If we are to tell stories about life in Volyn, then they will not be complete without stories about life in the countryside. For villages and villages there still play very important role and many people still live there. On this trip, we passed many Ukrainian villages, but we got to know the local life in Novoukrainka in the most detail, where we ourselves spent several days.
Novoukrainka, although territorially located in the Rivne region, is located closer to the capital of Volyn, the city of Lutsk, from which it is only 13 kilometers away. The village is quite big. Along the only highway passing here from Lutsk to Dubno, it stretches for no less than five kilometers. But, as is customary in many local villages and villages, houses in Novoukrainka do not stand in several streets, but form one or maximum two streets, which just go along the highway, and immediately behind them begin endless fields sown with wheat, colza, corn and sugar beets.
When Novoukrainka was born, it is difficult to say, but, in fact, one of the locals is unlikely to tell you about it. Over the past hundred years, so much has happened here that all these events have completely blocked the previous ones. Until 1939, Novoukrainka, along with all the surrounding towns and villages, was part of Poland. But it was not at all Poles who lived in it, more precisely, the Poles were not in the majority. In 1919, a Czech settlement arose in this place, and if you walk around the village, you can still find several Czech houses. They are considered the strongest here to this day, and the descendants of those Czechs still live in them, or the new owners are Ukrainians. But...how new? After the territory passed to Ukraine in the early 1940s, Ukrainians living there began to move here from the Polish border lands. The times were terrible: the Poles in those lands exterminated the Ukrainians with might and main, the Ukrainians in their lands - in revenge of the Poles. In the end, of course, everyone who wanted and could moved where they needed to - so to speak, exchanged villages, but there were a lot of people killed on both sides. 
Now, as I said, Novoukrainka is a large village. There are several stores such as a general store, a cafe, a church, a post office, a school.
AT Soviet years here the Progress collective farm prospered with might and main, in which, by the way, almost all the villagers worked. But now, of course, there is nothing left of the collective farm, except for a signboard and plywood with the socialist obligations of combine harvesters for mowing and threshing grain, which we found not far from the half-burnt local club and the monument to Lenin still standing next to it, already because of old age lost his nose and fingers on one of his hands.
However, things are not so bad in Novoukrainka. Of course, there is no collective farm here, but on the other hand, all its lands were given on shares to local residents a couple of decades ago. Instead of a collective farm, an agricultural company is now thriving here, which rents land from the population and, as I already wrote, grows cereals, corn, sugar beet, pumpkin and colza, which is then handed over for the production of biological fuel and sent to Poland.
One day we went for a walk along Novoukrainka. It must be said that in last time I was here almost six years ago. And when I saw her this time, to be honest, it was even difficult for me to say whether the village had changed for good or for bad. I must say right away that we did not notice any dying, as is often the case in our villages and villages. The houses were just as solid and brick, with slate roofs, as before.
Apples and pears ripened in the gardens, opened their boxes and walnuts fell from the branches, flowers bloomed, pumpkins, zucchini lay in huge quantities on the beds, tomatoes blushed, raspberries hung on the bushes, chickens, geese, turkeys ran around the yards, grazed in the fields cows and goats.
In some places, even new houses appeared, and average age the villagers were not at all pensioners, but quite the same as in the city: that is, grandparents, and our peers, and schoolchildren, and very small children met here.
Although, if we are to be completely frank, then every year there are fewer children in Novoukrainka. For example, when my brother Sasha went to the first grade of the local school, and then it was about 1996, there were about 25-30 people in their class. Now, according to the aunt-teacher, there are only 13 pervaks. Literally in every yard that we passed by, we saw cars and tractors, and sometimes even combines.
That is, the people obviously did not live in poverty. But on the other hand, neatness and tidiness clearly did not exude from the village. The roads in many places were broken and heaps of manure lay on them, the fences were lopsided in some places, and in many yards (they were perfectly visible, because building three-meter fences in Novoukrainka, like in other Volyn villages, was never accepted) in order didn't shine. However, we must pay tribute, in Novoukrainka we met a lot of beautiful well-groomed houses, which their owners obviously followed.
What are people doing in the countryside? As before, despite the fact that life has changed here over the past few decades in better side and it has become much easier (for example, now all houses here have gas, water and electricity), work is in full swing. As soon as we went out into the field, we immediately saw several women gathering sugar beets - beetroots, as they say, in Ukraine. There were several hectares of this beet here, and the women sat and processed the already dug up tubers: they cut off the tops from them, cleaned them from the ground and put them in baskets.
