point where the axis of the Ukrainian horst cuts the Dnieper, we find this rise of ground also in the Dnieper Plateau. The rapids of the Dnieper were formed at that time, and, up to the present, the giant river has not succeeded in leveling its falls.

That tectonic disturbances are not unknown to the Dnieper Plain we learn from the occurrence of volcanic rock and displacement of the strata near Isachki, not far from the city of Lokhvitzia, and on Mount Pivikha, north of Kreminchuk. It seems that along the northeast border of the Ukrainian horst a greatly disturbed area is hidden beneath more recent flat-piled rock layers. Great disturbances of the magnetic force of the earth seem to indicate the same.

The Dnieper Plain forms the last member in the northern plain district of the Ukraine. The southern plain district which extends along the northern banks of the Black Sea, from the delta of the Danube into the Kuban region, has since ancient times borne the accepted name of the Pontian Steppe-plain. Its old Ukrainian name is simply nis (lowland) or dike pole (wild field). The steppe-land and the river district, to this day, bear the famous name of Zaporoze (land below the rapids).

The Pontian steppe-plain is bounded on the north by the spurs of the Bessarabian, Podolian, Dnieper and Donetz Plateaus. On the south, by the sea-shore and the country at the foot of the Yaila Mountains, in Crimea. Past the Danube deltas the steppe-plain merges into the exactly similar steppe-plain on the Kuban.

The surface of the steppe-plain is exceptionally flat, slightly undulating only at the northern border, where the transition to the southern spurs of the Ukrainian plateau group proceeds imperceptibly. Innumerable barrows (mohyla) are as characteristic of the landscape of the Pontian Steppe-plain as the flat plate-shaped depressions of the ground, with small temporary lakes, the swampy flat valleys and the small salt marshes with their peculiar vegetation.

The many balkas, which divide the steppe-plain into innumerable low plateaus, do not affect the grand uniformity of the steppe landscape very much. As in the neighboring plateaus, they are cut in deep, but do not become visible to the traveler until he comes directly upon them. The pliocene steppe-lime which predominates in the entire steppe-plain, covers the sarmatian and Mediterranean strata, and reveals the crystalline substratum only in the west of the Dnieper in the neighborhood of the Dnieper Plateau, and forms rocky cornices on the slopes of the balkas. Lesser tectonic disturbances, in the shape of anticlinals and synclinals, have affected these youngest tertiary formations also. They are covered by a mantle of loess and black earth, which becomes constantly thinner toward the south. The typical chornozyom gives way, south of the parallel of Kherson, to the brown, also very fertile steppe-soil, which is accompanied in long stretches, however, by the saline earth. To the east of the Dnieper, at the southern spurs of the Donetz Plateau, the crystalline substratum also appears to a great extent, in banks of rock, in the midst of the steppe-plain.

Only along the large streams of the steppe country does the nature of the land change. Their valleys are broad and swampy, covered by the so-called plavni. Interminable thickets of sedge and seeds, marsh forest and meadows, together with innumerable river branches, old river beds, and small lakes, make up a beautiful, fresh, verdant country in the midst of the boundless steppe, whose vernal dress, resplendent with blossoms, turns yellow and blackish-brown in summer and fall, from the fierce glow of the sun.

STREAMS AND RIVERS OF THE UKRAINE

The Ukrainian rivers are genuinely typical of Eastern Europe. The great uniformity of the surface configuration of the Ukraine is responsible for the lack of that variety in its own river system which characterizes the waters of Western and Central Europe. But the great extent of the land does cause the Ukraine to have mountain, plateau and lowland streams, so that it does not attain the degree of uniformity in hydrographic conditions of Russia proper.

The Ukrainian river system concentrates in the Black Sea. From northwest, north and east, the rivers of the Ukraine tend toward its sea. Besides, the western boundary lines of the Ukraine lie on the Baltic slope. There, in Podlakhia, in the Kholmshchina, on the San River and in the Lemko country, the Ukrainian people has had its seats since the dawn of its history. In most recent times Ukrainian colonization has gained also parts of the Caspian slope on the Kuma and Terek Rivers. But the region drained by the Black Sea surpasses both the other regions so much in extent and in the size of its rivers, that the Baltic and Caspian region of the Ukraine dwindle in comparison. Nature has, therefore, turned the Ukrainian nation toward the south and southeast to the Black Sea. But, at the same time, she has not denied the Ukraine a convenient connection with the north and south of the globe. The main European river divide is, perhaps, nowhere so flat and so easy to cross as in Ukrainian territory. From the Dniester to the San (bifurcation of the Vishnia creek near Rudki), from the Pripet to the Buh and Niemen the passages are easy. Since ancient times portages have existed here, and in modern times the Pripet has been connected with the Buh and the Niemen by means of canals (King’s Canal and Oginski Canal) which, however, are at present entirely antiquated and almost useless. Besides, the widely branched water system of the Dnieper outside the Ukraine affords easy passage to the Dvina (Beresina Canal), Volga and Neva, in White Russian territory. Over these waterways and the portages lying between them the old path of the Northmen led from Scandinavia to Constantinople. This most important aspect of the Ukrainian water system promises at some future time to bear rich fruit, if the recently-formed plan to build a waterway for navigation on a large scale, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, utilizing the course of the Dnieper, should become a reality.

