Location: Chernihiv Oblast
Chernihiv is located in the Chernihiv region, in
the northern part of Ukraine. An ancient Slavic city, one of the
most significant in Kievan Rus, which has preserved a number of
ancient Russian monuments.
The administrative center of the
Chernihiv region of the country. 1st place in the ranking of the
most environmentally friendly cities in Ukraine.
The first
mention of the city dates back to 907. The center of the historical
Chernihiv principality. In the early Middle Ages, the city was the
center of the Severyan tribe, and from the 9th century it became
part of Kievan Rus, becoming the most important and richest city of
the state along with Kiev and Novgorod.
The climate is
temperate continental, the average annual air temperature is +6.7
degrees C, the lowest is in January (-7.1 °C), the highest is in
July (+18.7 °C).
Orientation
There is no historical part in Chernihiv, since the
city was completely destroyed during the Great Patriotic War. The
restored ancient temples are located on the territory of the former
Kremlin (Detinets Park) in the area of Preobrazhenskaya Street. From
here to the north-west goes the wide boulevard of Prospekt Mira with the
parade post-war buildings. South-west of the Chernigov "Kremlin" begins
a wooden suburb with the Yelets Monastery and Boldina Gora, where the
Trinity-Ilyinsky Monastery and the Anthony Caves are located. From this
place to the Kremlin 2.5 km.
Chernihiv Kremlin or
Detinets (Черниговский Детинец)
The Detinets is the old
citadel of Chernihiv, the political and sacred core of one of Kyivan
Rus’s richest cities after Kyiv. It grew on a high cape at the
meeting of the Desna and Stryzhen from the 8th century, on an even
earlier settlement. By the 10th–12th centuries it covered about
11–16 hectares, ringed by an earthen rampart, wooden palisade, and
deep moat, with three main gates (Water, Kyiv, and Pohorila). Inside
stood the princely court, boyar yards, and the city’s main churches.
Prince Mstislav of Chernihiv began the Saviour-Transfiguration
Cathedral here around 1033–1036; he was later buried in it. The
Mongols burned the fortress in 1239. Later Lithuanian, Muscovite,
and Cossack rebuilds followed. In 1531 Vasily III ordered a new
wooden kremlin with five towers and an underground passage to the
Stryzhen. Today the site is Dytynets Park: cathedrals, the
Collegium, the Lyzohub / regimental chancellery house, the
Archbishop’s House, and museum buildings sit on the old ramparts
above the river.
Boldin Hills (Boldyni Hory)
About two
kilometres from the historic centre, these 20–35 m hills form a
landscape monument and one of Ukraine’s largest early medieval
necropolises. Six groups of kurgans (about 230 mounds still visible)
mark 9th–11th century Siverian and Rus’ burials. The hills were
already sacred in pre-Christian times. In the mid-11th century St
Anthony of the Caves dug a hermitage here; the Trinity-Ilyinsky
Monastery and Anthony Caves grew from that beginning.
Anthony
Caves
Chernihiv’s counterpart to Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra. Tradition
links the first cells to St Anthony himself, around 1069, under
Prince Sviatoslav Yaroslavych. The sandstone labyrinth runs about
315–350 m, in several levels down to 12 m, with cells, ossuaries,
and three underground churches (including the large church of
Theodosius of Totma). Humidity prevented mummification; bones of
monks killed in the Mongol assault are shown in a glass sarcophagus.
The 12th-century Church of Elijah stands above the entrance. Access
is usually by guided visit with a lamp.
Red Square (Krasna
Ploshcha)
The city’s main civic square. “Krasna” here means
“beautiful,” not political red. Life of modern Chernihiv still
revolves around it; from here it is a short walk to the Detinets.
Kurgan Black Grave (Chorna Mohyla)
The largest burial mound
in Chernihiv, more than 10 m high and about 170 m around. Dmitry
Samokvasov excavated it in 1872–73 and found two cremated elite
warriors (often read as father and son), weapons, chain mail,
helmets, a Thor idol, Byzantine gold, and two silver-mounted aurochs
horns. The burial dates to the late 10th century. Finds are now in
Moscow’s State Historical Museum. The mound itself belongs to the
Ancient Chernihiv reserve.
Mounds Hulbyshche and Bezymianny
Two of the three largest surviving kurgans on the Boldin Hills, a
short walk from the caves. Hulbyshche once rose about 8.5 m with a
22 m diameter. Samokvasov’s 1872 dig produced a huge sword (blade
about 105 cm, total length about 126 cm), helmet, mail, horse gear,
and a mixed burial. Bezymianny lies only about 15 m away and is
dated to the first half of the 10th century. Together they show the
wealth of the pre-Christian elite of Chernihiv.
House of
Tarnovsky
A one-storey historicist brick house at 63 Shevchenko
Street. In 1902 it opened as the public Museum of Ukrainian
Antiquities based on Vasyl Tarnovsky Jr’s collection (including
hundreds of Shevchenko items). It later housed the regional history
museum; since 1980 it has been the regional youth library.
Mazepa’s house (House of the Chernihiv Regimental Chancellery /
Lyzohub House)
Late-17th-century Ukrainian Baroque brick house on
the Detinets. Built in the 1690s for Colonel Yakiv Lyzohub; later
linked with Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s stays in the fortress. It served as
the Cossack regiment office, then city hall, then archive. It is one
of only two surviving Cossack-regiment chancelleries. Museum funds
are stored here today. A Mazepa monument stands nearby.
Women’s gymnasium
Late-19th-century school building on the
Detinets. Since 1983 it has housed the Chernihiv Art Museum.
House of the NBU
Historic bank building in the city centre, part
of the later civic layer around the old fortress and Red Square.
Useful as a landmark when walking between the Detinets and the
commercial streets.
Collegium
Founded in 1700 by
Archbishop Ioan Maksymovych with Hetman Mazepa’s support, on the
model of the Kyiv-Mohyla school. It became known as “Chernihiv
Athens.” The Cossack-Baroque building stands on the Detinets next to
the Boris and Gleb Cathedral. It offered Slavic-Latin and higher
spiritual education and was one of the first such institutions on
the Left Bank.
Archbishop’s House
Late-18th-century
residence (about 1780) on the Detinets. Together with the Collegium
and governor’s house it shows the shift from Cossack fortress to
imperial provincial capital.
Yelets Assumption Monastery
(Yeletskyi Uspenskyi)
One of the oldest monasteries in Ukraine,
founded in 1060 by Prince Sviatoslav Yaroslavych after a legend of
the Mother of God icon appearing on a fir tree. The Assumption
Cathedral was built in the late 11th–12th century as a three-nave
brick church with Romanesque wall details, later recast in Ukrainian
Baroque. The complex sits on Yelets Hill between the Detinets and
the Trinity monastery, looking over the Desna. It was sacked in
1239, revived in the 17th century, and remains a defining piece of
the city’s skyline.
