Oleshia [Олешшя; Oleššja]. A medieval trading outpost and port near the mouth of the Dnipro River. Some historians believed that Oleshia was situated at the site of present-day Oleshky because of the similarity of its name, but archeological remains to substantiate this were lacking. Subsequent archeological studies of two Kyivan Rus’ settlements in the region now point to one, the Horodyshche site, 10 km downriver from the Kherson city center, as the site of Oleshia. Located on the Velykyi Vilkhovyi Island (before January 2025, Velykyi Potemkin Island) on the Staryi Dnipro channel (at dock No. 5) south of the narrow Prohnii channel, the site is now partly occupied by cottages. Its thick cultural layer (1.5 m, over 150 years) contains evidence of a city with smelting (slag, bloom products), metal working (nails, knives, swords, and 12th–13th century locks), shipbuilding (ship boards, on the bottom of the Dnipro River, remains of a boat and pier) and fishing (for home consumption and export). Its top layer contains remains of a burned city, with skeletons of mainly women and children.
According to 11th- to 13th-century chronicles Oleshia was major Rus’ trading center with military and diplomatic functions on the Kyiv–Constantinople route. Located in the open steppe dominated by the nomadic Cumans (Polovtsians), it was a wooded island offering a defensive position and building materials. Oleshia was mentioned in 6 events: 1) in 1084, when the outlawed izhoi Prince Davyd Ihorovych robbed the Rus’ merchants of Oleshia (the so-called hrechnyky) who traded with Byzantium, for which he was punished by the grand prince of Kyiv Vsevolod Yaroslavovych; 2) in 1153, when representatives of Prince Iziaslav Msyslavych of Kyiv waited for the arrival of his bride to be, the Georgian Princess Rusudan, at this remote outpost of Kyiv principality; 3) in 1160, the raid on the merchants of Oleshia by the Berladnyky, a warrior group from the Dnister River and Danube River delta, which was defeated (the captives freed and booty retrieved) by the voivodes of the Kyiv Prince Rostyslav Mstyslavych; 4) in 1164, when the emissaries of the Kyiv prince met in Oleshia the emissary of Byzantium and the newly appointed metropolitan of Kyiv, the Greek, Ioan IV; 5) in 1219, when Prince Danylo Romanovych of Halych principality and his military received the assistance of 200 boats from Oleshia to cross the Dnister River; and 6) in 1223, when Oleshia served as a meeting point for the Rus’ forces from Halych and the forces of the Cumans on their way to join other Rus’ forces to battle the Mongol invaders at the Kalka River.
Residents of Oleshia were merchants, craftsmen, fishermen, farmers and sailors. The town’s population was ethnically mixed. It included Alans (the descendants of Sarmatians), Bulgar Turks, Cumans, Slavs of Kyivan Rus’ and Jews, but the largest group of merchants initially was Greek. Until the 10th century the town belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, and then it became a strategic commercial enclave of Kyivan Rus’ in the land of the Cumans, mainly for trade with Byzantium, the Crimea, the Caucasia, and other parts of the Black Sea basin.
After the Mongol invasion and the destruction of Oleshky (1223 or more likely 1242), a Genoese trading colony called Illice, now in the land controlled by the Golden Horde, replaced it nearby. In the mid-15th century Illice was destroyed by the Turks, who established Özü (Turkish: Özü Kuşatması; in Ukrainian, Ochakiv) to control access to the Dnipro River.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Litopys Rus'kyi za ipats'kym spyskom, pereklav Leonid Makhnovets' (Kyiv 1989)
Loza, Iu., Istorychnyi atlas Ukraïny. Naidavnishe mynule” Rus' (Kyiv 2010)
Plakhonin, A., Vortman, D. ‘Oleshshia’, Entsyklopediia istorii Ukraïny vol 7 (Kyiv 2010)
Plakhonin, A., Vortman, D. ‘Oleshshia’, Entsyklopediia suchasnoi Ukraïny vol 24 (Kyiv 2022)
Saveniuk, L., Vodotyka, S. ‘Litopysne Oleshshia v konteksti istorii Ukraïny-Rusi’, Misto. Istoriia, Kul'tura, Suspil'stvo no. 14 (Kyiv 2022)
Ihor Stebelsky
[This article was updated in 2025.]