Bilche-Zolote ( Bil'che Zolote; ; ) is a Ukrainian village located within the Chortkiv Raion (district) of the Ternopil Oblast (province), about driving distance southwest of Kyiv. It hosts the administration of Bilche-Zolote rural hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. This rural community is located in a small valley adjacent to the Seret River, which is surrounded by plateaus covered with farms, broken by occasional stands of mixed forest. Bilche-Zolote is home to a remarkable park of , of which is covered with virgin timber, including some trees up to 400 years old. Bilche-Zolote is also the location of the large gypsum karst Verteba Cave, as well as a significant Neolithic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture archaeological site, and attracts tourist and spelunker visitors from many countries.
History
Founded in the early 10th century, Bilche-Zolote has been ruled at various times by the Kievan Rus', Lithuania, Austria, Russia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Germany, Carpatho-Ukraine, and Ukraine. Its town council, which oversees the governance of the area, also administers the villages of Yuriampil (), Monastyrok (), and Mushkativ (). The nearest railway station is away in the town of Ozeryany (). The town includes public elementary through secondary schools, a public library, two recreational facilities, and an Inter-Regional Rehabilitation Hospital.
Until 18 July 2020, Bilche-Zolote belonged to Borshchiv Raion. The raion was abolished in July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Ternopil Oblast to three. The area of Borshchiv Raion was merged into Chortkiv Raion.
Bilche-Zolote Landscape Park
Founded in the early 19th century, the Bilche-Zolote Landscape Park included part of the estate and the palace of a local aristocrat family.
On 29 January 1960, the Ukraine Council of Ministers passed a resolution to include the Bilche-Zolote Landscape Park within the Ukrainian Natural Reserve Fund.
Verteba and Priest's Grotto Caves
The Verteba Cave () located on the outskirts of Bilche-Zolote village gets its name from the Ukrainian word for "crib" (, vertel). Verteba is one of the largest caves in Europe, measuring in length, with a total of 6000 cubic meters. It consists of maze-like passageways, often separated by thin walls, as well as broad galleries. The walls of the cave are smooth and dark, with rare incrustations of calcium carbonate appearing. There are also small stalactites, and unusual stalagmites that have the appearance of barrels, all of which are coated in an opaque watery liquid known as moonmilk.
Cucuteni-Trypillian settlement
During a mundane excavation on the Sapyehy estate in 1884, workers stumbled upon the buried ruins of a prehistoric settlement near the mouth of the Verteba cave. Over the years, more than 300 intact ceramic containers have been unearthed from the floor of the cave and this Neolithic era settlement, which encompasses a total of . Archaeologists identified the artifacts as belonging to the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, with evidence of two separate periods of settlement activity dating from 4440 to 4100 B.C. and 3800-3300 B.C. The members of this society plowed their farms, raised livestock, hunted and fished, created textiles, and developed a beautiful and highly refined style of pottery with very intricate designs. Their settlements, which with up to 15,000 inhabitants were among the largest on earth at the time, were built in oval or circular layouts, with concentric rows of houses that were interconnected to form rings around the center of the community, where often a sanctuary building would be found. They left behind a large number of clay figurines, many of which are regarded as Mother goddess fetishes. For over 2500 years the culture flourished with no evidence left behind that would indicate they experienced warfare. However, at the beginning of the Bronze Age their culture disappeared, the reasons for which are still debated, but possibly as a result of invaders coming from the Steppes to the east.