Trinity-Ilyinsky Monastery
The
ensemble on Boldin Hill grew from Anthony’s 11th-century caves and
the small 12th-century Elijah Church. After the Mongol destruction
it was revived in the Cossack era. The seven-domed Trinity Cathedral
(1679–1695), designed by Johann Baptist Sauer with Mazepa’s
patronage, is a high point of Ukrainian Baroque. The
Novhorod-Siverskyi press moved here in 1679. The tall bell tower and
hillside setting make it one of Chernihiv’s most photographed views.
Chernihiv printing house
The press founded by Lazar
Baranovych around 1675 in Novhorod-Siverskyi and moved to Chernihiv
in 1679. By the early 18th century it was the third-largest in
Ukraine after Kyiv Pechersk and Lviv. It printed liturgical books,
polemics, poetry, and works in Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, Polish,
and Latin, with notable engravers such as Leontiy Tarasevych. It
kept a distinct local character until Synod pressure after 1724 and
closed in 1820.
Glebov’s estate
A later noble town estate
in the historic fabric of Chernihiv, typical of the 18th–19th
century layer that grew around the old princely core. Visit it as
part of a walk that also takes in the gymnasium, bank, and civic
squares.
Train station
The city’s main rail gateway and a
useful orientation point for arriving visitors. From here local
transport and walking routes lead toward Red Square and the
Detinets.
Reserve “Ancient Chernihiv”
National
architectural-historical reserve created to protect the city’s
pre-Mongol and Cossack core: Detinets monuments, Transfiguration and
Boris-Gleb cathedrals, Collegium, Yelets and Trinity monasteries,
Anthony Caves, Black Grave, and dozens of other listed buildings. It
is the practical umbrella for most of the sites on this list.
Planetarium
A modern cultural stop that contrasts with the
medieval churches and kurgans. Useful if you are travelling with
children or want an evening indoor visit after a day on the hills
and citadel.
“Siverian thought” (Siverianska dumka)
A
local cultural and historical current that treats Chernihiv as the
old capital of the Siverian land. It appears in scholarship, local
journals, and museum interpretation of the kurgans, Detinets, and
early Slavic layers. Use it as a theme when writing about identity
of the region rather than as a single building.
Remains of
the Siversky (Ilyinsky) Monastery
The earliest monastic layer on
Boldin Hill: Anthony’s caves, the Elijah Church, and traces of the
pre-Mongol Bogoroditsky / Siversky house that later became the
Trinity-Ilyinsky complex. What you see above ground is mostly
17th–18th century; the caves and small church are the living
remnants of the 11th–12th century foundation.
Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery
Late 11th–12th
century three-nave brick church, originally with a single massive
dome and Romanesque decoration. Rebuilt in Cossack Baroque. It is
the heart of the Yelets monastery and one of the oldest standing
churches in the city after the Transfiguration Cathedral.
Trinity Cathedral of Chernihiv
1679–1695 Ukrainian Baroque katholikon with seven pear-shaped domes,
built under Mazepa and Archbishop Lazar Baranovych. After
18th-century alterations and 20th-century restoration it again
dominates the Boldin hillside ensemble.
Transfiguration Cathedral of Chernihiv
(Spaso-Preobrazhensky)
The oldest building in Chernihiv and one
of the oldest surviving masonry churches of Kyivan Rus. Begun by
Prince Mstislav around 1033–1036; walls were only “as high as a
rider” when he died and was buried there. Three naves, three apses,
five domes, two western towers, marble columns, and a mix of
basilica and cross-in-square planning. Damaged in 1239, later
repaired; the present outer look dates mainly from 19th-century
work. It still stands on the Detinets as the city’s architectural
centrepiece.
Boris and Gleb Church (Boryso-Hlibsky Cathedral)
Early 12th century cathedral on the Detinets, built under Prince
David (Gleb) Sviatoslavych and dedicated to the first Rus’
martyr-princes. Helmet-shaped dome typical of the Chernihiv school.
Famous later fittings include the heavy silver-gilt royal doors said
to have been recast from a pagan idol found in 1700.
Eletsky Monastery
ensemble
See above: cathedral, Lyzohub tomb-church (1689), walls,
and hillside setting between Detinets and Trinity.
Pyatnytska (Friday) Church of Saint Paraskevi
Late 12th – early 13th century parish church near the old market,
one of the last pre-Mongol monuments in the city. Compact, elegant,
painted in light colours, still in use for services.
Monuments
Monument to Pushkin
A 19th-century literary monument
that marks Chernihiv’s place on the imperial cultural map. Pair it
with the Tarnovsky collection and the later civic squares.
Monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Cossack-era memory in the modern
city. Chernihiv was a major regiment centre; Colonel Stefan
Podobail, a Khmelnytsky associate, is buried in the Anthony Caves.
Monument to Hetman Mazepa
Stands near the Collegium and the
so-called Mazepa house on the Detinets. Mazepa funded the Collegium,
the Trinity Cathedral, and other Baroque works that still define the
city’s silhouette.
If you want this cut into separate page-ready
sections (Detinets, Boldin Hills, temples, Cossack Baroque civic
buildings) with meta titles and short intros for ermakvagus.com, say
which block to do first.
Museums
1 Chernihiv Literary and Memorial Museum-Reserve
of G. Kotsyubinsky, vul. Kotsiubinsky, 3. ✉ ☎ +380(4622)
4-04-59, 4-10-03, 4-43-26, 4-13-45, fax: +380(4622) 4-04-59.
9.00-17.30 (Sat, Sun - 10.00-17.30) seven days a week.
12 Chernihiv Historical Museum. V. Tarnovsky, vul. Gorky,
4 - the territory of the Val. ✉ ☎ +380(462) 699-930. 9.00 to
16.30 (day off - Thursday).
2 Chernihiv Regional Art
Museum. G.P. Galagana, st. Gorky, 6 - the territory of the
Val. ✉ ☎ +38(0462) 676715, ordering excursions: +38(0462)
774616. Tuesday-Sunday from 9.00 to 17.00.
Chernihiv
State Architectural and Historical Reserve Ancient Chernihiv
(Preobrazhenskaya St., 1)
Branch of the reserve "Sofia
Museum" (Prospekt Mira, 15)
Theaters
3 Chernihiv
Regional Philharmonic, Mira Avenue, 15. ☎ (+38 0462)
675-893.
4 Chernihiv Youth Theatre, vul. Rodimtseva, 4. ☎
(+38 0462) 77-49-53, 77-89-48, fax: (+38 0462) 77-89-48.
