A History of Cossack Glory Under Airfield Concrete

Poltava local history experts say that there is a sawed-off seventeenth century cannon barrel installed in place of a chimney in an old woman's home in Rybtsi, a village in Poltava oblast. Sounds like a fairy tale and there is no evidence that anyone has ever bothered to check it out. Back in the 1950s a resident of one of the neighboring villages used a stone ax dating back at least 10,000 years. As for that old lady's gun barrel chimney, it may well have been used by either of the warring parties in the battle of Rybtsi, precisely in the ravine of Zhukiv Bairak. It could have been a military camp set up by either Poltava Cossack Colonel Martyn Pushkar (some historians believe he was a Muscovite boyar) or Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky.

The latter's field headquarters was somewhere in this locality and the battle took place further off, behind a small forest seen in the background. It was there that the Ukrainian Hetman lured Pushkar's troops after a two-week siege. According to Samiylo Velychko, those troops consisted of hastily conscripted "vintners, brewers, shepherds, and other hired labor." The battle was fought June 11, 1658, Pushkar's riffraff was defeated, and their commander was killed in action. The winning side suffered heavy losses, including some 500 mercenaries from a 1,500-strong German infantry corps fighting for the Hetman. "Fallen warriors were buried under two mounds," says Oleksandr Lomakyn, head of Poltava's Sviatovyt Society who has studied the ancient battlefield for quite some time. The society cannot afford any substantial research, excavation, or exhumation; nor would it ever surmount all the bureaucratic barriers.

In the twentieth century the site of the historic battle between Hetman Vyhovsky and rebellious Colonel Pushkar was noticed by people from the aviation industry and okayed as an airfield. The first one was built in the 1940s, very likely by descendants of the German mercenaries buried there. Gravestones from a nearby Jewish cemetery were used as paving material. Then came the Soviets and equipped it to their liking.

A short walk away from the concrete slabs paving the airfield takes one to a poultry farm and a huge dump. Further on beyond the forest, one finds what is left of the redan, an earth fortification once accommodating the Hetman's artillery, where Lomakin's team of archaeologists found several cannon shells and horseshoes. No systemic research has been carried out since, while local amateurs venture their own excavations, meaning that the site is being robbed of all historic valuables on a regular basis, Oleksandr Lomakin adds bitterly.