Buzkyi Hard and the Myhiia Rapids
The granite canyon of the Southern Buh on the site of a Zaporozhian palanka.
The park, of 6,138 ha, runs about 58 km along the Southern Buh from Pervomaisk to Oleksandrivka; the river goes here through a narrow canyon-like valley with granite cliffs, waterfalls and islands. The name comes from the Hard, a palanka of the Zaporozhian Host at the mouth of the Velykyi Tashlyk on the Buh, where "hard" means a fishing weir; the sources give no exact date for the founding of the palanka, so the entry carries the year the park was created, by decree No. 279/2009. The Myhiia rapids are held to be one of the best natural whitewater slalom runs in Europe. The main threat is not military: completing the Tashlyk pumped-storage plant involves raising the level of the reservoir, and in the words of the park's director Vladyslav Artamonov, Hardovyi Island would then be flooded completely — together with the rapids, part of the Cossack cemetery and the archaeological layers.
The park headquarters is in Myhiia; rafting and climbing are available, but the Mykolaiv region is near the front — check against the alert regime and the restrictions in force.