Ukrainian Polissya is located in Central Ukraine and includes the Zhytomyr region (excluding the southernmost regions and Berdichev), the northern part of the Rivne region and the vicinity of Chernobyl in the Kyiv region.
Ovruch
Zhytomyr
Volyn and Rivne regions are almost completely Ukrainian-speaking. In the Zhytomyr region, Ukrainian and Surzhik prevail, Russian is spoken by about half of the population of Zhytomyr and Korosten and an absolute minority in other cities.
According to the current administrative-territorial division,
Ukrainian Polissia on the territory of Ukraine covers Rivne, Volyn
(except for the extreme southern parts of these two regions), Zhytomyr
(except for the southern regions), northern regions of Kyiv and
Khmelnytskyi regions. In addition, if we consider Ukrainian Polissia as
a Ukrainian ethnographic region, it also includes the
Ukrainian-populated parts of Berestei and Gomel oblasts in Belarus.
Sometimes Polissia within the state borders of Ukraine is considered
only the north of Right-Bank Ukraine, while Left-Bank Polissia
(Chernihiv and Novgorod-Siverske) is considered separately from Polissia
itself, as it differs from it both in physiography and historical past —
Chernihiv region is a separate historical region. The entire forest
strip within Ukraine is often called the Ukrainian Polissia. The area of
Ukrainian Polissia proper is about 100,000 km², of which 27,000 km² is
in the territory of Belarus.
The territory of Polissia is very
wet and swampy, with heterogeneous landscapes. The northern and western
parts of Polissia are more swampy than the southeastern part. Belongs to
the zone of mixed forests. On the territory of Polissya, significant
reclamation works were carried out and reservoirs were created, as a
result of these and other human interventions, the appearance of
Polissya changed a lot.
The climate is warm, unstable and humid, approaching the forest-steppe in the southeast. The average January temperature is from -4.4° by 3 to -7° in the east (min. -36°C), in July from 18° to 19° (maximum 38°C). Precipitation is 520-645 mm per year. Vegetation period 193-208 days.
Within the state borders of Ukraine, 6 physical and geographical
regions of Polissia are distinguished according to the peculiarities of
natural conditions:
Volynskoe Polissia
Male Polissia
Zhytomyr
Polissia
Kyiv Polissia
Chernihiv Polissia
Novgorod-Siverskoe
Polissia
According to another division, Ukrainian Polissia is
divided into three constituent parts: Eastern (Left-bank), Middle
(Right-bank) and Western. Each part has its own dialect of the Ukrainian
language: Eastern Polish, Middle Polish and Western Polish.
Water
objects
The largest lakes in Ukrainian Polissia are Svityaz (27.5
km², depth 58 m) and Vygonivske (26.5 km², depth 2.7 m).
Flora
According to data for 1955, the flora of Ukrainian Polissia consisted of
1,532 species, grouped into 560 genera and 110 families. The largest
genera in terms of number of species are: Compositae (158 species),
grasses (115 species), sedges (94 species), cruciferous (82 species),
and rosaceae (76 species). The most common types of flora are pine, oak
and heather.
Ukrainian Polissia territorially coincides with the range of the
northern dialect of the Ukrainian language. The northern Ukrainian
(Ukrainian-Belarusian) ethnographic border begins to the west of Strabl
above the Narva, where it meets the Polish border, then goes up the
Narva to the sources of this river, passing through the Bialowieza
Forest, crosses the European watershed in a southeast direction and
continues from Pruzhan along the river Yaselda, passing to Bereza,
further to the west of the Oginsky Canal, turns north, reaches the
vicinity of Vygonivskyi Lake, from there turns east to the Tsna River
and goes along the Tsna River to Pripyat, passing near Lunynets, from
the mouth of the Tsna along Pripyat, heads to Mozyr, turns below Mozyr
to the south to the Slovechnaya River and to the east along the modern
border between Ukraine and Belarus to the Dnieper, along it to the
north, from there it ends near the confluence of the Sozh River with the
Dnieper. The Ukrainian-Belarusian state border does not coincide in the
west with the ethnic Ukrainian-Belarusian border, since the Soviet
authorities included the northwestern part of Ukrainian Polissia (with
an area of about 27,000 km²) into the BSSR.
Historically,
Ukrainian Poleschuks called Belarusians "Litvyns" or "Lytsvyns", less
often "Gediks" or (disparagingly) "Lapatsons", etc. Belarusians called
Ukrainians "walkers", sometimes "getuns". According to the 1897 census,
the Pinchuks in the Pinsky and Mozyr districts of the Minsk province
were counted among Belarusians, despite the fact that many researchers
of the time considered them an ethnographic group of Ukrainians (in
particular, Kostyantyn Mykhalchuk, Yukhym Karskyi, D. Shendryk, Mitrofan
Dovnar-Zapolskyi, Oleksandr Rittikh and others ).
Ukrainian Polissia has a rather favorable geographical location along
the northern border of the state. In the south, Polissia borders the
Carpathian, Podilsky, Central and Eastern regions. Transport arteries
connecting Ukraine with Belarus, partly with Russia and Western Europe
pass through this region. Therefore, the Polissky region is a connecting
link: on the one hand, between Ukraine and Belarus, Poland, the
countries of Northern Europe and the Baltic States, and on the other,
between Russia and Western Europe. The strategic location of the
district makes it possible to actively involve Polissia not only in the
development of interregional intra-Ukrainian relations, but also in the
trade and production relations of Ukraine with other countries, the
creation of free economic zones, the development of the international
system of trade, transport and communication, the creation of zones of
interregional and interstate cooperation.
In Polissia, the
specialized industries of agriculture are meat and dairy, butter and
cheese, canning, flour milling, sugar, alcohol, confectionery, and
tobacco. Including export, the starch, feed, fruit and vegetable
industries, the production of vodka, low-alcohol (including beer) and
non-alcoholic drinks, and mineral waters are important. The output of
food products in the region in 2002 was: flour — 7.9% of the total
volume of production in Ukraine, granulated sugar — 14.6%, 5.3% of whole
milk products, 22.1% of butter, 16.3% fatty cheeses and 12.6% of canned
fruits and vegetables, meat and milk.