The flooded villages of the Kyiv Polissya of the 20th century

The result of the construction of the Kiev Hydroelectric Power Station was the complete destruction and relocation of more than 52 settlements, more than 33,000 Ukrainian citizens were relocated, and finally hundreds of ancient temples and thousands of private homes were destroyed.
In the period from 1964 to 1966 thousands of monuments of history, archeology and culture of Kyiv Polissya were destroyed as a result of flooding (only settlements of the Old Rus - more than 300).
Creation of a Cascade of the Dnipro reservoirs began in 1932, when the Dnipro reservoir was built (named after Lenin), and later Kakhovka (1955), Kremenchuk (1961), Dneprodzerzhinsk (1963), Kyiv (1966) and Kaniv (1973) hydroelectric power stations were built and appropriate reservoirs were created.
During the period from 1932 to 1973, 709.3 thousand hectares of land were flooded, in particular 250.8 thousand hectares of agricultural land. The floodplain of the Dnieper and some of its tributaries were turned under the water. The idea of continuing the creation of reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations on the Dnieper came back for the second time only in 1948, after the end of the Second World War.
The beginning of the construction of the dam of the Kyiv hydroelectric power station in Vyshgorod began in 1959.
Artificial Kyiv Sea (reservoir) is filled in 1964-1966 years.
At that, many villages were flooded, mainly on the left bank: Starosillya, Swaromyah, Oshitski, Tarasovichi, Chernin, Novosilki-na-Dnipri, Okuninovye (URL: New Hlibiv, Old Hlibiv), Birky and several villages on the right bank: Borki (URL: Tolokunskaya Rudnia), Rotikhi, Domontova. Many villages or their parts were routinely relocated, but not flooded.
These were ancient settlements. Some of them, for example Starosillya (Olzhich), are mentioned in the 11th century. People had farms, livestock, gardens. Their grandparents and great-grandfathers rested in the cemetery, and majestic churches were built. Around – there were flooded meadows with fertile land.
It is known that one of the flooded villages - Starosillya - hosted the summer laboratory of the Biological Station VUAN, founded in 1918 by V. Vernadsky. And in 1 km from it, in the village. Khotyanivka, an ethnographic collection was collected, which formed the basis of the Ethnographic Museum of the VUAN.