They sell sugar beet to special procurement centers - we saw such in Novoukrainka, and in Dubno, and in Mlyniv, and in other towns and villages, they receive a small amount of money and live on it. Those who have combine harvesters are hired on former collective farms and collect grain on private fields. They say that the harvester is a gold mine and during the harvest you can, if not get rich with it, then at least earn a lot for the whole next year. Both harvesters and combiners are in great demand in the countryside. Everyone here has his own garden, a garden of several hectares or even tens of hectares, his own farm.
People, in addition to chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks, as before, keep cows, goats, pigs, rabbits. What gives them such an economy? Still, we are not talking about survival here. Rather, the villagers continue to lead it out of habit, the way their parents and grandparents led it. But even without tension: and is it bad, on your own? ..
And yet, at the end of my story, I cannot but say that life in a village in Volyn is changing very quickly. So, for example, just a few years ago, in Malye Dorogostai, adjacent to Novoukrainka, literally every family kept one or two cows. They could not imagine their life without a cow, a cow was the most necessary thing that could be. After all, the prosperity of the family depended on her, she was both meat, and milk, and sour cream, and butter.
Now there are no cows left in the village. And all why? Yes, because the majority of its inhabitants began to leave to work not only, as it was before, to Moscow, Kyiv or Poland for several months or for a season, but to the European Union in order to obtain European citizenship and stay there forever. Most often go to Italy and Portugal, and usually women. They are engaged there in the fact that they sit with the elderly and with small children in European families, get jobs as housekeepers, and then quietly receive citizenship and transport their entire family there. 
Are thinning Ukrainian villages? Of course, not in the same way as ours, but still there is such a trend. And, if this continues, then, probably, will pass a couple of decades and life in Volyn will completely change. But still, personally, I really want to hope that the best thing that has always been there, what has always attracted to these parts - sincerity and kindness local residents, the scope of the Ukrainian soul, hospitality and humanity - will remain. And no external factors will change this.
Posts about Russian villages and towns regularly appear on this Internet of yours, leaving a depressing impression: anti-tank roads, crumbling wooden houses and the same toilets, rickety fences, hogweed and burdock to the horizon. In response, the padded jackets languidly snarl, "You might think that your villages look better in Hohland."
Better. That's the thing, which is better! And today I will prove it to you.
Welcome to an excursion to the Ukrainian Ustimovka village, Globinsky district, in Poltava region. This is not some special exhibition village and not a "ruble" for the rich - an ordinary village, and its choice is due solely to the fact that there is a house that my family uses as a summer residence. If you can call "dacha" ordinary country house and 25 acres of garden.
The photo was taken last year, in August. We don't put the pool in May yet :)
Actually, there are few "summer residents" in the village, the vast majority of residents are locals, they live here all year round. The reason is that Ustimovka is not a suburb or a satellite of some large and rich city. The village is located in a remote Ukrainian province - to the capital (Kyiv) - 300 kilometers, to the regional center (Poltava) - 130 km, to the nearest big city(Kremenchug, population 250 thousand) - 35 km.
This long introduction should convince you that the village is the most ordinary Ukrainian village. I spent my whole life in the Poltava region and I assure you that the rest of the villages here look about the same, plus or minus 30%.
So let's start from my house. May 1, noon, +25, partly cloudy. Apricots have faded, cherries are fading, pears and apples are in full bloom.
Please note that cherry-apple trees grow not only in vegetable gardens, but also along the road. As a result, in the summer, children do not have to climb into other people's orchards for apples :) Rather than teach theft from childhood, it is better to make some things publicly available.
In addition to the typical Poltava region cherries, in Ustimovka along the road ... cypresses grow.
Once in the village there was a research station growing new varieties of wheat, and an arboretum with 400 plant species. Now all this is also there, but the station is barely working, and the arboretum is heavily overgrown. However, the passion for impractical, but beautiful trees remained, therefore chestnuts, poplars, cypresses, maples and other crops of no agricultural importance grow along the roads and in the yards.
By the way, when chestnuts and lilacs bloom - it's doubly awesome here.
Move on. To the right is the club. I'm not sure if there are "ta-ta-ta-dances" here, but on May 1 they arranged a karaoke club. There is also billiards and performances are held regularly. folk groups In short, the club is alive.
Next to the club there is a monument to the soldiers-liberators, which no one is going to demolish, on the contrary - it is freshly painted, the territory has been cleaned, flowers have been planted.
