Relaxed at the Shatsk Lakes and got a rash on the skin - what is happening at the popular resort

After swimming in the lakes Svitiaz and Pisochnе, known as the Shatsk Lakes, in Volyn, adult vacationers and their children began to complain en masse about unknown rashes on their bodies.  People share their stories of ruined vacations on the social network Threads. 

Ukrainians are putting forward a wide variety of versions: from contaminated technical water to allergies to frog spawn and the appearance of an unknown infectious disease on the lake beaches. The administration of the Shatsk National Nature Park, in turn, claims: the water in the lakes was tested, and it meets all laboratory standards.  

UNN looked into the situation.

Came out of the water and the body was covered with a red rash: how people's vacation in nature was ruined  

Ukrainians shared stories about a failed and completely ruined vacation on their favorite lakes, where they came to relax almost every year, on Threads. They are very similar to each other: people chose a beach whose safety they were confident in, swam in the water, and a few minutes after going ashore, their bodies became covered with strange, itchy red spots.  

Here is what people wrote about their negative experience:

• After the night, rashes appeared, they are larger and there are more of them.
• Yesterday after swimming in the lake, rashes and itching appeared. After antihistamines, everything went away.
• The children were crying on the beach yesterday because of the itching.
• 9 years ago, when I was last and first time on Svitiaz, we ran away from there because of this. 
• On the weekend we were in Illichivka (Illichivka tract is another popular recreation area in the Volyn lake district, - ed.). The child was covered from head to toe, probably splashing in the shallows. And my husband was also covered up to his knees because he was watching her. I went straight into the deep water, so I got a couple of pimples on my legs. It looks scary.
• The rash itches a lot and spreads over the body every day. Probably something is wrong with the water...

However, there are vacationers who were a bit luckier. People also came to swim in the Shatsk Lakes, but did not get skin rashes afterward.  

"We were there on Sunday, swam, and everything is okay," wrote social network user Kateryna.  

And a woman under the nickname selena_mantra shared positive impressions of her vacation in the Gushovo tract. She says that allergies did not bother anyone in her company:

"We were relaxing near the Gushovo tract (not far away is the central beach). No one was bitten by anything, no one broke out in a rash, and nothing itches. The area is open, the water is clear, there weren't even many mosquitoes at all."

Dead fish, insects, water parasites, and frog eggs: Ukrainians expressed their versions of events on Svitiaz 

People who suffered from an unknown allergy after swimming tried to figure out on their own what happened at the lake and why their favorite location suddenly became dangerous. 

Among the versions were the following:

• water fleas;
• frog spawn;
• poor water quality, which was murky and smelled;
• cercarial dermatitis (a skin reaction after swimming in fresh standing water. It is caused by cercariae – microscopic larvae of waterfowl parasites);
• infection from dead fish that people noticed in the reservoirs;
• sand fleas;
• bedbugs in the accommodations where tourists stayed;
• swimmer's itch.  

People are actively discussing this on social networks, but have not yet reached a common conclusion.  

What the administration of the Shatsk National Park says 

The Shatsk National Nature Park, in connection with the spread of information on the network about rashes after swimming, reported that the water in the areas of mass recreation on lakes Svitiaz and Pisochnе meets sanitary and hygienic requirements. The information was posted on their official website. 

In a short post, the park's press service noted that all tested microbiological indicators are significantly below the permissible standards.

At the same time, they explained that the irritation in people who swam in the lakes could have arisen as a reaction to certain natural seasonal phenomena characteristic of freshwater bodies during a period of prolonged heat. The press service specifically emphasized that such cases do not indicate water pollution.

Context 

Earlier, there were no reports on social networks or in the media about mass complaints specifically about rashes after swimming in Lake Svitiaz. 

They started at the end of June 2026 with one of the posts on Threads, which collected about 108 comments from users with similar complaints after swimming in Svitiaz and other water bodies of the Shatsk lake district.

Experts associate this phenomenon with possible cercarial dermatitis, which is not unique to the region. The scientific collection of the Shatsk National Nature Park for 2024 states that manifestations of cercarial dermatitis are one of the problems of Lake Pisochnе. In addition, the materials of the collection note that trichobilharzial cercarial dermatitis is widespread in Ukraine, and its foci are most often found in the Ukrainian Polissia, in particular within the Shatsk NNP, in the littoral zone overgrown with aquatic vegetation of lakes Chorne and Liutsymer. 

Shatsk Lakes: what you need to know about them 

The Shatsk Lakes are one of the largest lake groups in Ukraine, located in the Volyn region within the Shatsk National Nature Park. The park's territory includes 23 lakes with a total area of about 6,400 hectares.

The most famous among them is Lake Svitiaz, the largest lake of the Shatsk lake district and the deepest lake in Ukraine. Its maximum depth reaches 58.4 m. Among other well-known water bodies are Pisochnе, Pulemetske, Liutsymer, Luky-Peremut, Krynne, and Somynets.

The Shatsk Lakes have important environmental protection and recreational significance. The park's territory combines lakes, forests, swamps, and meadows, and is also a place for bird nesting and seasonal migration. In the summer season, the lakes, particularly Svitiaz and Pisochnе, are popular places for recreation, swimming, fishing, and ecotourism.