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Tovtry Park
The PODIL'S'KI Tovtry National Nature Park is a natural, recreational, cultural, historical and educational treasure of Ukraine. According to the Law of Ukraine, Tovtry National Nature Park belongs to the Podilskyi Region of NATIONAL ECOLOGICAL WORKNET OF UKRAINE.The microclimate of the territory of Prydnistrovya is formed by the Tovtry Ridge and canyons of the Dnister River and its inflows. That is why there were formed special conditions for preserving rare and relict plants, the majority of which are medical. According to the data of the scientific and control institutions, the territory of South-Western Podillya, in the centre of which Kamyanets-Podilskyi is located, did not get into zones of allaround infection with radionuclides in consequence of the Chornobyl catastrophe.
The territory of the Park is rich in mineral waters, such as "Naftusia", "Myrgorodska", "Minska" and others. The debit of such streams is approximately 60 cube meter per day.
The presence on the territory of the PODIL'S'KI Tovtry National Nature Park of unique man-made objects, and unique natural complexes made the special conditions for the development of tourism not only for the health improvement, but also a cognitive one. There are 144 objects of nature resrve fund on the territory of the Park which are under presrvation. There are parks and manors of different level of concervation and cultural-historical value among them. There are 2977 kinds of plants from different climatic zones, including 521 kinds of trees and bushes, 395 kinds of fruit plants, 620 kinds of tropic plants, 111 kinds of health-giving herbaceous plants of local and wild flora, 19 archeological sights, more than 302 historical-architectural sights (there are more than 200 objects in Kamyanets-Podilskyi, more than 63 objects - in Kamyanets-Podilskyi Rayon, more than 27 objects - in Chemerovetskyi Rayon and more than 12 objects - in Satanivskyi Rayon).
Such functional zones can be singled out on the territory of the National Nature Park: reserved zone; zone of the controlled recreation; zone of stationary recreation; economical zone. There are 21 stationary recreational establishments (sanatoriums, dispensaries, tourist centres, rest homes, etc), approximately 160 industrial enterprises, collective and individual farms, which cause damage to nature. That is why the main task of the NNP is the concervation of natural diversification, founding of controlled zones for rest and health improving.
The ecologically clean products have been produced on the territory of the NNP.
Today, the preparatory work on the organisation of the free economic zone on the territory of the PODIL'S'KI Tovtry NNP is done. It will help in further development of the National Park.
The wealth and variety of natural resources and recreation possibilities of the Park may be the base for the creation of the developed network of international tourism, hunting and fishing.
THE RICH HISTORY OF THE REGION
The Podolian region is rich in natural beauty as well as in 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.
The Podillia 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.