Exactly the same monuments in good condition stand in all Ukrainian cities and villages. Do not believe the Kremlin propaganda that tells us how monuments and wearing orders with medals are banned here, all this is nonsense. They ban the communist ideology in our country, which led to mass casualties, and demolish monuments to the ghoul Lenin and his followers. The symbols of the Second World War are not affected by these laws.
They feel great and are not going to close, moreover, competition forces them to follow the assortment and cleanliness. Pay attention to the cleanliness of the area in front of the store - no papers, no beer bottles. Yes, and the store is painted, licked, etc. :)
Last look at my cypress street (actually Lenina street, but will be renamed soon) with Pathfinder parked, and at the crossroads in front of the store we turn left.
I don’t know the name of this street, but it is no worse - there is also asphalt here (it is installed throughout the village), neat and painted fences, and the same neat houses. And everything blooms :)
I emphasize once again - these are ordinary houses of ordinary villagers - someone lives better, someone worse, but there is no serious property stratification. In Ustimovka there is not (or I did not find) a single "three-story villa" of visiting townspeople; in general, this village is not considered cool due to its remoteness. Estimate how the villages to which city capital is going look like.
We continue the walk. Still the same street, pay attention to the houses on the left and a small "park" on the right.
In fact, this is an "avenue" type, on the sides of this "park" there are two roads. Beautiful, green and there is a place to graze model-looking goats.
Crossroads, street turns right (houses-fences-trees to see)...
And we'll go to the left. Here you don’t even have a street, but a narrow alley. But also paved.
Pay attention to the gas pipe on the left. The whole village is gasified. In general, there are many villages in Ukraine with electricity and gas, maybe even the majority.
We go outside along the arboretum. On the left is the house of a local farmer, on the right are his cows. I was able to build a chic fence for myself, but I can’t repair two holes on the asphalt.
Goats, cows, geese, ducks, chickens - all this is in the village, and this is a plus for us - when we live here in the summer, we buy milk from the villagers for 20 UAH 3-liter jar, eggs for 12 UAH, a dozen, well, etc. .d. Tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, cherries, grapes in our garden. Fresh air(there is no factory within a radius of 30 km), pure water, natural food, beauties around. Who needs those Turkey and Egypt :)
We will not go to the arboretum today, here are last year's photos, if anyone is interested. We go further down the street. The arch on the left is missing the inscription "Arbeit macht frei".
This lane leads to the buildings of the research station, but we will go further, we are interested in the village, not the industrial enterprise. The road along the arboretum soon ends and goes into the fields.
Here we turn left (we are walking along a large square, so all the time to the left), onto the dirt road. Yes, in little-used places there is a primer, but it doesn’t look as terrible as you know where.
No dirt, no garbage, no broken glass, it's a pleasure to run barefoot through such a village :)
Another 200 meters along the dirt road, and again we get to Lenin Street. On the right in the photo is a small children's garden.
Kindergartens and schools are not available in every village. But here it has taken root and even still functions. There is also a school in Ustimovka, but the villagers decided that it was more profitable to take a bus and take the children to neighboring Babichivka than to maintain two underused schools.
We turn towards the house. Again cypresses, cherries and apple trees - here all the streets are like that.
A few fences, houses and other things, to assess the degree of "devastation".
By the way, all these houses with large plots (20-25 acres) are inexpensive - the remoteness from the city affects. 3-5 thousand dollars for all the pleasure. After buying a house, you can insulate it, sheathe it with clapboard, as for example here:
The pride of this courtyard is an old huge poplar tree, as high as a five-story building and with a girth of seven people.
We put things in order in front of the house, otherwise the Muscovites will suddenly attack, and my trees are not painted.
Just kidding :) It is thriftiness and a passion for order that determines the differences between Ukrainian villages and Russian ones. Not subsidies from the budget (nobody has seen them here), not hope for a kind king who will solve your problems during a direct line, but a banal impossibility to sit still if your garden has not been dug up and the roof has not been patched.
I'm still walking down the same street. There are practically no abandoned houses in Ustimovka (in other villages there are more), asphalt is available everywhere, the fences are strong. Here comes across a yard with an old wooden fence.
This is because summer residents live here, they don’t need to observe beauty every day. But the yard is cleaned, well-groomed, where it is necessary to dug up, the trees are whitewashed.
Gardens also do not overgrow with burdock. And I have never seen a cow parsnip here.
In addition to 25 acres, local residents also have "allotments" - 5-10 hectares of land outside the village. Previously, it was collective farm land, now there are no collective farms, everyone sows their allotment with wheat, corn or potatoes. Planting, processing, harvesting with the help of tractors, their own or rented, and, given the prices of food, most of the villagers live well. It is quite difficult to find an unsown patch in Ukraine.