5 Puppet Theatre, Ave. Victory, 135.
6 Chernihiv
Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre, Mira
Avenue, 23. ☎ (+38 0462) 699-360.
Cinemas
Druzhba
(Prospect Mira 51, tel. 0462 675-800, 675-801). Very
comfortable renovated 3D cinema.
Kinopalats them. Shchors
(St. Magistratskaya 3, tel. 774-730). Worth a visit only if
you want to go back 30 years in the past, to the USSR,
because nothing has changed in 30 years
Pobeda (2
Rokossovsky St., (0462) 610-595). Has not been active since
April 2012. The building houses the Institute of Economics.
Parks
City Park of Culture and Leisure
Forest Park
Elovshchina
Park of Culture and Leisure. M. M.
Kotsiubinsky
Birch Grove
Marina Grove
Square of
Bogdan Khmelnitsky
Square them. powdered
Other
Visit the Chernihiv planetarium.
A trip to Chernigov is almost unequivocally combined with a visit to
Kyiv, which is located 140 km to the south and is connected to Chernigov
by frequent bus services. The nearest airport to Chernihiv is located in
Kyiv.
By train
Chernigov stands on the Nizhyn-Gomel line and
therefore does not have a normal railway connection with Kiev. You can
go by train with a change in Nizhyn, which takes 4.5-5 hours. The
Kiev-Slavutich express trains running 1-2 times a day, reaching
Chernigov in 3 hours, are somewhat faster, but even they lose in time to
minibuses.
In the direction of Belarus, only long-distance trains
run, such as Minsk-Odessa and St. Petersburg-Kyiv - they all run not
every day, so there will hardly be more than one train per day. To Gomel
about 3 hours, taking into account the passage of the border.
Railway station, at the beginning of Peremogi Ave. A large post-war
building with elements of Russian architecture - a huge tent in the
center of the building. The best Soviet building in the city. The
station has a large and usually empty waiting room, there is practically
no infrastructure.
By bus
The main way to Chernihiv is by
minibus from Kyiv. In Kyiv, minibuses depart from the Chernihivska or
Lesnaya metro stations, and in Chernigov from the Ukraina Hotel or the
Seversky supermarket (in front of McDonald's). Some minibuses run
according to the schedule, others - according to the filling, and they
randomly alternate flights to Chernihiv and Lesnaya. Minibuses depart
from Kyiv from 6:30 to 22:00. From Chernihiv - from 5:00 to 20:30 (there
are few flights after 18:00, check in advance). The official travel time
is 2 hours, although drivers, violating all conceivable and unthinkable
rules, manage to get there in one and a half. Directions: 150 UAH.
(2019)
Bus station, Peremogi Ave., 3 (next to the railway
station). 24/7, waiting room: 7:30 AM–8:30 PM. A two-story building with
a ticket office, a waiting room, and a diner-style buffet (8:00–20:00)
on the ground floor. On the second floor there is another buffet, more
reminiscent of a dining room (8:30–16:30).
By car
From Kyiv to
Chernigov 140 km along the M-01 highway to Gomel. The road is four-lane
throughout, except for the entrance to Chernihiv; from the eastern
border of Kyiv to Chernigov no more than 2 hours. To the north, the road
continues towards the Belarusian border with the Novye Yarylovichi
border checkpoint, 110 km to Gomel.
Transport
The main transport is minibuses for 6 UAH (2019). There are 9 trolleybus routes; travel in a trolley bus costs 5 UAH - payment to the conductor. (2019)
Precautionary measures
City transport normally operates only until 20-21-00 pm. Trolleybuses after 20-00 massively go to the depot. In the evening and at night it is better to use a taxi. Calling a taxi by phone can cost only 35 hryvnia instead of 55 if you hail a taxi on the street (as of 2018).
There are a lot of catering places in the city - cafes, restaurants,
pizzerias. You can also buy food in many shops. There is a chain of
supermarkets where you can find a large selection of products at a
relatively low price (all-Ukrainian: ATB, Eco-market; local: Soyuz,
Kvartal, Sedam). There are also several markets.
Cheap
Pizzeria Basis. ☎ Pizza delivery 607-607 (10:00 - 19:00). The most
famous, cheapest, and possibly the most delicious pizza. Pizza
Margherita costs only 5 hryvnia - small in size (like a cheesecake), but
very tasty. In addition, the menu also includes broths, dumplings, maxi
- pizza, Basis - pizza (30 types from 5 to 37 hryvnias), soft drinks,
beer. Addresses:
Prospekt Mira, 42 (center) Phone: 699-302
st.
Shevchenko, 22 Phone: 666-315
st. Rokossovskogo, 42 Phone: 951-664
st. Pukhovaya, 142 Phone: 671-900
Average cost
Restaurant
Predslava
Pizzeria Marconi. from 25 to 128 UAH. Two pizzerias:
Prospect Mira, 30-A, tel. 678-804
st. Rokossovsky, 16-A, tel.
606-820
Pizzeria Carlucci, st. Rokossovsky, 70. from 25 to 128
UAH. Opened December 25, 2012, so very fresh and brand new. Often there
are free places, because not everyone knows about it yet.
Expensive
Velyurov Prospekt Mira, 17.
Lovka Cafe Chernyshevsky
street, 3.
Senator Magistrate 1.
Buba (Georgian cuisine) Mira
Avenue, 21.
Night life
Diamond Club on Pobedy Avenue is the
largest nightclub in the city.
There are about a dozen hotels in the city:
Cheap
Hostel
"Leo" Tolstoy street, 151
Hostel "Papas" Hetmana Polubotka street, 6
Hostel "Hola" Tolstoy street, 147А
Hotel of the enterprise
"Educational and Methodological Center" of the Federation of Trade Union
Organizations of the Chernihiv Region, st. Shevchenko, 105a.
Average prices
Hotel "Gradetskaya", Prospekt Mira, 68a. Closed for
complete renovation.
Hotel "Sport", st. Shevchenko, 21.
Sports and
fitness complex, st. Quay, 31.
Hotel "Bryansk", st. Shevchenko, 103.
Hotel "Pridesnyanskaya", st. Shevchenko, 99a.
Hotel of the tourist
complex "Golden Coast", st. Coastal, 30.
Hotel "Berezki", st. Ring,
16.
Expensive
Hotel "Ukraine", Prospekt Mira, 33 (the minibus
from Kyiv stops in front of the hotel Ukraine).
Park-hotel
"Chernihiv", vul. Shevchenko, 103-a. ✉ ☎ + 38 (050) 381 35 36. New
hotel. Built in 2012.
