Burshtyn


Burštýn is a city located in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine, to the north of Halych. It was in the Halych Raion until 11 March 2014, when it received the status of city of oblast significance. It is accessible by rail.
It developed rapidly and significantly grew in population during the Soviet period. Administratively, Burshtyn is incorporated as a city of regional significance.
The town, which was one of the Jewish shtetls, and whose name in Ukrainian and Polish literally means Amber, was only granted city status in 1993 and has a special administrative status in Halych Raion. As an urbanized settlement from 1944 to 1962 it was the main town of the raion. There is an old Roman Catholic Church in the center of the city, which was restored at the beginning of the 21st century.
One of its landmarks is the Burshtyn TES coal-fired power station, which is situated on a reservoir approximately 8 km long and 2 km wide. A fish farm lies on the lake near the district of Bilshivtsi. The town is known for its soccer club Enerhetyk.

History

The first mention of this town was in a Halych history book from 1596, where it was referred to as Nove Selo, although the town establishment dates back to 1554. In 1809, Franz Xaver Mozart, son of Wolfgang A. Mozart, lived in Burshtyn which at that time was part of the Austrian Empire.
There is an old Jewish cemetery in Burshtyn, the only surviving testament of once thriving Jewish community in the city – in 1942 there were 1,700 Jews residing in Burshtyn. Nazis transferred all the Burshtyn Jews to a ghetto in nearby Rohatyn, where they were executed by shooting. The remainder of Jews were taken to the Belzec extermination camp.
The Jewish cemetery was established in the 18th century with the last known Hasidic Jewish burial in the 1940s.

Notable residents