Ukraine has a pow­er­ful hydro-min­er­al resource base that is still under­uti­lized. One of the most under­es­ti­mat­ed resources is ther­a­peu­tic mud.

Mud ther­a­py is one of the old­est nat­ur­al heal­ing meth­ods. It was used in Ancient Egypt, Rome, and India. Peo­ple observed that wounds of hors­es and camels healed faster in mud along min­er­al springs and lat­er applied this knowl­edge in med­i­cine.

Mud treat­ment on the ter­ri­to­ry of Ukraine — in the Crimea, as evi­denced by the records of the Roman his­to­ri­an Pliny the Elder, can be con­sid­ered one of the old­est. The wound­ed sol­diers of Alexan­der the Great were treat­ed with the heal­ing mud of lake Chokrak, locat­ed in the north of the Kerch Penin­su­la.

Ther­a­peu­tic mud (peloids) are peat, sapro­pel­ic, and sul­fide silt deposits, as well as mud vol­cano for­ma­tions. They con­sist of min­er­al and organ­ic sub­stances and water, formed through com­plex phys­i­cal, chem­i­cal, and bio­chem­i­cal process­es, result­ing in a homo­ge­neous fine-dis­persed plas­tic mass suit­able for med­ical use.

In Ukraine, the State Bal­ance records 13 deposits (15 sites) of ther­a­peu­tic muds. Silty muds have been explored at 10 sites and are asso­ci­at­ed with sur­face water bod­ies (the Autonomous Repub­lic of Crimea, Dnipropetro­vsk, Donet­sk, Zapor­izhzhia, Myko­laiv, Ode­sa, and Kher­son regions). Peat ther­a­peu­tic muds have been explored in Lviv, Polta­va, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Cur­rent­ly, 7 out of the 15 explored sites are under exploita­tion.

Sul­fide silty muds are bot­tom sed­i­ments of saline water bod­ies; this type of mud is referred to as “main” or “true muds.” In terms of ther­mal prop­er­ties, they are infe­ri­or to peat and sapro­pel­ic muds, but they sig­nif­i­cant­ly exceed them in the con­tent of iron sul­fides and water-sol­u­ble salts. In addi­tion, an impor­tant fea­ture of silty muds is the pres­ence of var­i­ous gas­es (hydro­gen sul­fide, methane, etc.) and organ­ic sub­stances, which togeth­er pro­vide a pro­nounced ther­a­peu­tic effect.

One of the Ukrain­ian deposits of sul­fide silty ther­a­peu­tic muds is the Gopry deposit, locat­ed in the city of Hola Prys­tan, Kher­son region. The deposits of heal­ing mud are formed in lake Soliane.

Lake Solyane is an endorhe­ic (closed-drainage) water body with an area of approx­i­mate­ly 0.5 km²; it is a rem­nant of an ancient branch of the Dnipro riv­er. The max­i­mum depth of the lake is small, rang­ing from 0.5 to 1.2 m. The lake is fed by atmos­pher­ic pre­cip­i­ta­tion and ground­wa­ter. In the course of its evo­lu­tion, it passed through a moss-bog stage, which is con­firmed by the strati­graph­ic sequence of bot­tom sed­i­ments: from top to bot­tom — peloids, mud, peat, allu­vial sands.

Based on physic­o­chem­i­cal para­me­ters, the lake mud is clas­si­fied as chloride–sodium type, weak­ly to high­ly min­er­al­ized, and weak­ly sul­fide-bear­ing. Min­er­al­iza­tion direct­ly depends on the lake’s water lev­el regime and varies through­out the year from 10 g/dm³ in April to 45 g/dm³ in Octo­ber. The com­po­si­tion of the mud brine remains gen­er­al­ly con­stant and is pre­dom­i­nant­ly chloride–sodium in type. The bot­tom sed­i­ments of Lake Solyane con­sist of grey, fine-grained mud with minor admix­tures of fine sand and a char­ac­ter­is­tic hydro­gen sul­fide odor.

The ther­a­peu­tic mud of Lake Solyane con­tains a wide range of microor­gan­isms involved in mud for­ma­tion and exhibit­ing bac­te­ri­ci­dal activ­i­ty. In addi­tion, the mud is enriched with a com­plex of chem­i­cal ele­ments that sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance its ther­a­peu­tic prop­er­ties, includ­ing iodine, bromine, cop­per, zinc, iron, sil­i­con, man­ganese, and flu­o­rine.

The heal­ing muds of Lake Solyane have been known since ancient times. Accord­ing to local leg­ends, Zaporozhi­an Cos­sacks rest­ed and treat­ed wounds here. The lake is asso­ci­at­ed with var­i­ous leg­ends con­firm­ing that peo­ple have long known and used this unique nat­ur­al resource. The first hydrother­a­py facil­i­ty was estab­lished here in 1889, after the Kher­son coun­ty zem­st­vo con­duct­ed detailed inves­ti­ga­tions of the water and mud of Lake Soliane.

Today, the “Hopri” sana­to­ri­um receives vis­i­tors for rest and treat­ment from Ukraine as well as from neigh­bor­ing and dis­tant coun­tries. It pro­vides ther­a­py for dis­eases of the mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem, the ner­vous sys­tem, the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, as well as uro­log­i­cal and gyne­co­log­i­cal dis­or­ders. At the same time, the deposit’s reserves allow for the use of sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er amounts of ther­a­peu­tic mud, espe­cial­ly since both the mud and brine are renew­able resources—after ther­a­peu­tic pro­ce­dures, they are returned to the lake fol­low­ing regen­er­a­tion process­es.

The devel­op­ment of bal­ne­o­log­i­cal and mud ther­a­py resorts in Ukraine is asso­ci­at­ed with sig­nif­i­cant prospects. It is pos­si­ble not only to increase pro­duc­tion at known deposits but also to explore many new ones. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant giv­en the grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of domes­tic tourism and, espe­cial­ly, the increas­ing need to use mud ther­a­py in the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of wound­ed patients.