Cossack Boat

The boat was washed up on the left bank of the Goryn River in the vicinity of the Town of Orzhiv in the spring of 1966.

The boat has a trough-like shape. It was carved out of a solid 700-year-old oak. The length of the preserved portion of the boat is 13 meters, its maximum width is 2.6 m, the thickness of the sides is 3 cm, and the thickness of the bottom is 7 cm. On the inside, the boat was fastened with nine transversal frames.

The bottom of the boat is flat, and its sides are convex. Inside, two iron quadrangular nails with narrow rectangular heads were driven in, similar to those unearthed during the excavations of the Cossack crossing on the site of the Battle of Berestechko.

The Orzhiv boat was large, heavy and could hardly be used for manoeuvring on the river. It could not be a hunting or fishing boat, either. Most likely, it was a warship that could accommodate up to 30 – 40 strong personnel, and was more suitable for sailing on large rivers or at sea. In terms of its type and design features, it matches the Cossack boats found by Dmytro Yavornytsky in the Dnipro River near Pokrovske

The discovery of the Cossack oaken boat in Western Volhynia could likely be linked to the events of the Cossack Rebellion of 1648 – 1654, more specifically, the 1648 western campaign of the Cossack troops across Volhynia, when detachments led by Maksym Kryvonis operated in the outskirts of Rivne and Dubno.