09.07.1866 year near the village of Princess Perechinsky district Зakarpattia had a unique case-the fall of a huge meteorite. After the terrible explosion and the rain of stones, after recovering from their fright, the people began to collect the debris. Fortunately, no one was injured by the rockfall. Superstitious peasants attributed mysterious black boulders miraculous power. The trade in meteorite fragments began.
For scientific research of this event, special commissions were created that collected and studied the fragments of the meteorite. In total, more than 1000 pieces were found. The largest of them was found at a distance of 8 kilometers from C. Princess on the mountain Wash, in the tract Chorni Mlaky a simple peasant Vasily Krivonikol. In the Hayfield, he noticed a depression in the ground that he hadn’t noticed before. After digging even deeper into the ground in this place he managed to find a large fragment of the meteorite Princess weighing 279 kg 766 g to the Forester Veliky Berezny Andrey Pokorny managed to buy the find for a couple of dollars, and then resell it to the Imperial Museum, in Austrian. Today, this fragment can be seen in the exhibition of the Vienna natural history Museum.
The remaining fragments of the Princess are found in more than a hundred collections in many countries. The weight of all found pieces of meteorite is almost half a ton. This is the largest meteorite found in Europe.
In Transcarpathian Museum of local lore in Uzhgorod a fragment of a meteorite found in 1866 by Yuri wolf is stored. Yuri’s descendants, who kept the stone at home as a family heirloom, presented it to the Museum in 1960. According to its bright optical and powerful acoustic properties, the number, shape and size of the fragments, the knyaginsky meteorite is the most unique phenomenon of those times. It fell in the most favorable conditions-during the day, in clear Sunny weather, in full view of tens of thousands of people. The phenomenon was immediately subjected to scientific research, which gave a strong impetus to the development of cosmogony. As early as July 12, 1866, an official scientific Commission visited the site of the fall.
In the novel ” a Mysterious place in the Carpathian” French the writer Jules Verne tells about the meteorite Princess. The famous novelist visited Transcarpathia in 1892 and visited the epicenter of the meteorite fall. At the site of the meteorite fall is now located Uzhansky national Park. A memorial sign is planned to be installed here.
