As a geomorphic form of relief, the plateau-like Podolian Upland extends from northwestern to southeastern Ukraine. Stretching in the same direction are the ridges of the Ukrainian Carpathians, the Dnipro and Dnister Uplands, as well as the tributaries of the Dnister, Boh, and Dnipro rivers.
The reason for this apparent coincidence is that the Podolian Upland rests on the slope of the Ukrainian Crystalline Shield, which in ancient times (3.5 billion years ago) was a land mass and at the same time the first mountains in the region-the so-called Ukrainian Himalayas. The shield set the general pattern for Ukraine’s present-day relief. The Tovtry, or the Medobory Mountains, are a belt of limestone ridges of the Podolian Upland, and they follow this pattern as they stretch across Podillia.
The Tovtry belong to the central part of Western Podillia, which is an almost ideal plain. To the south, toward the Dnister River, there is a series of flat interfluves extending from the north to the south and alternating with steep canyon-like ravines with their largely cultivated land (80 percent of the total area).
The rolling Podolian Upland is characterized by enclaved watershed areas, valleys, and ravines covered with briery shrubs of thorn, buckthorn, blackthorn, and euonymus. The river valleys are steep here, especially near the Dnister River, where they reach a depth of 150-200 meters. These slopes are covered with low trees and bushes of hornbeam, elm, lime, hazel, and euonymus, all of which create the rich and diverse, vast and calm, and grand and lovely Podolian landscapes.
THE RICH HISTORY OF THE REGION
The Podolian region is rich in natural beauty as well as fascinating historical events. For nearly two millennia, from IV to III B.C. (which, if you stop and think about it, is the same amount of time that has passed since the beginning of our era), the Podolian lands were populated by our distant ancestors, who built the great, mysterious, and highly-developed Trypillian culture and left behind a historical record through the symbols of their material and spiritual culture.
Anatolii Kyfishyn, the distinguished Sumerologist and student of ancient written records, deciphered Sumerian symbols on the sandstones of the Stone Grave near the village of Terpinnia in the vicinity of Melitopil. In VII-III B.C. the Podolian lands were cultivated by tribes of Scythian plowmen, who were subjects of the Great Scythia, a large state during this period. They left their trace in our genetic code: the contemporary male residents of Podillia, who are stately, powerfully built, somewhat phlegmatic, with calm and composed natures, inherited these traits from the broad-faced, blue-eyed Scythian plowmen with straw-colored hair.
In III B.C. through II A.D. the lands of the Sarmatians, who followed the Scythians, bordered on Podillia in the south. An echo from those distant times reached the 17th century, when the territory of today’s Ukraine was designated as Sarmatia on European maps. In 1676 the Turks proclaimed Yurii Khmelnytsky, the younger son of the great Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the prince of the newly created Sarmatian Principality (this event took place in Nemyriv, which is near Vinnytsia). However, in 2-6 A.D. the true masters of the Podolian lands were our Slavic ancestors, the Antes. No one knows for sure where their name comes from. Some scholars surmise it may have been borrowed from the Latin peoples with whom they were good neighbors.
The Huns, led by their leader Attila, and the cruel Avars also passed through Podillia. Ivan Franko even records a folk saying about the latter: “The Avars are coming-hide well!” The Dulibians lived along the Boh River in Podillia before the Antes and, later, the Buzhanians settled there. The name Dulibians (in German dudl gebl) was borrowed from the Goths, who during the great migration of peoples passed through this region along a line that became the demarcation line between the Eastern and Western Slavs. The Goths noted the special musical talents of the local people, who played the bagpipes (a leather windbag with protruding pipes)-and named them Dulibians.
The Cossack era is an especially glorious page in the history of Podillia. Several valiant Cossack colonels are worthy of being remembered and honored: Danylo Nechai of Bratslav, Ivan Bohun of Vinnytsia, and Ostap (Evstafii) Hohol, who was an acting hetman, the great ancestor of Mykola Hohol (Nikolai Gogol), and the prototype of Gogol’s Taras Bulba. These were the true chevaliers and national heroes of Ukraine. In these lands one hears the echo of the battles of Zbarazh, Zboriv, Batih, etc. Two irreconcilable enemies-the Cossack Colonel Maksym Kryvonis and Prince Jeremi Wisniowiecki-crossed swords near Starokostiantyniv.