Kievan Rus
The city was first mentioned in The Tale of Bygone
Years under the year 907, when the Kiev prince Oleg, after a successful
campaign against Byzantium, obliged the Greeks to pay tribute to the
largest cities of Rus'. Chernihiv was mentioned in the treaty as the
second after Kyiv. In the middle of the 10th century, in the treatise of
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus “On the Management of the Empire”, the
city of Τζερνιγῶγα is mentioned as one of the settlements of “outer”
“Russia”, in which Chernihiv is easily guessed.
The ditch of the
Roundabout castle was built in the 10th century - in the same period of
time when the Chernigov citadel was built. Borzhivoy Dostal, noting the
similarity of inventory, wrote about the complete identity of the
retinue graves in Kyiv and Chernigov with burials in Great Moravia. T.
G. Novik and Yu. Yu. Shevchenko believe that in the case of Chernigov,
we are talking about an independent one in relation to the Kyiv,
“Chernigov dynasty”. Before the appearance of the first Chernigov prince
Mstislav known from the annals in 6532 (1024), about 30 thousand people
lived in Chernigov, and in terms of area it may have exceeded the then
Kyiv.
In 1024, after the Battle of Listven, Chernigov became the
capital city of Prince Mstislav Vladimirovich, brother of Yaroslav the
Wise. Mstislav begins to rebuild the capital city, which even then
consisted of a citadel (Kremlin), a roundabout city and a suburb. Under
Mstislav, around 1035, the Spassky Cathedral was laid in the center of
the citadel. In the second half of the 11th century, during the reign of
Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, the growth of the city continued. At this time,
the Yeletsky (1060) and Ilyinsky (1069) monasteries were founded, which
became the spiritual centers of the Chernigov-Seversk land. During the
fragmentation of Rus', the Chernigov principality was assigned to the
Olgovichi dynasty (the founder of the dynasty was Oleg Svyatoslavich,
the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise), during the reign of which ancient
Chernigov reached its greatest prosperity: the total area of the
city was 450 hectares, the population was about 40 thousand inhabitants,
which allows us to count its one of the largest at that time in Europe.
Chernigov possessions stretched far to the east and south, to Murom
(then to Kolomna) on the Oka and to Tmutarakan on the Black Sea.
Chernihiv is mentioned in the Novgorod birch-bark charter No. 1004,
found at the Troitsky excavation site and dated 1140-1160: “I won’t
change my son and wife.”
The development of Chernigov was
interrupted by the Mongol invasion of Russian lands. In October 1239,
the Mongol army led by Chingizid Möngke attacked Chernihiv[19]. An army
led by Prince Mstislav Glebovich came to the aid of the city, a fierce
battle unfolded under the walls of the city, in which the Mongols won.
On October 12, the encircled city fell. The Resurrection Chronicle
reports: “and many from the howl [soldiers] beat him up and took hail
and set it on fire.” After the Mongol devastation, the significance of
the center of the Chernihiv-Seversky lands passed to Bryansk.
The
Principality of Bryansk was captured in 1356 by the Lithuanian prince
Olgerd.
Russian state
Following the results of the
Russian-Lithuanian war (1500-1503), as a result of the defeat of the
Lithuanian troops in the battle of Vedrosha and the conclusion of the
Blagoveshchensk truce, Chernigov became part of the Russian state.
Since Lithuania was not going to put up with the loss of the Seversk
land, Chernihiv now and then became the object of Lithuanian military
campaigns that took place during the numerous Russian-Lithuanian wars.
The old wooden and earthen fortress of Chernihiv, built back in the time
of Vitovt in 1380, was not suitable for defending the city and was badly
damaged during the Lithuanian campaign of 1506, as well as the attacks
of the Cossacks led by Evstafiy Dashkevich in 1515. In order for the
city to fulfill its important function of a border fortress, under
Vasily III in 1531, the construction of a new wooden citadel with five
high towers, a deep moat and an underground passage to the Strizhen
River, which was located on the site of a citadel of ancient Russian
times, was completed. Inside the fortifications there were temples,
administrative and residential buildings, provisions and powder
warehouses, the fortress was armed with 27 guns, and its garrison
numbered about 1000 people.
In 1534, the garrison of Chernihiv
successfully repelled an attempt by the Kyiv voivode Andrey Nemirovich
to take the city. During the sortie, many of the besiegers were killed,
and their guns were captured. At the initial stage of the Livonian War,
the Lithuanian-Russian commanders Filon Kmita and Mikhail Vishnevetsky
tried to storm the fortress, but despite the devastation of the district
and the settlement, they failed to take the city. The garrison led by
Prince Vasily Prozorovsky successfully repelled both assaults. The
attempt to storm the city by the army of the Lithuanian-Russian magnate
Konstantin Ostrozhsky in 1579 also ended in failure, although the
districts, including the Yelets Assumption Monastery, were again
devastated.
In 1604, Chernihiv opened the gates to False Dmitry
I. In March 1610, the crown troops (the troops of the subcommittee of
Samuil Gornostai) took the city by cunning, almost completely burned it
and destroyed many of the inhabitants. In terms of its devastating
consequences for the city, this pogrom was comparable to the
Mongol-Tatar invasion. The city became almost deserted for more than a
decade.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
In 1618, according to
the Treaty of Deulino, the city went to the Commonwealth, under whose
authority it was until the Khmelnytsky uprising. Its new settlement came
from the Little Russian lands subject to Poland. In 1623, by the letter
of the Polish king Sigismund III, Chernigov was granted the Magdeburg
Law and the Chernigov magistrate was established. In 1623, in Chernihiv,
gentry zemstvo zemstvo city courts were established, equal in rights
with those in Kyiv, and the voivodeship was divided into two povets:
Chernihiv and Novgorod-Seversky. A coat of arms is established with the
image of a double-headed eagle on one crown. The Orthodox population
living in the Commonwealth was subjected to national and religious
oppression by Catholic Poles. The ancient Borisoglebsky and Uspensky
(passed under the control of Dominican monks) cathedrals are turning
into churches.
Hetmanate
In 1648, a major uprising broke out
under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. In 1648, the Chernigov
regiment was created, which from 1649 was headed by Martyn Nebaba, who
died in 1651. In memory of this struggle, a monument to Bogdan
Mikhailovich Khmelnitsky (sculptors I. Kavaleridze, G. Petrashevich,
architect A. Karnabed, 1956) was erected in the central part of the city
in the square that bears his name. According to the results of the
Pereyaslav Rada of 1654, Chernigov again became part of the Russian
state, this time as part of the Hetmanate.
