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TT here were many kinds of mills — that is mills, with differenttypes of mechanics used in them. Windmills had varying num-ber of vanes (which are called “sails”) — they were four-,six, eight, ten or even twelve-sail mills; one or two tiered

mills, post mills, mills with log and framework structures, etc.As far as watermills are concerned, a lot depended on what kind

of the water source provided water for turning the mills’ wheels wasused.

Also, a lot depended on what use a mill was put to — in addition togrinding grain, windmills have also provided energy to sawmills, papermills, hammermills, and windpumps. Watermills were used in lumberor textile production, or metal shaping, just to name but a few thingsmills could be used in (these days, a watermill that generates electrici-ty is usually called a hydroelectric plant).

Besides being used for technical purposes, the mills of old werethe places where people who, say, brought grain to be grounded, couldsocialize, exchange the latest news, gossip, stories and views. Spookystories about millers who were in cahoots with “the forces of evil” wereparticularly popular. A great many folk songs, catchphrases, sayingsand superstitions are connected with mills and millers.

In the history of Ukraine, which used to be called “the breadbasketof Europe”, mills once played a significant economic and social role.Surprisingly enough, no monographs or scholarly papers devoted toold mills have been published in Ukraine. Luckily, an international con-ference devoted to old mills — the first ever such conference in Uk-raine — which was held in the city of Cherkasy in October 2009, maychange the situation for the better. I was invited to attend the event inthe capacity of a person knowledgeable in wooden architecture andways of its preservation.

MolinologyThe molinological conference was held at the Bohdan Khmelnytsky

University on October 15 through October 17 2009. It was organizedby a group of Ukrainian culture enthusiasts headed by Nazar Lavrinen-

ko, a historian who had been researching the history and use of millsin the Land of Cherkashchyna.

Molinology is a branch of science which deals with description andstudy of mills and other mechanical devices that use the kinetic energyof moving water or wind as a power for driving, grinding, pumping, sa-wing, pressing and other machines. More particularly, molinology aimsat finding out more about those traditional mills which have been con-demned to obsolescence by modern technological and economic trends,but which constitute a worthy chapter in the History of Technology andare a part of the History of Civilization.

Though the subject of the conference seemed to be quite unusualand rather specialized, about fifty historians and other scholars andscientists from various parts of Ukraine working in different fields, cameto attend the conference, plus many teachers, students and cultureenthusiasts from Cherkasy itself and from Cherkasy Oblast. Among

New Life forOld Mills

In the not so distant pastwindmills and watermillsused to be omnipresent

features of the Ukrainiancountryside. These days

they still can be seen sadlydecaying in some villages,

or in a better condition in the open−air museums —

and in old photographs.Olena KRUSHYNSKA,

an enthusiast of woodenarchitecture, probes into

the fate of old mills in Ukraine.

It is how the mill in the village of Ivkivtsi looked like before restoration.

DISCOVERINGUKRAINE

➧

New Life forOld Mills

www.timsmills.info

From left to right:Leo van der Drift,

Ton Meesters, members of

the InternationalMolinological

Society (TIMS), Willem D. van Bergen

(TIMS president), and Nazar Lavrinenko

during a visit to the village

of Teklino to see a mill in operation.

Hoisting the 700-kilogram millstone to where it belongs in a newly restored mill — it took a lot

of effort and ingenuity to get the millstone into place.

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Photo by N. LAVRINENKO

the foreign guests were the president of the Internatio-nal Molinological Society (TIMS) Willem D. van Ber-gen from Germany and TIMS members Leo van derDrift and Ton Meesters from the Netherlands. A num-ber of papers were sent in from abroad to be presen-ted at the conference too.

The reports and papers dealt with a wide range ofsubjects which included types of mills; their mecha-nics, their construction, their functioning, their impacton the economy, their development from the most pri-mitive in the ancient times to the much more sophisti-cated which were used at the end of the nineteenth-early twentieth centuries.

Ethnographers and folklore specialists presentedcultural aspects connected with old mills. One of thereports dealt with millers as they and their trade arereflected in the folk beliefs in black magic. The reportsshowed that mills could be looked at as the meansand ways of conquering two natural elements — thewind and the water, as stages on the way of spiritualdevelopments too.

“Hands-on” mills The first day of the conference was spent in the

auditoria of the university, but during the second andthird days, the participants and guests discarded theirmore formal dress and changed into jeans and sweatshirts — they went to various places in the Land ofCherkashchyna to see the surviving old mills.

The first one visited was the village of Zhovnynowhich boasts an old mill which was in use up to theyear 2004. It is probably one of the best preservedmills of its kind in Ukraine. In the village of Veremiyiv-

ka there is an open-air museum, Kozatski zemli Uk-rayiny (Cossack Lands of Ukraine) with a growing col-lection of operating windmills. On the third day of theconference, visits were paid to the windmills in Subo-tiv, Khudoliyivka and Ivkivtsi.

The TIMS members proved to be the most activeand most knowledgeable among those who joinedthose who traveled to the countryside. They wanted toexplore everything that could be seen and touchedinside the old mills, squeezing into nooks and crannies,and reaching the places hard to reach. They providedinteresting details of the mills’ construction peculiari-ties, and explained intricacies of the mills’ mechanics.

