Berezan Island

Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / height missing

Beresan (Ukrainian and Russian Березань ) is an island in the Black Sea, which lies near the mouth of the Dnieper.

Geography

The island is about 900 meters long and up to 320 meters wide. In the time of the first city founded the island was apparently still on a narrow country lane passable, today it is separated by a five-meter deep and about 1.5 km long passage from the mainland.

The island is located south of the Beresan - Liman 12.8 km southwest of the city Ochakiv in Rajon Ochakiv in the Mykolaiv Oblast.

History

The island Beresan ( in ancient sources also Borysthenes, after the Greek name for the river Dnieper ) was one of the first Greek settlements in the northern region of the Black Sea. Beresan should not be confused with Olbia, which lay opposite the island.

The island was first settled in the middle of the 7th century BC. Eusebius of Caesarea is the colonization of by residents of Miletus 647-646. Beresan was then inhabited almost a thousand years, until the 5th century, the island was abandoned, among other things, due to the greater economic importance of Olbia.

The most important commodity of the residents was corn, which was purchased by the Scythians and loaded onto ships for transport to the Mediterranean. In ancient Greece, Olbia and Borysthenes were the main suppliers of grain.

Middle Ages

The control of the estuary ( in Slavic sources called Belobereschije ) was long disputed between the Kiev Rus and Byzantium. Only a contract between the Rus and Byzantium in 944 was able to settle the disputes. This was determined that the Rus were able to use the island in the summer as a camp without threatening the inhabitants of Chersonesus or set up winter camp on the island. An exception here is the winter 971/972, as the defeated troops of the Rus were given permission to set up a winter camp under Sviatoslav I, upon the defeat at Dorostolon of Emperor John Tzimiskes. Quickly due to the high number of in the subsequent period were staying there troops broke a famine on the island.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks built on the Beresan during their war against the Crimean Tatars in the 16th and 17th century fortifications. After the fall of the adjacent Ochakov to the Russians, the island was annexed by New Russia.

Excavations

The remains of Greek settlement and the accompanying necropolis have been excavated since the 19th century. Although parts of the island were flooded and erosion, and grave robbers had the ancient heritage affected, numerous ceramics and inscriptions were found.