Russian empire
During the Northern War, the Chernigov Cossacks took part in the Battle
of Poltava on the side of the troops of Peter I. After the victory,
Peter I visited the Chernigov fortification on the way to the northern
capital. At his direction, additional guns were installed. According to
another version, Peter I did not want to drag obsolete guns to St.
Petersburg. In 1899, the guns that remained in the city were mounted on
carriages delivered from Kyiv and placed on the edge of the rampart,
where they still stand.
Until the early 1780s, Chernigov remained
the center of the regiment (as an administrative-territorial unit).
After the liquidation of the regimental division in the Dnieper Ukraine,
in 1781 it became the center of the Chernigov governorship, the first
ruler of which was General Miloradovich[22]. In the same year, the
privileged Little Russian estates were granted the highest rights of the
Russian nobility. Two years before the end of the 18th century, the
Chernihiv fortress was abolished as unnecessary, the fortifications were
liquidated.
Since 1801, Chernihiv became a provincial city of the
then formed Chernihiv province.
Civil War
After the February
Revolution of 1917, detachments of the Free Cossacks were created in
Chernihiv, and power passed into the hands of the Ukrainian Central
Rada. Under the Ukrainian government, Ukrainization began (publishing
house "Siveryanskaya thought", diary of the provincial zemstvo
"Chernigovshchina", organ of the provincial Council of Peasants'
Deputies "Narodnoye Slovo", Ukrainian schools, etc.).
On February
1, 1918, Soviet power was proclaimed in the city, but already on March
12, 1918, the Austro-German troops captured Chernihiv and the city
returned to the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic. In May
1918, an underground provincial committee of the Bolshevik Party and the
provincial committee were created in Chernigov, and the underground
newspaper "Worker and Peasant" began to be published. On December 14,
1918, an armed uprising of the inhabitants of Chernihiv began, which was
brutally suppressed. Soon the Petliura Directory came to replace the
Hetmans. On January 10, 1919, the Bogunsky regiment under the command of
Nikolai Shchors took up positions northeast of the city, and the
Tarashchansky regiment under the command of Vasily Bozhenko took up
positions from the southeast. As a result, on January 12, 1919, the city
was taken by the Bolsheviks.
In the summer of 1919, detachments
of the Volunteer Army under the command of A. I. Denikin entered the
territory of Ukraine. On August 30, Denikin's troops captured Kyiv. On
September 10, units of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive from
Chernigov to Kyiv - Kozelets was occupied. But having received
reinforcements, Denikin's troops again went on the offensive and
captured Chernigov on October 12. However, already on November 7, 1919,
units of the Red Army recaptured the city and finally established Soviet
power.
The Great Patriotic War
The battles for Chernihiv began
on August 28, 1941, when the 2nd Wehrmacht Army (commander: M. von
Weichs) launched an offensive from the Gomel region against the units of
the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front (commander: M. I. Potapov)
defending the city. At the same time, holding the 21st Army of the
Bryansk Front in a vise, parts of Guderian's tank group moved eastward,
in the direction of Konotop. At the same time, German aviation subjected
Chernihiv to massive bombardments. All industrial enterprises, cultural,
educational and medical institutions, many architectural and historical
monuments, over 70% of the housing stock were destroyed.
The
Soviet 5th Army, which directly participated in the battles for the
city, included: the 15th Rifle Corps (commander: Colonel M.I. Blank),
the remnants (without tanks) of the 9th Mechanized Corps (commander:
Major General A. G. Maslov), as well as units of the 1st Airborne Corps
transferred to reinforce, in particular, the 204th Airborne Brigade.
On the night of September 9, 1941, the Nazis captured Chernihiv. A
two-year occupation began, accompanied by mass executions and sending
civilians to forced labor in Germany.
The battles for the
liberation of Chernigov began in mid-September 1943 and were carried out
by formations and units of the armies of the Central Front: the 13th
Army of Lieutenant General N.P. Pukhov, the 61st Army of Lieutenant
General P.A. Belov (transferred to the front from the Stavka reserve VGK
on September 6), with the support of the 16th Air Army, Lieutenant
General of Aviation S. I. Rudenko. The Chernigov-Pripyat front-line
offensive operation of the Soviet troops of the Central Front under the
command of Army General K.K. Rokossovsky was carried out as an integral
part of the Chernigov-Poltava strategic operation - the first stage of
the battle for the Dnieper in the Great Patriotic War.
On
September 8, the 76th Guards Rifle Division set out from the Orel region
near Chernigov. For three days of continuous offensive, she advanced 70
km and at dawn on September 20 approached the village of Tovstoles,
three kilometers northeast of Chernigov, and then, on September 21,
1943, having captured the city and after three days of stubborn battles
in the region, continued the offensive to the west. By order of the
Supreme Commander-in-Chief of September 21, 1943, No. 20, the division
was thanked and given the honorary name "Chernihiv".
The names of
warrior-heroes and famous military leaders are immortalized in the names
of the streets of the city.
The war turned Chernihiv into
complete ruins. 50 industrial structures were completely destroyed and
57 were severely destroyed, the railway facilities, an electric power
station, a radio center, and telephone communications were destroyed. As
a result of hostilities, the city lost 70% of its housing stock. All
this needed to be restored. The call to raise Chernigov from the ruins
found a warm response and support among the population - the regional
center began to rebuild almost anew. Already at the end of 1943, classes
began in schools, and in 1944 - at a teacher's institute. In 1946, the
exhibits of the museum of M. M. Kotsiubinsky returned to Chernihiv,
evacuated to Ufa. In 1948, the population of the city was served by 91
doctors and 279 workers from among the nursing staff. 1949 - the factory
of musical instruments started working again. In 1950 a railway bridge
across the Desna was built, and in 1951 a railway station was opened. In
1956, Chernihiv began to receive natural gas, and in 1957, the
construction of a plant for the production of chemical fibers began.
After the Second World War, Chernihiv was rebuilt according to the
general plan (1945, 1958 and 1968) and reconstructed. The city center
was completely rebuilt in 1950-1955 (architects P. Buklavsky, I.
Yagodovsky): new streets appeared, new quarters were built, new
boulevards, squares and parks were greened. The main highways of the
city are built up with 3-5-storey buildings.
During the fourth
five-year plan, the shops of the city's industrial enterprises were
raised from the ashes and ruins, new enterprises were created, the
railway station, bridges over the Desna River, and the river port were
recreated. Chernihiv's industry reached pre-war levels in the early
1950s.
An important event in the cultural life of the city was
the opening in 1959 of a new theater building. T. G. Shevchenko
(architects S. Fridlin and S. Tutuchenko).
In December 1959, the
Chernigov Synthetic Fiber Plant (Chernigovkhimvolokno) began its work.
In September 1960, he made the first set of students in the Chernihiv
branch of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (now the Chernihiv National
Technological University). In 1961, the first turbine of the new
Chernihiv CHPP was put into operation. In 1970, the new Palace of
Pioneers (now the Palace of Schoolchildren) opened its doors. In 1975,
the shopping center "Druzhba" was opened, in 1976 - a puppet theater.
The industrial growth of the city led to the fact that by 1979 the
population had increased to 240 thousand people.
In 1980, a new
plan for the reconstruction of Chernihiv was developed. During its
implementation, the Gradetsky hotel and restaurant complex (1981), the
Pobeda cinema (1984) were erected, the construction of secondary school
No. 12 and the Desna publishing complex began.
The population of
Chernihiv grew rapidly: 1959 - 90 thousand (Ukrainians accounted for
69%, Russians - 20%, Jews - 8%, Poles - 1%), 1970-159 thousand, 1980-245
thousand people. By 1982, the population reached 257 thousand people.
In 1986, the most terrible tragedy occurred that Chernihiv
experienced in the entire post-war period - the accident at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The distance from the city to the nuclear
power plant is only 80 km. And although Chernihiv did not fall into the
zone of radioactive contamination, many residents of the city, having
taken part in the liquidation, gave their lives and health. To
commemorate the tenth anniversary of this nationwide tragedy, a bronze
monument was erected on the Alley of Heroes.
Russian-Ukrainian
war
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Chernihiv became
one of the hardest hit cities in Ukraine. From the very beginning of the
war, Russian troops approached the city and, not being able to capture
it, began a massive shelling of its civilian infrastructure with
aircraft and artillery. On March 3, a Russian airstrike on Chornovola
Street killed 47 civilians in Chernihiv. On March 6, President of
Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, in order to celebrate the feat, mass heroism
and resilience of citizens in repelling the armed aggression of the
Russian Federation, awarded Chernihiv the honorary title of "Hero City
of Ukraine". On March 16, shelling by Russian troops in Chernihiv killed
at least 17 people standing in line for bread. The shelling continued
the next day.
Due to the Russian invasion, the city was forced to
leave two-thirds of the inhabitants. On March 23, the last bridge was
destroyed and the evacuation stopped. As of March 26, more than 200
civilians in Chernihiv were killed by the actions of Russian federal
forces. As of April 17, 2022, 54 children have died in the Chernihiv
region due to the Russian invasion. According to The New Yorker
magazine, about 50 people per day were killed in Chernihiv. According to
the mayor of the city Vladislav Atroshenko, the city is destroyed by
70%. During the hostilities, there was water only in some areas of the
city, there was no electricity anywhere.
Historical layers that shaped the culture
The city grew from a
Siverian tribal center on the high right bank of the Desna. By 907 it
already appears in Prince Oleg’s treaty with Byzantium as the second
city of Rus after Kyiv. In the 11th–13th centuries it was capital of a
vast principality whose princes commissioned masonry churches that still
stand. After the Mongol sack of 1239 the city recovered as an Orthodox
and later Cossack center. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries,
under the Hetmanate, Chernihiv became a major cultural hub of Left-Bank
Ukraine: churches were rebuilt in Ukrainian Baroque, a collegium opened
in 1700, and printing and education flourished. Those two peaks -
pre-Mongol Rus and Cossack Baroque - still define how the city looks and
how locals talk about themselves.
The motto “City of Legends” is
official tourism language, but it matches lived folklore: almost every
church, hill, and cannon has a story attached to it.
Sacred
architecture as the core of identity
Chernihiv preserves an unusually
high share of Ukraine’s surviving pre-Mongol masonry churches. They are
not ruins; they remain the visual and spiritual center of the historic
core (Dytynets / Val).
Transfiguration (Spaso-Preobrazhensky)
Cathedral, begun in the early 1030s under Prince Mstislav the Bold and
finished under Yaroslav the Wise, is widely regarded as the oldest
standing monumental church of Kyivan Rus. It is a five-domed, three-nave
brick church that mixes Byzantine cross-in-square planning with
basilica-like spacing. Princes were buried here; oaths were sworn here.
It is older than Kyiv’s St. Sophia.
Cathedral of Saints Borys and
Hlib (early 12th century) is a six-pillar, single-dome church later
wrapped in Cossack-era additions, including a famous Holy Gate
associated with Hetman Ivan Mazepa. Local legend claims silver for the
gate came from a melted pagan idol found on the site.
Pyatnytska
(Paraskeva Friday) Church, built around the turn of the 12th–13th
centuries, is a compact, elegant brick church. Heavily damaged in World
War II, it was restored to its medieval silhouette by architect Petro
Baranovsky and is often called the finest work of Chernihiv’s pre-Mongol
masters.
Yeletskyi Dormition Monastery (founded 1060s by Prince
Sviatoslav on Boldyni Hory) grew around a legend of an icon appearing on
a fir tree (yel). Its 12th-century Dormition Cathedral still holds
traces of old frescoes. In 1646 the monastery printed Perlo Mnohotsinne
(Pearl of Great Price), one of the first books produced in Chernihiv, in
a literary language close to early Ukrainian.
Trinity–Elias complex
and St. Anthony’s Caves. Tradition holds that Anthony of the Caves,
founder of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, also dug cells here. The
12th-century Elias Church is a rare surviving small triconch-type
church. Underground passages, cells, and a small church run through the
chalk of Boldyna Hora; nearby kurgans include the famous Black Grave.
St. Catherine’s Church (1715), with five gilded pear-shaped domes, is a
textbook of Cossack Baroque. It commemorates the Chernihiv regiment’s
role in the 1696 capture of Azov.
The National
Architectural-Historical Reserve “Ancient Chernihiv” groups these
ensembles (Dytynets, Yelets, Trinity–Elias, Boldyni Hory). Parts of the
historic center have been on UNESCO’s tentative list since 1989; a
renewed nomination has been in preparation. War damage in 2022–24 made
conservation an urgent cultural task, not only a scholarly one.
Christianity here did not wipe out earlier sacred geography. Hills,
caves, kurgans, and “black graves” remain part of the city’s mental map.
Local writing often describes a continuous line from pagan burial mounds
to princely cathedrals to Cossack baroque churches.
Cossack
Baroque, learning, and printed culture
After the mid-17th century the
city became a regimental and episcopal center of the Hetmanate. Cossack
elders and bishops restored old Rus churches and added Baroque bell
towers, gates, and residences. The result is a distinctive hybrid:
11th–12th-century brick cores dressed in 17th–18th-century Ukrainian
Baroque.