Everything, so we completed the circle of honor - we returned to my house. At the end of the street you can see a bus - there are a lot of them here, more than 10 a day. The Kremenchug-Khorol road passes by the village, the Kremenchug-Globino road passes through the village, so you can get there even if there is no car.
Notice the lights along the street. They are working, they are turned on in the evenings. In a remote village, Karl!
Well, the control in the head. In Ustimovka there is Internet, fiber optics from DataGroup. The cable is brought into my house, and then through the WiFi router it is distributed throughout the yard. 100 megabits, unlimited for 100 hryvnia per month.
The only distraction from the Internet is the garden and kebabs :)
This is what it is - a Ukrainian village. When they talk about the "Ukrainian spirit" or " national idea", I always answer - go to the village. All this is fully preserved there. Ukrainians are inextricably linked with the land, and for this reason they will protect it.
Similar report from last year
When it comes to the Ukrainian village, pure and joyful people in white shirts who work hard among the endless fields immediately come to mind. Of course, the reality of the life of the Ukrainian peasant was very different from our ideas about him. It concerns and sexual life of our ancestors, which we will talk about today.
ripened early
Nowadays, in all civilized countries, there is such a thing as the age of sexual consent. That is, sexual relations with a person who has not reached this age automatically become a criminal offense. AT different countries this age is determined in its own way. In Ukraine - 16 years, and in Mexico - 12. But in general, the average age of sexual consent in Europe and America is 14 years.
Within the territory of Russian Empire The age of sexual consent was not regulated. Of course, there was a minimum age for marriage, set by the Stoglav Cathedral back in the 16th century, for boys - 15 years old, and for girls - 12. But in practice, this only meant that the church refused to marry younger people. AT sexual relations many children, especially in the villages, began to join much earlier.
The first experience of sekeling, or grater, children could get before puberty. Directly sexual intercourse, as a rule, did not occur - the girls were taught to preserve innocence before marriage. But everything else was not forbidden. Children undressed and rubbed against each other, those who were older, it happened, and retired.
Unfortunately, there were also cases of child rape. The rapists usually did not bear criminal punishment for this, because they did not want to "take dirty linen out of the hut." If the child had brave brothers, a father or other relatives, then they could deal with the rapist on their own. And if not, then no, and there is no trial.
Country parties
When the children grew up, they began to gather for parties. As a rule, the period of Vespers lasted from the moment of the end until the Great Lent itself. Young people were allowed to gather in the hut, the girls dressed up smartly and brought snacks, and the guys brought drinks, musical instruments and straw.
After the party came to an end, the guys agreed with the girls they liked about spending time together on the straw. If the girl agreed, she answered "Wet", if not - "Dry". In theory, there was no direct sexual intercourse again, because innocence continued to be protected until marriage. But in practice, such "squeezing" on the straw could lead to anything, including pregnancy.
If such evening parties did not have any serious consequences, then in the morning the couples could break up, because it was nothing more than a game. On the other hand, young people could like each other so much that they continued to walk together even after, and it was going to the wedding.
Often, guys deceived inexperienced girls who did not yet know what sex was. As a result, the girl turned out to be pregnant, although she herself was firmly convinced that she did nothing of the kind, but only “snuggled”. If none of the guys married her, the fate of such a girl was extremely unenviable.
Long-awaited marriage
O wedding traditions you can write long and detailed, so within the framework of this material we will focus directly on the tradition of bride kidnapping.
Despite the fact that such a tradition is associated mainly with the Caucasus, it was definitely present in Ukrainian villages in the 17th century en masse, and later - episodically. According to the famous ethnographer Fyodor Vovk, kidnapping was not an easy task, because if the kidnapper was caught, they could have been killed. The task was difficult. It was necessary to steal the girl right from dances or evening parties, and during the day to hide with her in the forest. But after that, she could no longer refuse and was obliged to marry the kidnapper. Vovk, in his work "Studios on Ukrainian Ethnography and Anthropology," pointed out cases where, for example, the daughter of a local large landowner could also be a victim of abduction.
In connection with marriage, one cannot fail to recall another extremely unpleasant tradition that existed in Russian and Ukrainian villages. It's about dreaming. Dreaming is the sex of a father-in-law with a daughter-in-law. Not one-time, but regular, on an ongoing basis. It even happened that from this connection children were born who were the father-in-law at the same time and grandchildren.
