Dnister River

By Walter Kish

Exactly a year ago this week, I stood on an escarpment overlooking the Dnister River several kilometres from the town of Khotyn.  It was one of the most beautiful and spectacular panoramas I had encountered in my many travels around this planet of ours.  These scenic heights are located in a state nature preserve called the “Podilskiy Tovtry”, and are located at a point where the river widens majestically as it courses its way down to the Black Sea.  In ancient times, a settlement by the name of Bakota stood here and the ruins of a nearly thousand year old monastery dug into the sides of the escarpment can still be seen by anyone with the stamina to brave one of the steep trails leading down to the riverbank.

The Dnister River starts in the Carpathian Mountains near the village of Vovche, not far from Drohobych, and winds its way past Sambir, Nyzhniv, Halych, Khotyn, Mohyliv-Podilskiy and Yampil, before entering what is now Moldova for the last third of its course to the Black Sea.  Although at 1360 km, the Dnister is the second longest river in Ukraine, it has always been overshadowed in Ukrainian lore by its big brother, the Dnipro River.   Nonetheless, it does have a long and interesting history and its banks can make claim to being one of the earliest settled regions of Ukraine, being home to the well known Trypillian Culture that flourished here from 4500 BC – 3000 BC.

During Kyivan-Rus times, the river served as the primary artery for the Principality of Galicia – Volhynia, with Halych as its capital.  For a long time, it also formed part of the primary trade route between the Baltic and the Black Seas which started on the Oder River and connected through the Vistula and Sian Rivers to the Dnister.  It was well known in Greek and Roman times, when it went it went by the name Tyras.  The Greeks built a major trading centre, also named Tyras at the river’s mouth on the Black Sea.  Subsequent to numerous invasions by the Huns, Goths, Magyars and Mongols, it lost its pre-eminence as a trade route, though it continued to play an important strategic role in the various conflicts between Ukrainians and the Turks, Tatars, Poles, Russians, Austrians, Hungarians and Romanians. 

During the thirteenth century, the Genoese built a trading post near Khotyn not far from Chernivtsi. Over the next several centuries, a large fortified castle was built on the banks of the Dnister at Khotyn by the Poles who by then had seized control of the western part of Ukraine. Khotyn became the major strategic defense against the expanding Turkish Empire.  Several times during the seventeenth century, large Ottoman Army contingents were defeated by combined Polish and Ukrainian forces at Khotyn.  Eventually, the Turks prevailed and seized Khotyn in the eighteenth century, only to lose it a century later to the Russians.

Although at one time the whole length of the Dnister was within Ukrainian territory, from the fourteenth century on, the lower reaches were conquered and settled by ethnic Romanians and the area eventually became known as the Principality of Moldovia.  In the 19^th century, the Kingdom of Romania was formed from the western regions of the Romanian ethnic area, while the eastern part was absorbed by the Russian Empire and became known as Bessarabia. 

Subsequent to the break up of the Soviet Union, this eastern region became the independent state of Moldova.  Since independence, there has been significant unrest in the easternmost region of Moldova known as Transnistria (or Trans-Dnister) which is populated mostly by transplanted ethnic Russians.  They have sought to break away from Moldova and rejoin Russia, and have been assisted significantly in this by Russian assistance and the presence of Russian soldiers.  The European Union, the U.S. and Ukraine have tried to mediate in the conflict but it remains unresolved to this day.

In contrast to the Dnipro, the Dnister remains largely undeveloped with few dams, hydro-electric stations or large scale industries along its length.  It is exploited for water supply and irrigation purposes, but most of it remains much as it was in centuries past.  For this we should be grateful, since there are few rivers or lakes left in Ukraine that were not overexploited and recklessly polluted during the Soviet era.