Sianky

Syanky is a village in Ukraine, in the Turka district of the Lviv region. The village of Syanky is located near the source of the Syan River, on the territory of the Nadsianskyi Regional Landscape Park. To the north of the village is the Buchok Ridge, to the south is the Watershed Ridge and the Uzhok Pass, to the west is the Sian River (along which the Polish-Ukrainian border runs), and to the east is the Lviv-Turka-Uzhhorod highway.

The village of Syanky (Syanske) was founded in 1586 by the Krakow governor Petro Kmit. During the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, three wooden churches of the Boyko type were built in Syanky, two of which (1645 and 1703) were sold to the villages of Kostryna and Sil in Zakarpattia, where they have survived to this day. Part of Syianky is still called "brine" because salt was once mined here.

In the early twentieth century, a railroad was laid through the village, connecting Uzhhorod with Przemyśl and Lviv; in 1904, a railway station was built here, which still operates today. In 1905, the construction was completed and the Sambir-Sianky section of the railroad was put into operation.

Before the Second World War, the village had 10 rest houses, 6 boarding houses, and 3 tourist shelters that could accommodate almost two thousand vacationers, as well as a theater, a library, tennis courts, a ski jump, a toboggan run, and a meteorological station. The ski slope on the nearby Sianki Mountain was considered one of the best in prewar Poland.

Until the second half of the 1940s, the village lay on both sides of the Sian River. After the war, the western part of the village's territory (on the left bank of the Syan) was given to Poland. After the border between Poland and the USSR was established, the Polish part of the village was completely destroyed and its inhabitants were evicted. The village has preserved traditional wooden Boyko buildings and fences, sawmills, old bridges, and many roadside chapels and crosses.

In 2016, work was carried out to adapt the station Syanky to the needs of the disabled, given its location 2 km from the Paralympic base.

There were a Catholic church and two Greek Catholic churches in the village: St. Stephen's (1831) and St. Elijah's (1908). In 1936, there were 719 Greek Catholics in the village, and the community belonged to the parish of Beniowa of the Turczanski Deanery of the Przemyśl Eparchy. The churches were destroyed after World War II, and the stone courtyard chapel was blown up in 1970. In the 1990s, two new churches were built in Syanky: the Greek Catholic Church of St. George and the Orthodox Church of the Ascension.