Most often this happened when the son of a peasant was away for a long time, went to work or got into the army. The daughters-in-law didn’t have much choice, because the father-in-law remained the nominal head of the family. After the husband returned from seasonal work, the father-in-law could tell his son anything, turn the story in a favorable perspective for himself, and he, of course, would believe his father.
And even if the fact of dreaming was revealed, it was the woman who most often suffered from beatings. Who would raise a hand against an old man? Daughtership came to naught only at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the usual peasant way of life began to collapse.
conclusions
No matter how hard we try to idealize, we must admit that strong peasant families often hid many skeletons in the closet. Here and too early (and, much worse, random and chaotic) sex education, and dreaming, and much more.
And it's not that the peasants were somehow especially dissolute. But the lack of banal literacy and education did its job. In fact, it is worth recognizing that a strong healthy family without all these "excesses" is rather an achievement of modern social progress.
Posts about Russian villages and towns regularly appear on this Internet of yours, leaving a depressing impression: anti-tank roads, crumbling wooden houses and the same toilets, rickety fences, hogweed and burdock to the horizon. In response, the padded jackets languidly snarl, "You might think that your villages look better in Hohland."
Better. That's the thing, which is better! And today I will prove it to you.
Welcome to an excursion to the Ukrainian Ustimovka village, Globinsky district, in Poltava region. This is not some special exhibition village and not a "ruble" for the rich - an ordinary village, and its choice is due solely to the fact that there is a house that my family uses as a summer residence. If you can call "dacha" an ordinary rural house and 25 acres of a garden.
The photo was taken last year, in August. We don't put the pool in May yet :)
Actually, there are few "summer residents" in the village, the vast majority of residents are locals, they live here all year round. The reason is that Ustimovka is not a suburb or a satellite of some large and rich city. The village is located in a remote Ukrainian province - to the capital (Kyiv) - 300 kilometers, to the regional center (Poltava) - 130 km, to the nearest large city (Kremenchug, population 250 thousand) - 35 km.
This long introduction should convince you that the village is the most ordinary Ukrainian village. I spent my whole life in the Poltava region and I assure you that the rest of the villages here look about the same, plus or minus 30%.
So let's start from my house. May 1, noon, +25, partly cloudy. Apricots have faded, cherries are fading, pears and apples are in full bloom.
Please note that cherry-apple trees grow not only in vegetable gardens, but also along the road. As a result, in the summer, children do not have to climb into other people's orchards for apples :) Rather than teach theft from childhood, it is better to make some things publicly available.
In addition to cherries typical of the Poltava region, cypress trees grow along the road in Ustimovka.
Once in the village there was a research station growing new varieties of wheat, and an arboretum with 400 plant species. Now all this is also there, but the station is barely working, and the arboretum is heavily overgrown. However, the passion for impractical, but beautiful trees remained, so chestnuts, poplars, cypresses, maples and other crops of no agricultural importance grow along the roads and in the yards.
By the way, when chestnuts and lilacs bloom - it's doubly awesome here.
Move on. To the right is the club. I'm not sure if there are "ta-ta-ta-dances" here, but on May 1 they arranged a karaoke club. There is also billiards and performances of folk groups are regularly held there, in short - the club is alive.
Next to the club there is a monument to the soldiers-liberators, which no one is going to demolish, on the contrary - it is freshly painted, the territory has been cleaned, flowers have been planted.
Exactly the same monuments in good condition stand in all Ukrainian cities and villages. Do not believe the Kremlin propaganda that tells us how monuments and wearing orders with medals are banned here, all this is nonsense. We ban the communist ideology, which led to mass casualties, and demolish monuments to the ghoul Lenin and his followers. The symbols of the Second World War are not affected by these laws.
They feel great and are not going to close, moreover, competition forces them to follow the assortment and cleanliness. Pay attention to the cleanliness of the area in front of the store - no papers, no beer bottles. Yes, and the store is painted, licked, etc. :)
Last look at my cypress street (actually Lenina street, but will be renamed soon) with Pathfinder parked, and at the crossroads in front of the store we turn left.
I don’t know the name of this street, but it is no worse - there is also asphalt here (it is installed throughout the village), neat and painted fences, and the same neat houses. And everything blooms :)
I emphasize once again - these are ordinary houses of ordinary villagers - someone lives better, someone worse, but there is no serious property stratification. In Ustimovka there is not (or I did not find) a single "three-story villa" of visiting townspeople; in general, this village is not considered cool due to its remoteness. Estimate how the villages to which city capital is going look like.
