Description of the attraction
Khortytsya Island is the largest island in Ukraine and is located in the middle of the city of Zaporozhye. From ancient times, Khortytsya was a natural fortress and reliably protected the tribes that settled on it. There are plenty of traces of ancient settlers on the island: these are burial mounds and stone sculptures of the Scythian times, which are represented by the complex “Scythian Stan”. There is also a pagan sanctuary on the island.
In the 16th century, the Zaporozhye Sich was founded on the island of Khortytsya, which was a fortified camp of the Ukrainian Cossacks, and later became the center of the Cossack state.
In 1965, the State, and later the National Historical and Cultural Reserve was created here. Today it has become the largest museum complex. Khortytsya Island will impress anyone with its picturesque rocks and granite shores. It is simply dotted with various lakes and gullies. Khortitsa is surrounded by a large number of large and small islands and rocks that are part of the reserve.
In 2011, on the Dnieper near the island of Khortitsa, an Old Russian sword of the Carolingian type was discovered, which dates approximately to the middle of the 10th century. Much earlier, when the Dnieper hydroelectric station was being built at the beginning of the 20th century, similar finds were made in the form of 5 Old Russian swords of the Carolingian type, but during the war they all disappeared.
The island was often visited by prominent people. On one of the slopes of the island there is the Shevchenko trail, it acquired its name after the poet visited it. In 1878 the famous composer N. V. Lysenko was there. In the spring of 1880 I. E. Repin visited the island, while he was working on sketches that were later used in the painting "The Cossacks". Maxim Gorky also visited this place.
At the moment, on the island of Khortytsya, there are many environmental, religious and socio-cultural organizations.
