People navigated Svitiaz by more than compass direction or distance from shore. Fishers and residents of the surrounding villages distinguished dozens of local places: Hlyb, Tuchna Pit, Ostrivenska Rise, Vorota, Shchuchna, Lovyska and many others.
Together the names form a vernacular map of the lake — intangible heritage tied to bottom relief, fishing experience and ways of describing space before satellite navigation.
What is a named underwater locality?
These features are neither administrative parcels nor official hydrographic boundaries. Each is a locally named place or zone. A name may refer to:
- a depression or pit;
- a shoal or underwater rise, traditionally called a “mountain”;
- a bay or channel;
- a reed bed or shore zone;
- a broader part of the lake known by a distinct name.
Hlyb, for example, is the deepest depression at 58.4 m. Tuchna Pit reaches about 32 m, while neighbouring Tuchna Rise is an underwater plateau. Ostrivenska Rise comes to about 0.6 m below the surface, and Vorota marks the narrow channel between Buzhnia Bay and the main lake.
How the interactive map was made
Names and forms were read from a historical bathymetric scheme whose isobaths derive from Stanisław Lencewicz’s 1931 soundings. The scheme was fitted to the modern shoreline, and the centres of labelled zones were transferred to geographic coordinates.
Because the source is schematic, the expected positional error is about 50–200 m. Circles on the map represent approximate zones, not surveyed boundaries. The result is suitable for a historical-geographical gazetteer, but not for navigation or the safe passage of shallows.
How to read the names
The map preserves Ukrainian local names as cultural toponyms rather than replacing them with newly invented English names. English labels explain the type of feature, while transliteration makes the original place name searchable. Historical spelling may not always capture current local pronunciation, and some names have variants.