Well, their profound knowledge wasn’t surprising —it was Germany and the Netherlands where windmillswere widely and extensively used for centuries — itis from those countries that “the mill ideas” spread farand wide, Ukraine included.

In the village of Hryshchyntsi, we were shown a wind-mill the design for which had been developed by twopeasants from the Land of Cherkashchyna, father andson, named Stryltsi. After the end of the Second WorldWar, during which the economy of Ukraine had beendevastated, people in the countryside sought andfound means of getting the agriculture back on itsfeet. The Stryltsi inventors designed and made a four-sail windmill which could be used for driving variousmechanisms — pumps, saws, threshers, crushers,etc. The design and making of these windmills whichwere given the name of Vitrodvyhun (Wind Engine)D-15, were simple enough to make it possible to buildthem locally in the villages. Very many Vitrodvyhunswere made in Ukraine and outside its borders. The

inventors received a gold medal at an exhibition inMoscow; the invention was used not only in the SovietUnion but beyond its borders as well — numerous thank-you letters, including those from abroad, came fromforeign countries, even from such a distant land asChina. In Hryshchyntsi we saw not only one of thoseVitrodvyhuns but even met an old man who actuallysupervised the construction of the mill in the 1950sand then worked as a miller there.

Study and saveThe TIMS molinologists were thrilled — I could see

that thrill even in their eyes. Ukraine offers a wide fieldof molinological study — surviving old mills should becatalogued and scientifically described, somethingthat has been long done in western Europe. Nobodyknows for sure how many old mills have been preservedacross Ukraine — hundreds or maybe thousands?

In 2009, TIMS had about 500 registered membersfrom over 30 countries of the world. The Society en-courages research and promotes all aspects of moli-nology, including the restoration of mills. Through itsCouncil and individual members, it works closely withnational mills organisations and societies.

After the conference, the TIMS president invitedNazar Lavrinenko and me, Olena Krushynska, to jointhis organization — and we did. So there are now twoTIMS members in Ukraine!

The conference was a very important event in thestudies of old mills in Ukraine. We were exposed tonew ideas and approaches; we learnt the terms whichare used in molinology and now they need to be ade-quately translated into Ukrainian. But the main thingis that now we can make our own contributions to thisfield of study.

The problem of preserving and saving old mills fromdestruction by the implacable time and through hu-man negligence is the most acute one. The turbulentand catastrophic events that Ukraine lived through inthe twentieth century alone — wars, revolutions, Sta-lin’s “collectivization” of the agriculture, and neglectof the cultural heritage wiped away untold number ofmills. Technical advances contributed their share ofdestructive potential — who needs an old dilapidatedwindmill?

The conference discussed measures to be takento preserve the old mills and save them from decayand disintegration. I made a report on preservationof old mills and ways of doing it. The first step to betaken is to look for and find old mills, assess their con-dition; the second step would be to make this searchand its finds public through the media coverage to gaina wider public support. A website, Mlyny Ukrayiny(Old Mills of Ukraine, www.mills.org.ua), which hasalready been created by Nazar Lavrinenko, is a stepin the right direction. It may serve as a center of coor-dinating mill-preservation efforts.

Nazar Lavrinenko has already been instrumentalin saving one old mill — it was in his native village ofIvkivtsi. The mill is at least a hundred years old andfrom a ruinous condition it was in, it was then broughtto an operating state.

Thanks to a grant that had come from the PolishS. Batori Culture Fund and sponsors from Cherkash-chyna, necessary materials were purchased and pra-ctically all the villages assembled to help with the re-construction work. The youngest just watched; theoldest helped with advice. The most intricate problemwas to restore the mill’s mechanism. Functioning old

mills elsewhere in Ukraine were thoroughly examinedand the missing parts of the mill’s mechanism weremade and installed.

At the end of 2008, the first flour was grounded atthe restored mill to the loud cheer of the villagers whogathered to see “the great event” of the mill’s revival.In fact, many people came to see it from the neighbo-ring villages as well. It was the start of the movement,Vidnovymo spilno (Let’s Revive Them Together!) whichis now gaining momentum across Ukraine. Old water-and windmills worthy to be preserved must survive forthe future generations to be aware of one of the sig-nificant features of the Ukrainian cultural and histori-cal heritage.

It is important to halt the decay and disintegration(or purposeful destruction) of the mills which it will bedecided to save, and such preservation will not costtoo much money, provided there is a wide support forthe effort.

The actual restoration work will cost more but it isencouraging to think that the awareness is growingand that the work of collecting information has begun.Ukrainian villages have an opportunity of re-acquiringone of their most significant age-old features — woo-den watermills and windmills! ■

Photo by O. KRUSHYNSKA

The restored watermill in the Polisky Preserve,

Zhytomyr Oblast.

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Olena Krushynska, a champion of woodenarchitecture landmarks,

in the wheel of a watermill.

At the unveiling of the restored

windmill in the village

of Ivkivtsi.

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Nazar Lavrinenkotalks to an old millerwho used to work at the Vitrodyhun-15mill for many years.

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The mechanism of the millin the village of Zhovnyno.