Podillia also takes pride in the indomitable Ustym Karmeliuk whose name is immortalized in the name of a tower in the Kamianets- Podilsky fortress.
ABOUT PAINFUL THINGS
As far as nature preserves are concerned, Podillia is the number- one region of contrasts in Ukraine: Khmelnytsky oblast has the highest ratio of preserves (14.8 percent of the total area), whereas neighboring Vinnytsia oblast, with its meager 0.9 percent, ranks last.
The Podolian Upland is a pearl on the geographical map of Ukraine. It has many remarkable nature preserves, including the ones in Vinnytsia oblast. However, their area is too small, and an important reserve along the lines of a national park or a natural or biosphere reserve is still lacking. In terms of land cultivation, Vinnytsia oblast matches such overdeveloped oblasts as Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad, where this ratio exceeds 90 percent (compare the overall ratio in the US at 17.3 percent).
The prize possession of Central Podillia, where most of Vinnytsia oblast is located, is the ancient oak groves that have been turned into unique landscape and botanical preserves. These are the Marx Oak Forest (Nemyriv raion), Haidamaka Valley (Trostianets raion), Biliansky Forest (Yampil raion), and Hariachkivska Dacha (Pishchanka raion). Ukraine has a total of 2,709 preserves.
Vinnytsia oblast simply must have its own national park. According to the State Program for Establishing a National Ecological Network, the Central Podolian National Park spanning 15,000 hectares was supposed to be created by 2006.
There is a geographical postulate: as a unique entity on this earth, every landscape has to be represented by a nature preserve. In other words, the natural landscape of a country, region, province, or territory has to have a nature or biosphere preserve, a national or regional landscape park, a preserve, or at least a protected tract of land. This is similar to each ethnic region being represented in an ethnographic museum through its costumes, embroideries, everyday household items, architecture, etc. A preserve is a kind of open-air nature museum.
One has to wonder how the taciturn officials at the Biodiversity Department of Ukraine’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources could have picked the Kharkiv Institute of Ecological Problems as the winner of the tender to draft the Law of Ukraine “On Landscapes.” This institute does not know a thing about landscapes. It once cashed in on a project to develop the territory of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve by copying the text of the book Biodiversity of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. Now these self-styled specialists intend to draft a law that will determine the course of development of the entire science of landscape studies. One shudders at the thought.
TAKING CARE OF OUR HERITAGE: THE EXAMPLE OF THE PODOLIAN TOVTRY
Returning to our discussion of how natural landscapes should be represented by nature preserves: there is picturesque hill country called Roztochia, which begins in Poland and reaches the southeastern part of the Podolian Upland. This territory is represented by the Roztochia Nature Preserve and Yavoriv National Park in Lviv oblast.
To the south of the Roztochian Ridge lies the no less beautiful Opillia Upland. Originating in the village of Pidkamin in Lviv oblast, the lovely and mysterious Tovtry, or Medobory, stretch in the form of an indented ridge through the territory of Ternopil oblast (Zbarazh and Skalat) and Khmelnytsky oblast (Sataniv and Kamianets-Podilsky). Within the boundaries of these two oblasts the Medobory Nature Preserve and the Podolian Tovtry National Park have been opened. Further to the southeast, the Tovtry ridge stretches through Chernivtsi oblast and Moldova to Romania, reaching a total length of 250 kilometers.
The Podolian Tovtry’s unique relictual 15-million-year-old landscape is classically represented in a whole series of national landscape preserves: the woods-covered Great and Small Buhaikha in Chemerivtsi raion, the Ivankivtsi Preserve with its picturesque rocky slopes of the Tovtry Ridge in Horodok raion, Karmaliuk’s Mountain, Owl’s Ravine, the Tsykiv and Kniazhpil preserves, and, in general, the Tovtry Ridge with its outcroppings of limestone and typical Podolian oak groves (all in Khmelnytsky oblast).
In Chernivtsi oblast the Tovtry are preserved in the Tovtrivska Stinka National Landscape Preserve in the village of Tovtry, Zastavna raion. This preserve forms the right boundary of the canyon-like valley of the Tovtry stream with its steep rocky slopes and occasional precipices. The valley stretches in the general Tovtry direction, from the southeast to the northwest, along the line connecting its lowest points.
The poetic beauty of the Medobory Nature Preserve and the recreational potential of the Podolian Tovtry National Park, both symbols of Podillia, will be explored in future articles.
