Polesie

Polissya (in Ukrainian), Полесье, or Poles'ye (in Russian), Polesie (Polish spelling), Пале́сьсе (Palyessye, Palesse) in Belarusian is one of the largest European swampy areas, located in the South-Western part of the Eastern-European Lowland. The meaning of the word polissya is close to "woodland".

Polissya lies within the territories of Belarus, Ukraine and Poland.

Locals are called Poleszuk (in Polish), or Polishchuk (in local Ukrainian dialect), Poleshchuk (in Russian), Palyashchuk (in Belarusian)).

Geography

Polissya is a marshy region that lines along the Pripyat River mostly in Southern Belarus (Brest, Pinsk, Kalinkavichy, Homel), Northern Ukraine (Volyn, Povna, Zhytomyr, North of Kyiv, Chernihiv) and partially in Poland (Lublin) and Russia (Bryansk). It is a flatland within the watersheds of the Western Bug and Pripyat river. The two rivers are connected by the Dnipro-Bug Canal, built during the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Among the numerous tributaries of the Pripyat are worthwhile mentioning the Horyn (Goryn), Stokhod(Stokhod, Stokhid), Styr, Ptich(Ptycz), Yasielda (Jasolda) rivers. The lagest towns in the Pripyat basin are Pinsk, Stolin, Davyd-Gorodok. Huge marshes have been considerably reclaimed in the 1960s - 1980s to increase the area of farming land. As a matter of fact, the reclamation is believed to have badly affected the biosphere and the climate along the course of the Pripyat river.

This region suffered severely from the Chernobyl accident, huge areas were polluted by radioactive elemants and now they are not suitable for living.