Boryspil

Boryspil lies east of Kyiv in the forest-steppe of the left Dnieper bank, where roads from the capital cross marshes and patches of oak forest toward the Kharkiv plain. The Altica and its small tributaries shaped the low, wooded ground. Easy passage was scarce, so fords, rising ground and winter roads made the settlement a natural stop for messengers, princes and armies moving east.

The locality appears in accounts of the dynastic wars of 1015, when Prince Borys was killed during the struggle among Vladimir the Great’s sons. One explanation links the later name to Borys’s field; another connects it with Borysthenes, the Greek name of the Dnieper. A fortified settlement stood on high ground between branches of the Iltytsia and served as a place to change horses and rest embassies travelling between Kyiv and Pereiaslav.

The Mongol invasion destroyed that early settlement, and the land later passed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1508 a royal translator sold the site to Kyiv’s Saint Nicholas Hermitage, when the present name is thought to have taken form. The town became a royal estate in 1596 and received Magdeburg rights, with a town hall, market and municipal government. Its position on the eastern approach to Kyiv continued to define its role.