Berezan


Berezan’

 

island in the northwest of the Black Sea, at the entrance to the Dnieper estuary, 12.8 km west of Ochakov. Maximum length from north to south about 850 m; width, 850 m in the north and 200 m in the south.

Berezan’ was known in antiquity as Borisfen. The oldest settlement of ancient Greece on the territory of the USSR was uncovered in the northeastern part of the island. It has been established through excavations (periodic since the 1880’s) that the settlement appeared at the end of the seventh century B.C. (coins, many early ancient Greek ceramics with inscriptions, and also Roman ceramics have been found). The settlement lost its importance as a Greek outpost in the fifth century B.C., giving way to Olbia. A considerable number of the finds on Berezan’ date to Roman times (the first centuries A.D.). There was a Slavic settlement here during the tenth to 12th centuries. Glass bracelets, articles of wood, and iron implements have been uncovered. On Mar. 6, 1906, active participants in the Sevastopol’ Uprising of 1905 were shot on Berezan’: Lieutenant P. P. Shmidt and the seamen A. I. Gladkov, N. G. Antonenko, and S. P. Chast-nik.

REFERENCES

Artamonova, O. A. “Drevneishee poselenie na ostrove Berezani.” In the collection Kratkie soobshcheniia o dokladakh i polevykh issledovaniiakh In-ta istorii material’noi kul’tury AN SSSR, issue 5. Moscow, 1940.
Lapin, V. V. Grecheskaia kolonizatsiia Severnogo Prichernomor’ia. Kiev, 1966.

A. K. KOROVINA


Berezan’

 

an urban-type settlement in Baryshev Raion of Kiev Oblast, in the Ukrainian SSR, on the Nedra River (Dnieper basin). Railroad station on the Kiev-Iagotin line. Population, 10,200 (1968). There is a cloth factory, a brick works, and a factory producing reinforced-concrete items. Food enterprises include a dairy and a food combine.