The Chernihiv Collegium (founded 1700) was one of the first
higher schools on the Left Bank. The House of Lyzohub (regimental
office, later associated with Mazepa) and the archbishop’s house
complete the civic face of that era. Printing, sermon literature, and
church music made Chernihiv a provincial but serious intellectual
center, not only a fortress.
Wooden lace: the everyday face of
the city
Beside the stone churches stands a rarer local tradition:
late-19th and early-20th-century wooden houses with openwork carving
nicknamed “wooden lace.” Typical houses are single-storey pine-log
buildings, plastered inside, boarded outside, with hipped roofs, carved
window hoods, pilasters, and cornice friezes cut with a fretsaw rather
than deep fretwork. Ornaments include plants, zigzags, circles, stars,
and crosses that sit on the old border between pagan and Christian
symbols. This style is characteristic of southern Chernihiv region and
parts of Siveria; civic buildings were usually brick, so the lace is
mostly residential. Many houses survived wars; they give the city a
domestic, almost fairy-tale streetscape that tourists often miss if they
only visit the Val.
Artistic woodcarving of Chernihiv Oblast is
listed among Ukraine’s intangible heritage elements: furniture, chests,
tools, ritual objects, and architectural ornament, with historic
workshops in Chernihiv, Nizhyn, and Novhorod-Siverskyi.
Folk
music, dance, and living custom
Siverian culture is northern
Ukrainian: Polissia timbre, drawn-out ritual songs, and lively social
dances. Contemporary ensembles treat this as living practice, not
costume theater.
The Academic Song and Dance Ensemble Siverski
Kleynody (“Siverian Regalia”) stages reconstructed vechornytsi and
“Chernihiv huliannia”: dances and songs collected in the oblast such as
Balamut, Polka, Pechone porosya, Kokhanka, Hrechanyky, Oiira,
Metelytsia. Christmas programs reconstruct the long winter cycle from
Vvedennia to Stritennya. Workshops and community singing groups in the
city teach local song style as a form of cultural continuity, especially
after 2022.
Intangible heritage lists for the oblast also include
ritual foods and carving; folklore expeditions remain active. Rural
ethnographic complexes in the region present crafts (weaving, rushnyk
embroidery, pottery, pysanka, beekeeping) alongside village cuisine.
Cuisine of Sivershchyna
Chernihiv cooking sits between Polissia
forest fare and Left-Bank Ukrainian classics.
Typical and documented
local dishes include:
Chernihiv-style borscht with pampushky and
garlic
Siverian dumplings (halushky) with young garlic
Nizhyn
pickled cucumbers (an 18th-century specialty of the region)
Polissia
buckwheat with cracklings
Baturyn honey and Pryluky honey cakes
Ritual and regional items now inventoried as intangible heritage:
bobivnyk, kalinovyky (pies with beet and viburnum), kalenyk, festive
borscht variants such as kvasok, and older river dishes (dried-crucian
borscht, double ukha, kapusniak)
Borscht here is not only
everyday food; in some villages it remains a wedding and memorial dish.
Markets still sell pickled mushrooms and forest products. Craft beer and
modern gastro tours have grown around this base, but the older kitchen
is river fish, buckwheat, garlic, pickles, and honey.
Landscape,
legends, and civic character
Culture is tied to topography. Dytynets
sits on a high spur above the Desna; Boldyni Hory hold caves and
kurgans; twelve (not thirteen) old cannons line the former ramparts -
the missing thirteenth is a local joke about impossible dates. Ghosts,
silver idols, and princely tombs are part of how residents narrate the
city. The 12th-century campaign of Prince Ihor Sviatoslavych of
Novhorod-Siverskyi, immortalized in The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign, belongs
to the wider Siverian literary memory even though the poem’s geography
is broader than the modern city.
Position and borders
The city stands at about 51°29′N 31°18′E on
the high right bank of the Desna, roughly 140-150 km north-northeast of
Kyiv and 65-70 km from the Belarusian and Russian borders. City
elevation is around 136 m. The municipal area is about 79 km².
Chernihiv Oblast covers about 31,865-31,900 km² (around 5.3% of
Ukraine). It stretches roughly 180 km west-east and 220 km north-south.
It is Ukraine’s northernmost oblast; the country’s northernmost
settlement, Hremiach, lies in its territory.
It borders:
Gomel
Region of Belarus to the northwest
Bryansk Oblast of Russia to the
north and northeast
Sumy Oblast to the east
Poltava Oblast to the
south
Kyiv Oblast and the Kyiv Reservoir (Dnieper) to the west and
southwest
Slavutych is a Kyiv Oblast enclave on the western side,
created after the Chornobyl disaster.
Relief
Almost the whole
oblast lies on the East European Plain, mainly within the Dnieper
(Prydniprovska) Lowland. A small northeastern strip reaches the edge of
the Central Russian Upland.
The surface is a gently undulating plain
that slopes from northeast to southwest. Typical heights are 100-150 m;
the northeast rises to 200-220 m. The highest point is 222 m near
Berezova Hat in Novhorod-Siverskyi Raion. Average elevation is about 120
m.
River valleys cut the plain by up to 50 m. Watersheds and terraces
carry loess “islands” with gully erosion. Glacial and meltwater features
remain: outwash (zander) plains, old meltwater valleys, and sandy dunes
on river terraces. The overall impression is low, slightly rolling
country rather than hills.
Hydrography
The entire region
belongs to the Dnieper basin. There are about 1,200-1,570 rivers with a
combined length of roughly 8,300-8,500 km.
The Desna is the main
artery. It is a major left tributary of the Dnieper, about 1,130 km long
in total and 505-534 km inside the oblast. It crosses the region from
northeast to southwest and joins the Dnieper just north of Kyiv. In
Ukraine its width is commonly 60-250 m and mean depth about 3 m. It
freezes from early December to early April and is navigable from
Novhorod-Siverskyi to the mouth (about 535 km).
Principal tributaries
of the Desna:
Left bank: Seim, Doch, Oster
Right bank: Ubid, Mena,
Snov, Bilous (Belous)
The Stryzhen is a short right tributary
that meets the Desna at the historic core of Chernihiv. The Snov enters
the Desna about 12 km east of the city.
The Dnieper itself forms much
of the western edge (about 91-124 km in the oblast). The Sozh touches
the northwest. In the southeast the Udai flows toward the Sula and then
the Dnieper. The Kyiv Reservoir occupies part of the western lowland.
The Desna basin supplies a large share of Dnieper runoff.
Climate
The climate is humid continental (Köppen Dfb), moderately continental,
fairly humid, with relatively mild winters for the latitude and warm
summers.
Typical means:
January: about -5.6°C to -8°C
July:
about 18°C to 19.5°C
Annual mean near 7°C in the city
Precipitation is 550-660 mm per year, higher in the northeast and in
summer. The growing season lasts 190-200 days. Winters are snowy but not
extreme; rivers ice over for several months.
Soils, vegetation,
and natural zones
The north is Polissia (Chernihiv Polissia and
Novhorod-Siverskyi Polissia): sandy sod-podzolic soils, peat bogs, and
mixed forests of pine, oak, birch, alder, aspen, and hornbeam. The
landscape is often swampy.
The southern and southeastern third is
forest-steppe: gray forest soils and chernozems, with smaller oak woods.
Forests cover about one-fifth of the oblast. Meadows and wetlands occupy
the wide floodplains of the Desna and Dnieper.
How the city got its name
Two folk explanations circulate side by
side.
One says the site was once a dark oak wood called Chornyi hai
(“Black grove”). The two words fused into Chernihiv.
The more popular
tale names a 10th-century prince Chornyi (“the Black”), nephew of Kyiv’s
Ihor. His daughter Predslava (sometimes simply Chorna) was both
beautiful and a fighter - sword, bow, horse. A Khazar khagan demanded
her in marriage. She refused. In the ensuing siege she threw herself
from the palace tower rather than be taken. Her father died in the same
battle. They were buried together in a great mound that people later
called Chorna Mohyla (the Black Grave). The mound still stands on
Tolstoy Street; 19th-century excavations found a rich 10th-century
warrior burial with weapons and gold, which only fed the legend.
Historians note that the city is already named in the 907 treaty with
Byzantium, so the prince-and-princess story is later folklore wrapped
around a real necropolis.
Boldyni Hills, St Anthony and the caves
Two kilometres from the old citadel the high right bank of the Desna is
called Boldyni Hory (“Oak Hills”). Before Christianity it was a vast
kurgan cemetery - more than 200 mounds, among them Hulbyshche and the
nameless 10th-century barrow. In 1069 the monk Anthony, founder of the
Kyiv Caves Lavra and a native of these lands, returned after a quarrel
with Prince Iziaslav and dug the first cells here. The Antoniv Caves
grew into a multi-level labyrinth more than 350 metres long, with
underground churches of Anthony, Nicholas Sviatosha and Theodosius of
Totma, cells and ossuaries. Local talk still claims the tunnels once ran
all the way to Kyiv.
Two cave legends are told on every tour:
At
the dead-end gallery of St Nicholas’s underground church a 16th-century
graffiti reads “Save, O Lord, Thy servant Tarasii.” Visitors and staff
report a mist or a monk-shaped silhouette, most often on major feast
days.
When Tatars stormed the monastery, the pursuers who followed
the monks into the dark never came out.
A later, more modern
story attaches itself to the same hill: the grave of a schemamonk
German, whom some regard as a holy fool with the gift of prophecy and
others as a 20th-century wanderer. Historians treat the figure as
legend.
The lost treasury of the Severian princes
On the eve
of the 1239 Mongol sack the princes of Chernihiv are said to have hidden
the principality’s gold vestments, icons and regalia. Favourite hiding
places are the vaults under the Transfiguration Cathedral or a sealed
branch of the Antoniv Caves. Coins and jewellery still turn up; the main
hoard never has. Treasure-hunters have been looking for eight centuries.
The “Ukrainian Dracula”: Vasyl Dunin-Borkovskyi
Vasyl Kasperovych
Dunin-Borkovskyi (d. 1702) was General Oboznyi of the Zaporozhian Host,
one of the richest men in the Hetmanate and a major church builder
(Yelets monastery refectory, restorations of the Transfiguration and
Dormition cathedrals, Pyatnytsia monastery). He was buried with honours
in the Dormition Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery.
The next midnight
a phantom carriage drawn by black horses burst from the monastery gates.
The dead colonel rode to his estate on Chorna Krucha above the Desna,
inspected his lands, pointed at an old well, and vanished at cock-crow.
After the apparition became intolerable, Archbishop Ioan Maksymovych and
a procession of priests stopped the carriage on the bridge. When the
coffin was opened the body looked alive and a pipe still smoked between
its teeth. They drove a stake through the chest and reburied him on the
family estate by the river. That night a storm flooded the new grave.
The story is the classic East-Slavic upyr tale attached to a documented
Cossack magnate.
Motria Kochubei and Mazepa’s house
The
late-17th-century Regimental Chancellery on Preobrazhenska Street is
popularly called “Mazepa’s house.” After Colonel Yakiv Lyzohub died, the
building is said to have passed to Hetman Ivan Mazepa. In its cellars he
hid barrels of treasure and met his young god-daughter Motria, daughter
of General Chancellor Vasyl Kochubei. Motria’s mother cursed the
incestuous affair. Every year on the eve of the Dormition the girl’s
restless soul appears near the house and begs passers-by to make the
sign of the cross over her, promising in return the secret of the
hetman’s gold.
Smaller city tales
The twelve cast-iron cannons
on the Val (the old citadel rampart) are explained as gifts from Peter
I, as original fortress pieces recast from bronze, or as a local joke:
girls who wanted to refuse a suitor would tell him to meet them “at the
thirteenth cannon.” He would wander the park looking for a gun that does
not exist.
The 1906 “ship house” on Khlibopekarska Street was built
by a retired naval officer who named the rooms galley, head and so on
and is said to have lowered a gangplank from the tiny balcony for
guests.
A wishing stone is built into a wall of the Pyatnytsia
Church; touch it and make a wish.
Polissian countryside around
the city
Eastern Polissia keeps a dense demonological layer that
ethnographers still record in Ripky and neighbouring districts:
Rusalky (mermaids) who tickle late-night rye-watchers to death and must
be driven from the fields after Trinity.
Witches who “saddle” a late
passer-by, steal milk, or cause drought; one drought-breaking rite was
to steal a neighbour’s borshch and pour it into the well.
Cursed
mounds such as Baturka near Oleksandrivka (Sosnytsia district): cattle
will not eat the grass; travellers must throw an offering onto the
barrow to satisfy the greedy spirit.
In Liubech a devil’s hoof-print
on a kurgan is called “the devil’s finger” or “devil’s little foot.”
Garelinka slope in Horodnia: a girl hid a pregnancy, drowned the newborn
and hanged herself. On full-moon nights people still claim to hear an
infant’s cry and see a white figure carrying a dead child. Nothing is
built on the spot.
Sedniv (historic Snovesk), 25 km away, adds
Cossack-era stories: a two-month Tatar siege that supposedly produced
the name “Sedniv” from sydity (“to sit tight”), the victory site called
Kara-zama (“black mountain”), and the grave of the local holy fool Hryts
Zolotiusinkyi (“Golden Hryts”), who greeted everyone as “my golden one.”