The Baltic watercourses of the Ukraine flow into the Vistula. Several large Carpathian tributaries originate in Ukrainian territory. Here the rapid Poprad carries the melted snow of the Tatra to the Dunayetz. The source of the Visloka also lies in the Ukrainian Lemko country. The last and largest Carpathian tributary of the Vistula belongs, in three-fourths of its extent, to Ukrainian territory, namely, the navigable San. It receives from the Carpathians the Vislok on the left and the Vihor on the right. The other tributaries of the San on the left side, the Vishnia, Sklo, Lubachivka and Tanva, come from the sub-Carpathian country and the Rostoche Plateau.

All the Carpathian tributaries of the Vistula have only at their sources the character of mountain streams, with swift currents, in rocky river beds, lined by banks of water-worn material. Even in the mountains their valleys become wide, covered with banks of pebbles, sand and loam, and overgrown with willow-brush, and their falls insignificant. In the sub-Carpathian country the banks become low and sandy, the stream slow, and the water-level is very unsteady, owing to the cutting down of forests in the country of the source. In spring, when the snow melts in the mountains, and at the time of the early summer rains, there are terrible floods; in dry summers the rivers dwindle to almost insignificant proportions.

From the Rostoche the Vepr, navigable from Krasnostav down, flows thru a broad, marshy valley, into the Vistula. The northern declivity of the Podolian Plateau sends its largest river, the Buh, navigable from Sokal on, down to the Vistula. This river is really a genuine lowland river. Its valley is wide and flat, the river winds with its muddy bed thru forest marshes, thickets of reeds and willow brush, now parting into a dozen branches, now flowing in a wide bed, past fresh, green meadows and dark forests. The same lowland character is a common quality of the left-hand tributaries of the Buh, the Poltva, Rata, Solokia, Krna and of the Luha on the right hand. The Mukhavetz, Lisna, Nurez and Narva, on the other hand, are typical woodland streams, which roll their great mass of water thru the forests of Podlakhia.

The Pontian Rivers of the Ukraine belong to the six great regions drained respectively by the Danube, Dniester, Boh, Don and Kuban.

Of the great region drained by the Danube, only the Carpathian country of the sources of the Theiss, Sereth, and Prut lie within Ukrainian boundaries. The Theiss is formed by the junction of two source-rivers near the Svidovez and the Chornohora, and collects all the rivers of the Ukrainian country belonging to Hungary—the Visheva and Isa on the left, the Torez, Talabor, Velika Rika, Bershava and Bodrochka, which consists of five source-rivers (the Latoritzia, Uz, Laboretz, Tepla and Ondava). All these rivers of the Hungarian-Ukrainian mountain country break their difficult way in deep, picturesque passes, thru forest-covered mountain chains. Innumerable rafts carry the trunks of the fallen Carpathian giants into the treeless plains of Hungary. Here, too, the rivers suddenly lose their mountain character; their currents become sluggish, their waters turbid, their banks swampy.

Of the Sereth and its tributaries, the Sochava and Moldava, only the sources belong to Ukrainian national territory. On the other hand, a considerable part of the Prut country lies within it. The Prut River rises at the Hoverla, where it forms a beautiful waterfall along the crater walls. Then it flows in a picturesque defile toward the north, forms another waterfall at Yaremche, then immediately leaves the mountains, uniting in the sub-Carpathian hill-country with the roaring Cheremosh, which also rises in two source-rivers on the slopes of the Black Mountains and flows in a deeply-cut meandering valley thru the beautiful Hutzul country. In the sub-Carpathian country the Prut has a wide, flat valley, taken up in places by marsh meadows. The river winds down the wide valley in countless twists, forms side branches and old river beds, and reaches the Danube in the midst of liman-like lakes and bogs, not far from the swampy delta. Outside of the mountains, the Prut receives only insignificant tributaries of small volume. Between the Danube and the Dniester we see only a few miserable little steppe rivers, emptying into salty or bracken liman lakes (e.g., the Yalpukh and the Kunduk Rivers).