We continue the walk. Still the same street, pay attention to the houses on the left and a small "park" on the right.
In fact, this is an "avenue" type, on the sides of this "park" there are two roads. Beautiful, green and there is a place to graze model-looking goats.
Crossroads, street turns right (houses-fences-trees to see)...
And we'll go to the left. Here you don’t even have a street, but a narrow alley. But also paved.
Pay attention to the gas pipe on the left. The whole village is gasified. In general, there are many villages in Ukraine with electricity and gas, maybe even the majority.
We go outside along the arboretum. On the left is the house of a local farmer, on the right are his cows. I was able to build a chic fence for myself, but I can’t repair two holes on the asphalt.
Goats, cows, geese, ducks, chickens - all this is in the village, and this is a plus for us - when we live here in the summer, we buy milk from the villagers for 20 UAH 3-liter jar, eggs for 12 UAH, a dozen, well, etc. .d. Tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, cherries, grapes in our garden. Clean air (there is not a single plant within a radius of 30 km), clean water, natural food, beauty around. Who needs those Turkey and Egypt :)
We will not go to the arboretum today, here are last year's photos, if anyone is interested. We go further down the street. The arch on the left is missing the inscription "Arbeit macht frei".
This lane leads to the buildings of the research station, but we will go further, we are interested in the village, not the industrial enterprise. The road along the arboretum soon ends and goes into the fields.
Here we turn left (we are walking along a large square, so all the time to the left), onto the dirt road. Yes, in little-used places there is a primer, but it doesn’t look as terrible as you know where.
No dirt, no garbage, no broken glass, it's a pleasure to run barefoot through such a village :)
Another 200 meters along the dirt road, and again we get to Lenin Street. On the right in the photo is a small children's garden.
Kindergartens and schools are not available in every village. But here it has taken root and even still functions. There is also a school in Ustimovka, but the villagers decided that it was more profitable to take a bus and take the children to neighboring Babichivka than to maintain two underused schools.
We turn towards the house. Again cypresses, cherries and apple trees - here all the streets are like that.
A few fences, houses and other things, to assess the degree of "devastation".
By the way, all these houses with large plots (20-25 acres) are inexpensive - the remoteness from the city affects. 3-5 thousand dollars for all the pleasure. After buying a house, you can insulate it, sheathe it with clapboard, as for example here:
The pride of this courtyard is an old huge poplar tree, as high as a five-story building and with a girth of seven people.
We put things in order in front of the house, otherwise the Muscovites will suddenly attack, and my trees are not painted.
Just kidding :) It is thriftiness and a passion for order that determines the differences between Ukrainian villages and Russian ones. Not subsidies from the budget (nobody has seen them here), not hope for a kind king who will solve your problems during a direct line, but a banal impossibility to sit still if your garden has not been dug up and the roof has not been patched.
I'm still walking down the same street. There are practically no abandoned houses in Ustimovka (in other villages there are more), asphalt is available everywhere, the fences are strong. Here comes across a yard with an old wooden fence.
This is because summer residents live here, they don’t need to observe beauty every day. But the yard is cleaned, well-groomed, where it is necessary to dug up, the trees are whitewashed.
Gardens also do not overgrow with burdock. And I have never seen a cow parsnip here.
In addition to 25 acres, local residents also have "allotments" - 5-10 hectares of land outside the village. Previously, it was collective farm land, now there are no collective farms, everyone sows their allotment with wheat, corn or potatoes. Planting, processing, harvesting with the help of tractors, their own or rented, and, given the prices of food, most of the villagers live well. It is quite difficult to find an unsown patch in Ukraine.
Everything, so we completed the circle of honor - we returned to my house. At the end of the street you can see a bus - there are a lot of them here, more than 10 a day. The Kremenchug-Khorol road passes by the village, the Kremenchug-Globino road passes through the village, so you can get there even if there is no car.
Notice the lights along the street. They are working, they are turned on in the evenings. In a remote village, Karl!
Well, the control in the head. In Ustimovka there is Internet, fiber optics from DataGroup. The cable is brought to my house, and further through wifi router distributed throughout the yard. 100 megabits, unlimited for 100 hryvnia per month.
The only distraction from the Internet is the garden and kebabs :)
This is what it is - a Ukrainian village. When they talk about the "Ukrainian spirit" or "national idea", I always answer - go to the village. It's all preserved there. Ukrainians are inextricably linked with the land, and that is why they will defend it.
Similar report from last year
