Dov Bar's Volchin - The Pulva River

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Dov Bar's Volchin

The Pulva River
Volchin was bounded on the north side by a loop of the Pulva River, which flowed down from the nearby town of Wysokie-Litewskie -- generally from north-to-south.

The Pulva River, highlighted in bright green, bounding Volchin.
The area shown is approximately 2km (1.25 mi) square.
A portion of an inter-war 1:100,000 scale maps,
courtesy of mapywig.org

Volchiners called the Pulva simply, the Tych, the water. Later it continues and flows into the Bug River. The Volchiners used to bathe in the Pulva in Summer.

Rachmil Stavsky -- the “life guard” of Volchin-- would locate the bodies of drowning victims in the Pulva by throwing a loaf of bread in the river. He would take a loaf of bread and throw it into the water. Then he would follow the direction the loaf was swept away, go quickly into that place to pull out the victim.

Shmuel Englander told me he walked across the frozen Pulva River in winter to the government school, a short-cut.

Editor's Notes: on the north side: more correctly, as can be seen by the map shown above: the east side. The Y in Tych is pronounced as the i in the English word life. There is good authority --an eyewitness-- that the Jews of Wysokie used the same term for the Pulva; they also used it for bathing and laundry. In recent years the Pulva is modest-sized, little more than a stream and fully tamed. Historically, the river was subject to dramatic flooding. Life Guard: it appears that though the Jews bathed in the river, few of them knew how to swim. Bug River: pronounced Boog. The similarity to the English word for insect is unfortunate; there is no connection.

Page Last Updated: 28-Mar-2012