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Oleshshya (City of Kyivan Rus)

Oleshshya was an Old Rus city of the 10th–13th centuries on Velykyi Potomkin Island, an important outpost of Kyivan Rus in the Lower Dnieper region and a link on the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks".

Overview

Oleshshya (near Kherson) existed during the 10th–13th centuries on Velykyi Potomkin Island as an important outpost of Kyivan Rus in the Lower Dnieper region. Its harbor at the mouth of the Dnieper-Slavutych at the exit to the Rus (Black) Sea served as a key link on the great trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" — from Scandinavia to Byzantium.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • First Mention and Dating: Oleshshya is first mentioned in Old Rus chronicles in 1084, but researchers, based on the dating of archaeological finds, believe the city arose 100 years earlier.
  • Harbor on the Route "from the Varangians to the Greeks": the mouth of the Dnieper-Slavutych at the exit to the Rus (Black) Sea was an important link on the route from Scandinavia to Byzantium.
  • Outpost of Rus and Defense of the "Paths of Fathers": in the 11th century, Oleshshya had already become an outpost of Rus in distant lands, controlling trade and shipping; when the city was threatened by danger, the Kyivan princes went to defend, in the words of the chronicler, "the paths of their fathers and grandfathers."
  • Hospitable Maritime Gateway: in peaceful times, it served as the maritime gateway of the Rus state — caravans of merchant ships carrying overseas goods arrived here, and foreign ambassadors and candidates for Metropolitan of Kyiv appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople were met here and escorted to Kyiv.
  • Population — "Grechnyky" and "Korsuntsi": among the residents were "grechnyky" (Greek merchants from Byzantium) and "korsuntsi" (natives of Korsun — as Tauric Chersonesos was called in Rus, the medieval name of Chersonesus, founded by ancient Greeks in Crimea on the site of modern Sevastopol).
  • Connection with New Kherson and the Baptism of Volodymyr: it was from Tauric Chersonesos, where Prince Volodymyr the Great accepted Christianity in 988, that the new Kherson, founded on the banks of the Dnieper in 1778, inherited its name.
  • Kyivan Rus. Oleshshya — primary source about the city of Oleshshya in the Lower Dnieper region.
  • Kherson — the new Kherson (founded 1778) inherited its name from Tauric Chersonesos (Korsun), connected with Oleshshya.
  • Kherson and Taurida Governorates — Oleshshya was in the sphere of interest of Novorossiya, and later Kherson Governorate, on the lands of southern Ukraine.
  • Greeks in Crimea — ancient Greeks founded their poleis in Crimea as early as the 5th century BCE, and Tauric Chersonesos (Korsun) was the center of Greek influence on the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks".