Tomakivka

Tomakivka belongs to the country north of the lower Dnipro's Great Meadow, a maze of islands, channels and marshes. The island of Tomakivka, farther south on the river, gave its name to an early Zaporozhian Sich. Surrounded by water and wetlands, it offered the Cossacks a defensible base from which to operate in the steppe and on the river.

The Tomakivka Sich was established in the sixteenth century. In 1593 Tatar forces attacked and destroyed its defences while much of the Cossack force was away. Survivors left by boat, and the Cossacks established another Sich on the island of Bazavluk. Tomakivka continued to serve as a point on the lower Dnipro routes: in 1697 Cossack and Russian forces waited there for Hetman Ivan Mazepa returning from the Tavan campaign.