History of Svalyava

The city of Svalyava is located in the picturesque valley of the Latorytsia River. From Uzhgorod It takes 72 kilometres to get here. The population of the city is about 17000 people.

The first written mention of Svalyava dates back to the XII century. Back then, it was a small village that belonged to the feudal lord Bet Betke. Once this town was called Solva, Zoloa – and each of its names comes from the word salt (in Hungarian “solva” means “salt water”). The fact that people have been settling here since ancient times is evidenced by an ancient site found by archaeologists, which is 20-30 thousand years old, and a Neolithic settlement in the Neiva tract. The border between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, a “no man’s land”, ran through the Svaliava Basin. There is a hypothesis that fugitive peasants were the first to come to these lands.

During the first centuries of its existence, the owners of Svalyava changed frequently. They included the Grand Duke of Kyiv Mykhailo Vsevolodovych, the Pereni Barons, the Berehovo Zupan Shimon and the Master Aladar. In the 16th century, Svalyava became part of the Principality of Transylvania.

In 1703-1711, Svalyava residents took an active part in the Hungarian national liberation war against Habsburg rule.

Since 1728, Svalyava became the property of the counts of Schönborn. Two lions, the emblem of this noble family, appeared on the city seal and labels of Svalyava mineral water. In 1737-1778 a stone church was built in Svaliava. Since 1790, annual fairs have been held in the city.

In 1887, Svalyava received a railway connection, after which the economic development of the city accelerated significantly.

In October 1914, during the First World War, the city was captured by the Russian troops of General Fesenko for a short period of time. In December 1918, representatives of 30 surrounding villages created the Russian People’s Council in Svalyava, which advocated for accession to Ukraine. A year later, this territory was ceded to Czechoslovakia. To this day, the city school for 700 pupils, built in 1926, is popularly called the Masaryk school (after the name of the Czech president at the time). The Assumption Greek Catholic Church in the city centre, built in 1937 for the needs of the Orthodox community of Svalyava, managed to serve as a warehouse and an art gallery in Soviet times.

Svalyava received the status of a city in 1957. One of the districts of the city has an exotic name “Brazil”. The fact is that at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, many residents left here for this distant country across the ocean in search of a better life.

In 1972, the actor Rostislav Platt in the role of Pastor Schlag crossed the border on skis near Svalyava. Some episodes of the Soviet blockbuster film Seventeen Moments of Spring were filmed near Svalyava.

During the years of Soviet rule, Svalyava turned from a small provincial town into an industrial centre. In the 1980s, the town was home to a timber and timber chemical plant, the Electron plant, a trade equipment factory, a juice and glassware factory.

Since 1998, a historical museum has been operating in the town (33 Holovna Street), where tourists can learn more about the history of Svalyava.

For schoolchildren, the guide will certainly demonstrate textbooks and notebooks of students who attended school in the early twentieth century.

Ethnographic antiquities attract special attention of visitors. The museum guides, in addition to telling stories about them, demonstrate how they function and involve visitors in this. This adds a certain dynamism and interactivity to the museum.

Despite its venerable age, the church has not lost its attractive appearance.

Originally, the church stood on the neighbouring Berdi Mountain and was moved due to the threat of a landslide. The second construction phase in the church’s history began in 1759, when it was overhauled. Then a 15-metre high bell tower was built over the Babynets. The church consists of three volumes of different heights, each with its own roof, which does not prevent the church from being perceived as a harmonious whole. In 1972, the church was restored by the famous architect I. Mohytych.

Unfortunately, the old bell tower of the church was not preserved. The modern stone one was built in 2000. A message to the next generations is embedded in its basement: The ancient custom has adapted to the new conditions after the Soviet era.

Healing baths were made in a very simple way: mineral water was heated with hot stones in rock hollows or in pits covered with clay. This was the prototype of the first balneological sanatoriums.

In 1558, envoys of the Moscow Tsar Ivan the Terrible, returning to Moscow from Constantinople after negotiations with the Turkish Sultan, transited through the territory of Transcarpathia and tasted the local mineral water for the first time. When they returned home, they said that in the Polonynsky Mountains there are springs of water that taste sweet or like vinegar. There are also hot springs where you can even cook food. Many people are treated in those waters and find healing.

In 1576, the Transylvanian prince Stefan Batory, who was elected by the nobility as the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, stopped in the village of Polyana on his way from Semyhrad to Krakow. The prince’s doctor was the founder of Polish medicine, Wojciech Ochko. He recommended taking medicinal baths before the coronation in order to appear vigorous and healthy before his subjects.

It is known that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the ambassadors of Peter the Great were frequent visitors to Transcarpathia. In special vessels, they carried Transcarpathian mineral water to the Russian emperor, where it was valued no less than the gamekeeper’s water from Karlsbad and Marienbad (now Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Bány in the Czech Republic).

Repeatedly mineral waters Carpathians has been recognised internationally. In particular, the mineral water Polyana Kvasova was awarded 21 times at international mineral water competitions between 1842 and 1911.

Not far from Svalyava, in the small village of Uklyn, the Mineral Springs Day has been celebrated every year since 2007 on Midsummer Day, during which you can taste local healing drinks and traditional cuisine and buy handicrafts.

Only three wooden churches of similar style have survived in Transcarpathia (Rakhiv, Kostrynska Roztoka, Tarasivtsi). A similar church also existed in the village of Domashyn, Uzhhorod district. It was the youngest among these churches. It was built in 1907. In 2007, it was destroyed and a new one was built in its place.

The Uklynska church is the oldest among a group of small wooden churches in Transcarpathia. Originally, it was covered with wood shingles. In 2002, it was restored and the roof was covered with shingles. The bells of this church were moved to the new church, which was built in 1992. Currently, the Peter and Paul Church in the village of Uklyn is closed and not used for its intended purpose.

Tourists who decide to admire the views of the village can stay in the hotel complex “Uklyn” with a restaurant serving Transcarpathian cuisine.

He gave the village its name because there were dense thickets of pigeons nesting there. It is thanks to this founder that many of the village’s indigenous residents have the surname Popovych.

Golubyne attracts tourists with its mineral springs, souvenirs and picturesque nature. In the village, you can buy wonderful baskets woven by folk craftsmen. Between the villages of Holubyne and Solochyn, the Luzhanska mineral water has been used since 1965 Kvitka Polonyny sanatorium. It treats diseases of the stomach, biliary tract and liver, hepatitis, diabetes mellitus, and removes radionuclides. The drilling well is located directly on the territory of the health resort. There is a ski resort with a ski lift six kilometres away. The main object of photography in the sanatorium is a huge dinosaur sculpture.

It was near Holubyne that in 1878 the Schönborn counts began to extract water from the Margit, Luga Erzhebet and Pannonia-Zhofia springs. At that time, this water was used to treat diseases of the upper respiratory tract, intestines, kidneys and gallbladder, as well as diabetes.

Holubyne is also known for the birthplace of Hryhoriy Zhatkovych, who was the first governor of Subcarpathian Rus in the Czechoslovak Republic.

The village is also home to the Eldorado hotel complex and the Suzirya health complex. Margit bottles water from a local spring.

The village has a legend about how in 1721, the son of Prince Ferenc II Rákóczi, hid from the Austrian authorities in the Petrus family for four days. The young prince, fleeing from his pursuers, shod his horses with inverted horseshoes.

Unfortunately, the local underground mineral water reserves have recently decreased by almost half due to unreasonable development in the protected area.