Набережна Київського водосховища (ГЕС, цегельні заводи, історичний ландшафт)

Embankment of the Kiev reservoir. (Hydroelectric power station, brick plants, historical landscape)
Historical landscape of the chronicle’s Vyshgorod city
Vyshgorod, which is located on the northern edge of the Kiev Plateau, is part of the Dnieper Highlands. Its historical part is on the steep right bank of the Dnieper, and now - the Kiev reservoir, on a hill that most protrudes to the valley of the Dnieper. Together with the Kiev mountains, which are also far into the space of the valley, it closes the huge fifteen-kilometer amphitheater of the Dnieper valley, limited by a high slope of the right bank, with a smooth arc stretched from Vyshgorod to Starokyivska hill. Ancient Vyshgorod and ancient Kiev, located opposite one, crowned the high extremities of this amphitheater, reigned in it, defended its inhabited space.
The main landscape object of Vyshgorod, which views well and plays a leading role in the image of the city, is the hill on which the ancient city and the largest temple in those days rised.
Vyshgorod castle mound is located on the most remote mountain in the valley of the Dnieper, 60 meters high and has a slope toward the south, in the direction of Kyiv, and therefore this picturesque terrain with the panorama of Kyiv, which it completes, is well views from most of the old territories of Vyshhorod.
In the landscape of Vyshhorod a huge role is played by the Dnieper, and now the Kyiv reservoir, which emerged above the dam of the hydroelectric power station. The almost immense space of the Kyiv reservoir contrasts with the high steep banks of the historic part of the city. The old fortress, accented by the church of St. Boris and Hlib, picturesquely reflects on it.
The historical landscape of the Old Russian Vyshgorod is listed in the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine.
Brick production in Vyshgorod
Under the Vyshhorod hills near the Embankment are small bets, which due to its form in the people called "The Small Behemoths".
In the middle of the 19th century the entire coast along Vyshgorod was occupied by brickworks. In different years their number was various.
At the beginning of the 19th century in Vyshgorod, there had been one brick factory, but in the middle of the century there were already five.
They were located on the banks of the Dnieper, more precisely one of the sleeves of the river, which then was called "Konoplyanka" and stretched until Mezhygirya.
Since 1843 the brick factory of Felix Yosypovych Berezovsky was known, which had four furnaces for burning brick under wooden roofs, seven sheds of drying under straw ribbons.
Clay for brick was chosen from pits near the factory, and firewood - "from neighboring owners".
Wooden forms were applied for the production. Although from the end of the 18th century in European countries machines were invented to improve hard work; in royal Russia, due to the labor power, manual labor was spread.
In F. Berezovsky plant, in 1843, there were ten freelance cavalrymen and eight serfs. During this year, the plant produced 375,000 pieces of yellow burned bricks. Ready products were purchased in Kiev. The great demand for bricks in those days in Kyiv and the convenience of waterborne connections on the Dnieper contributed to prosperity in Vyshgorod in the 19th century. brick production.
It is interesting that the markings [F. B.] marked with each bricks.
The work on the brickworks was seasonal in nature. This is due to the technology of extraction and pre-treatment of clay. The clay, dug in the quarries, was loosened and left to freeze-drying until the spring, then it was dried. After this treatment clay is much better combined with water. It was in the summer that brick was formed, dried and bake.
Five Vyshhorod bricks produced 6 million bricks annually.
At the beginning of the 20th century brick began to be used in the village for housing construction. An example of this in Vyshgorod is a two-storeyed dwelling-house of the family of the wealthy peasant School (modern street Shkylna, 58) and a house for teachers of the Zemsky school, built in 1907 (Shkilna St., 29).
In addition to the usual building bricks that were produced at the plants of Vyshgorod and the village of New Petrivtsi, the so-called mezhigirka - a refractory bricks of a small format (13 × 6 × 3, 16 × 8 × 3, 20 × 10 × 4 cm), which was used for the construction of stoves, have a huge demand.
After 1917, one brick factory remained in Vyshgorod.
Kiev hydroelectric power station and HPS
In the early 60's of the 20th century Vyshgorod began a large-scale construction of a hydroelectric power station, which became the first in a cascade of six hydroelectric power plants of the Dnipro cascade (and the latest in creation). In 1964-1968, 20 sets of units were delivered.
The work was headed by Hero of Socialist Labor Hrihory Strokov.
In parallel to the construction an artificial reservoir was built, 12 km wide, on the section of the Dnieper from Vyshgorod to the borders with Belarus. Over 900 km2 of the floodplain of the Dnieper River were flooded, where 52 villages were located.
The complex of hydroelectric power stations consists of a dam, a building with electric power generation devices, a navigable gateway, a motorway, and a Hydroelectric Power Station (HPS).
The HPS has a separate reservoir, a turbine hall and a complex of hydraulic structures that produce 190 million kW of electricity per year.
The station is built to cover the peaks of energy loads and together with the hydroelectric power station it is a single hydropower system.
Фото Сергій Пінчук

Vadym Pereguda,
researcher at the Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Maxim Rylsky
Dmytro Shevchenko,
Head of the Historical Museum of the Vyshgorod Historical and Cultural Reserve