The important Dniester River attains a length of over 1300 km., and possesses the greatest variety of distinct sections of river of all the Ukrainian streams. It originates in the High Beskid, near the village of Vovche, as a very energetic, wild creek. In a defile it advances into the sub-Carpathian hill-country, where it has deposited great masses of rubble. The mountain stream changes rapidly into a lowland stream and forms great swamps in the Dniester Plain, which, in high-water time, are converted into large river lakes. From the left bank, the Dniester here receives the muddy Vereshitza (from the Rostoche), which forms many ponds, from Western Podolia, the Hnila Lipa. All the remaining tributaries of this section of the Dnieper come from the Carpathians, on the left the Strviazh (Strivihor), on the right the Bistritza, the mighty meandering river Striy with the Opir, and the Svicha (with the Misunka). All these rivers are mountain streams, flow in beautiful defiles, and deposit great masses of rubble on the verge of the Carpathians. Beginning at the delta of the Svicha, the Dniester Plain becomes a wide, flat-bottomed valley, in which the river flows along in great bends and receives the Limnitzia and both the Bistritzas from the Carpathians. Near Nizniv the banks approach each other very closely and the Dniester enters a yar (cañon), not leaving its steep sides until near Tiraspol. The Podolian tributaries of the Dniester on the left side, the Zolota Lipa, Stripa, Sereth, Zbruch, Smotrich, Ushitza, Murakhva, Yahorlik, roll their turbid waters in similar cañons toward the Dniester. The Bessarabian tributaries, on the contrary, have wide, swampy valleys. All these plateau rivers are slight in volume of water, altho some of them attain considerable length. Only in the spring, when the snow-blanket melts, do their waters overflow the banks. In summer the water-level becomes very low, and the water of the early summer showers is stored up in the many ponds, which are found in large numbers, in the country about the sources of these rivers. All these plateau rivers are not even navigable for rafts; even the little fishers’ boat can hardly find its way along the muddy shoals.

In its cañons the Dniester River assumes all the characteristics of a plateau river. Its waters generally take up the entire bottom of the cañon, leaving very little space for the abodes of men. The incline of the river is not uniform, but constitutes a series of slight steps. Sections with rapid currents alternate with quiet depths. The small brooks which come down the short lateral gorges of the Dniester cañons bring great masses of loose stones and rubble into the river bed, as a result of the reckless destruction of forests, and build constantly growing cones of rubble, which the river must remove slowly and laboriously. They also form dangerous shoals and hinder the development of navigation on the Dniester. The river also forms regular rapids, near Yampil, where a layer of granite stretches clear across the river. For this reason the Dniester, tho navigable along a stretch of almost 800 km., has not become an important waterway. The navigation of the Dniester, which becomes more active from Khotin on, is now on the wane. Eight hundred years ago sea vessels were still able to reach the old Ukrainian royal city of Halich.

The floods of the Dniester are famous. In the spring, when the snows melt in the Carpathians, the Dniester Plain is converted into a great river-lake. The Carpathian tributaries bring the main stream so much water, that it cannot easily flow off thru the narrow cañon, and so, floods the whole wide Dniester Valley for weeks. Then there is high water even in the cañon of the Dniester, but it has little scope.

Near Tiraspol, the Dniester Valley widens out again. Swampy plavni wilds extend on both sides of the river. In a beautiful, rapidly growing delta, the Dniester empties into its liman, which it is slowly filling in with its precipitates. Two narrow outlets (hirló) break thru the bar of the liman and connect it with the sea.

Between the Dniester and the Boh, not one river finally empties into the sea. Even the largest rivers of the region, the Little and Big Kuyalnik and the Tilihul end their courses in limans, which are entirely closed off by bars. The valleys of these coastal rivers are narrow, becoming wider at last, when they are about to enter the limans. The current is always slow and the water often evaporates completely in the summer.

The Boh, falsely named the Southern Bug, is a real plateau river. It rises in the village of Kupil, near the source of the Sbruch, on the Austrian border, and flows as a typical Podolian mud-streamlet, in a flat valley, covered with ponds and swamps. But, beginning at Mezibiz, its bed becomes rocky, the valley slopes become high and keep approaching each other. The Boh Valley gradually becomes a cañon-like “yar,” altho it is at no point so deep as the Dniester Valley. The granite-gneiss formations of the Ukrainian horst appear here as picturesque shore rocks and slopes along the river and form innumerable rapids (as, for example, Constantinivka) in the river bed. Stony beds and narrow, rocky valleys are also found in the most important tributaries of the Boh—the Sob, Siniukha, Inhul on the left; the Kodima and Chichiclea on the right. All of them have little water, and in dry summers only a chain of ponds marks the valley road of the river. The main stream, too, has not much water, being unfit for navigation even in the time of the spring floods. Only the last 130 kilometers of its course, from Vosnesensk down, are navigable. At the entrance of the Inhul the Boh begins to widen considerably, the current becomes slow, and the depth at Mikolaiv sufficiently great to enable smaller sea vessels to reach its harbor. Slowly widening, the river gradually turns into the Buh liman, which has the winding outline of a river and unites with the great liman of the Dnieper. The entire length of the Boh is over 750 kilometers.