History of the village of Volovets
According to archaeological finds, the territory where modern Volovets is located began to be inhabited since the Bronze Age. In particular, in 1930, archaeologists found 23 bronze and 5 gold objects in two places in Volovka, which proved the existence of a settlement here from the end of the 2nd millennium BC. is.
Modern Volovets derives its roots from the ancient Slavic settlement of the Carpathians. The first mention of Volovets in written sources dates back to 1433. Then Volovets belonged to the Pereni barons and partially to the Bilkeys.
There is a legend about the foundation of Volovets. According to it, in ancient times, peasants from the surrounding settlements brought whole herds of oxen to this place in the valley of the Vycha River. During the first stage of its history, from the 15th to the 19th century, most of the residents of Volovets engaged in animal husbandry.
Over the centuries, the village passed from one owner to another, and at the beginning of the 17th century. it was included in the Mukachevo Dominion. Since 1645, thanks to the efforts of Prince György II Rakocza, Volovets became part of the Principality of Transylvania. In those distant times, only a few dozen families lived in the village, who were mainly engaged in animal husbandry. Throughout its history, Volovets repeatedly became the epicenter of battles during wars and uprisings. Thus, in 1657, Volovets was destroyed by Polish troops led by Prince Lubomyrsky. In 1703-1711, he was at the epicenter of the national liberation uprising of the Kuruts. After his suppression, in 1728, Volovets came under the ownership of Count Karl Schönborn as part of the Mukachevo-Chinadiyov Dominion. Local peasants worked hard on the manor and very often rebelled against the oppression of the landlords. In 1761-1762, as many as 33 residents of Volovets were imprisoned for participating in the rebel movement. In the summer of 1831, residents of Volovets took an active part in the peasant uprising, which covered a large part of Transcarpathia. Only after the revolution of 1848-1849 was the peasants’ feudal dependence on the landlords eliminated.
From the middle of the 19th century, the village began its tourist history. It was at this time that a ski jump was built here, which at that time was considered one of the best in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The first tourists in Volovka were representatives of the highest elite of the empire. In 1862, Volovets hosted even Emperor Franz Joseph himself.
Since the 19th century, Volovets has been gradually transformed from an agrarian into an industrial center. In the 1830s, a semi-artisan enterprise producing tiles and bricks began operating in Volovka. Since 1872, the socio-economic development of Volovets has significantly accelerated due to the construction of a railway through the village. One by one, industrial enterprises began to appear: a sawmill (beginning of the 20th century), a three-story steam sawmill for the production of building materials by entrepreneur Grimberg (1906).
The rapid development of the village continued during the tumultuous 20th century with its two world wars and the repressions of the Soviet regime. The population of Volovets grew rapidly from 600 people in 1870 to about 1,200 in 1900 and to 7,104 in 2015.
In addition, Volovets gradually became the educational center of the region. So, in 1882, a state primary school was opened here. In 1945, a secondary school appeared, and in the 1980s, 3 schools and a college were already operating.
In 1957, Volovets was granted the status of an urban-type settlement and district center. During the Soviet period, administrative buildings, a communications center, the House of Culture, the Plai camp, a shopping complex were built in Volovka, and a gas pumping station of the Urengoy-Pomari-Uzhhorod gas pipeline was built on the outskirts. In the 1980s, as many as five medical institutions provided their services to the population here.
Since 1991, Volovets became part of independent Ukraine. Nowadays, Volovets is one of the popular tourist centers of mountainous Transcarpathia with a population of over six thousand people. Due to its good geographical location, most of the routes along the Borzhavsky Poloniny begin from Volovets.
These days, Volovets has attracted considerable attention of the Internet community as the first settlement in Transcarpathia to be hit by a missile attack from the Russian Federation during the Russian-Ukrainian war, on the evening of May 3, 2022.
