Kievan Rus'
At the times of Kievan Rus', the borderline region played the role of an important military fortpost. The region had not only favourable climate for agriculture but a convenient geographic position as well. From here, one could easily control the old waterway "from Vikings to Greeks" (Grechnyk) and its hard-land branch Zalozhnyi Shlyah (Zalozhnyk), that went along the left bank of the Dnieper River. A well-known Solonyi Shlyah stretched along the Dnieper's right bank.
During the 10-13th centuries A.D., the cities of Voin, Roden, Kaniv, Korsun (now Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi) Zheld, Pisochen, and Zarub combined the functions of military fortresses and trade, crafts and cultural centres. In year 1144, the Grand Prince of Kiev Vsevolod II laid the foundation of Uspenskyi Cathedral in Kaniv. Old-Rus' manuscripts also mention the Zarubskyi Monastery (1147) – an important centre of religious life in Ukraine. The treasure found by the village Sachnivka of the Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi Raion showed the high level of goldsmith craft, developed in Kievan Rus'.
Mongol-Tartar invasion hampered economic and cultural development of the whole country, laying waste cities and villages of Cherkasy region. Some of them – Voin’, Roden’, Zheld’, Pisochen’ – never came to life.
But no invasion can stop the economic and cultural revival of this fertile land. People gradually returned to old ruins, bringing life and new hope with them. And in the year of 1305 the city of Cherkasy was first mentioned in Hustynskyi Manuscript together with Kiev, Kaniv, Zhytomyr, and Ovruch.
Read more about this topic: History Of Cherkasy Oblast