Oleshia

Oleshia lay among the branches and wetlands of the lower Dnipro, where routes from the river reached the Black Sea. The old Rus' town of Oleshshia is mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle, and its name endured in the country of reeds, channels and sandy ground on the river's left bank. Fishing and boats belonged to the life of the lower Dnipro.

After the destruction of the Kamianka Sich, Zaporozhian Cossacks withdrew to lands under the Crimean Khanate and around 1711 founded the Oleshky Sich under their leader Kost Hordiienko. They remained there until 1728. Later, after the Russian annexation of Crimea and northern Tavria, fifty families of state peasants founded a settlement near Oleshky in 1784. The old name thus remained attached to this river landscape through successive changes of power.