A journey to the land of the Sun Feast

Zhytomyr oblast has decided to stimulate the development of local tourism, which has been eking out an existence for a long time. The aim is to reap benefits for the state treasury, the people who will be in charge of this question, and those who will be providing services to future vacationers.

Recently, as part of the ethnographic and artistic festival “Visiting Lesia’s Land,” the first large-scale presentation devoted to a specific region, in this case the city and raion of Novohrad-Volynsky, was held to promote it as a potential destination for various kinds of tours. A special trip was organized for journalists and the representatives of Kyiv and Zhytomyr tourist agencies.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the culture and tourism department of the Zhytomyr Oblast Administration are now arguing about the right to be considered the initiator of this endeavor. The head of the department, Vasyl Vrublevsky, insisted to

The Day that these two institutions, in collaboration with the municipal and raion authorities of Novohrad-Volynsky, came up with the idea to hold the presentation. The Zhytomyr Press Club of Reforms also took an active part in organizing the journalists’ junket. The mayor of Novohrad-Volynsky, Mykola Borovets, told The Day that the city organized this presentation to give an impetus to the development of a new economic vector and promote the creation of the necessary infrastructure. During the festival a nice hotel and a good restaurant with a wide choice of Ukrainian ethnic dishes were launched.

Mykola Hrytsenko, deputy chairman of the Novohrad-Volynsky District Administration, says that a large part of the project was drafted by district-level agencies, and further plans envision the intensive development of green tourism in the district, focusing on its natural surroundings and beautiful folklore.

The fact that the great poetess Lesia Ukrainka was born in Novohrad-Volynsky has long been the drawing card of the city and raion. Vira Rymska, the longtime curator of the Lesia Ukrainka Literary and Memorial Museum, located in the little house where the poetess was born, has been welcoming visitors for many years. Words fail to describe the way Ms. Rymska recounts Lesia’s life and work; you had to be there. Hanging in one room are portraits of the relatives of Lesia’s father Petro Kosach and her mother Olena Drahomanova. Their noble and intelligent faces are the hallmarks of this distinguished line. The room in which Lesia spent her childhood is the holy of holies. In a corner of the room is a garland of ribbons, exactly like the one she liked to wear, and a replica of her birth-record book, opened to the page with the date and place of birth of Larysa Kosach (her real first and last names). In 1987 a monument to Lesia Ukrainka, widely regarded as one of the best in the country, was erected in downtown Novohrad-Volynsky. According to Liudmyla Gamma, who heads the culture department of the Novohrad-Volynsky Municipal Council, historians link the current name of the city to Russian Empress Catherine II’s 1795 ukase ordering voivodeships replaced by gubernias. The town of Zviahel, promptly renamed Novohrad-Volynsky, became the center of Volyn Gubernia. Soon afterwards Zhytomyr won the right to be called the administrative “capital” of the gubernia.

Debates are now underway in Novohrad-Volynsky to restore the old name to the contemporary map of Ukraine. Some academics date the name’s origin to the Aryan age and say that certain archeological finds prove that these tribes resided on this territory in ancient times. The Lviv-based Sanskrit scholar V. Kobeliukha translates the word “zviahel” from the Sanskrit words “zvia,” meaning “feast,” “hel, heli, helika,” meaning “sun.” In other words, Zviahel stands for the Feast of the Sun, or the Great Day of the Great God of the Sun.

The name Zviahel (or Vozviahel, Vzviahel) denoting the town or, to be more precise, the settlement on the high banks of the Sluch River, a few kilometers away from the site of today’s Novohrad-Volynsky, was first mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle of 1257. The city considers this date the beginning of its history and will celebrate its 750 th anniversary next year. Vozviahel was completely razed by the armies of Prince Danylo of Halych for defiance, and no one ever settled in this spot again. There are remnants of two settlements and a non-fortified village, ramparts and moats. You can feast your eyes on the general view of these historic sites from a circuit road of the Kyiv-Chop highway.

The town arose from the ashes, but in a different location. From the early 15

th to the mid-16 th century it was the property of the Princes Ostrozky. Kostiantyn Ostrozky began building a castle, which was completed in the late Renaissance period. Today it forms the city center, and the remnants of the castle — a monument of late Renaissance military architecture — are the hallmark and gem of Novohrad- Volynsky.

Another reminder of Lesia Ukrainka is nearby — a beautiful park with a fountain featuring the sculpture “Mavka and Lukash” in the center. When you stand there, it feels as though you are in the magic circle of Lesia Ukrainka’s brilliant poetic drama Forest Song. In Soviet times, and all the way to the mid-1990s, the city was the center of a fortified military area where many armed units were stationed.

The road from Novohrad-Volynsky to Horodnytsia (a town bordering on Rivne oblast) passes through rather dense woodland, famous for its unique shrubs of azalea pontica whose surprisingly beautiful amber-hued flowers have narcotic properties. The flowers of this plant, which is millions of years old, are depicted on the raion’s coat of arms and flag. A short distance from the main road, near the village of Khodurky, is an 11th - 12th-century archeological complex that has the status of a national heritage monument. These are two groups of ancient burials (12 and 11 mounds) which scholars believe are vestiges of the Slavicized Yatvingians.

After traveling a few more kilometers, I saw the “Partisans’ oak tree,” a memorial complex in honor of World War II fighters. Many well-known partisan units and couriers attached to units led by Kovpak, Fedorov and Saburov, reconnoitered here. The only thing left of the famous oak tree is its stump. Another wartime relic is a dugout that is so small you cannot stand upright without bumping your head against the ceiling. But that only reinforces the atmosphere of the partisans’ daily routine.

In the large village of Horodnytsia, located on the steep bank of the Sluch River, the domes and crosses of the Orthodox church of St. George’s Stavropegial (i.e., independent of the local eparchy) Monastery stretch to the heavens. Built in the 15 th century, the monastery is considered an architectural gem of Novohrad-Volynsky and the entire Zhytomyr oblast. Archimandrite Oleksandr, who has headed the monastery and monks for many years, cordially welcomes guests and takes them to the church. He is especially proud of two miraculous icons of the Holy Virgin: one is called “Quell my grief,” while the other has been known to cure serious illnesses, which is why most people light candles to this icon. In addition to St. George’s Monastery, the town is also home to a Roman Catholic church and a building that once housed a synagogue.

Some of the exhibits in Horodnytsia’s porcelain factory museum, founded in 1799, include a large collection of Soviet-era chinaware and little porcelain statues. I recognized some of these sets from my childhood, when they used to be brought out for guests during holidays.

There is also a wonderful old park in Horodnytsia, laid out 100 years ago by some local landowners, the Rulikovskys. Another natural monument can be found near the town — an old European larch grove dating to the mid-1850s. According to the logic of nature, Novohrad-Volynsky’s virgin forests were destined to become a shelter for all kinds of wildlife, including large species. Local foresters took this into account and built a hunting house near the village of Pyshchiv.

They started raising animals, and now hunters from neighboring Western countries flock here to shoot deer and wild boar. This is truly a little corner of heaven: on the shores of a lake right next to the hunting house you can feel the deep silence, so unusual for city dwellers, with every pore of your skin.

This was the last destination of my trip. My main impression is that Zhytomyr oblast has something for all tourists. Tourist organizations and local administrators were right to begin working on long-term projects — without waiting for manna to drop from the skies — to ensure stable development in this region.