The most important branch of Ukrainian home industry is weaving. It is not confined only to the weaving of coarse, very durable kinds of linen and cloth; for very fine, sometimes really artistically ornamented tablecloths, towels and handkerchiefs, fine woolens, decorative fabrics with inwoven patterns, gold and silver thread, carpets and tapestries, too, come out of the primitively equipped workshops of the Ukrainian weavers. Under very difficult working conditions, with the most primitive means, genuine works of art are frequently created. For all that, the artistic weaver must yield place to factory goods, even in the Ukraine, and the home weaving industry is surely hurrying toward extinction.
Yet, to this day, thanks to the persistence of the people in preserving their national costume, the weaving industry is still so widespread thruout the Ukraine that there is hardly a hamlet where there are not some weavers by trade, or at least such persons as carry on weaving as an avocation. Home weaving is at its height in the districts of Poltava, where it occupies 20,000 families (1902), Chernihiv and Kharkiv. Its chief centers are Krolevetz and vicinity, Sinkiv,Mirhorod,Zolotonosha (wool -weaving). In Galicia, the entire Ukrainian Pidhirye is famous for its home weaving industry; in the mountains it is the neighborhood of Kossiv, in the low country the districts of Horodok, Komarno, Halich, Busk, etc., which are important in this connection. The most beautiful carpets and tapestries, worked in colors, come from the districts of Mirhorod and Sinkiv (Poltava), Olhopol, Balta, Yampol, Bratzlav (Podolia), Sbaraz, Buchach, Kossiv (Eastern Galicia).
Tailoring is nowhere developed to large proportions, altho no place, not even the smallest village, is without it. In Poltava, tailoring and cap-making occupies over 10,000 families.
Rope-making is very common thruout the Ukraine, mostly in the districts of Poltava, Kiev (Lissianka) and in Galicia (Radimno). Nets are made in the district of Lokhvitza (Poltava) and Oster (Chernihiv) on a large scale.
After the textile industry comes the wood-working industry. It is common, everywhere in the Ukraine, the steppe country alone excepted. Almost every Ukrainian peasant of the Carpathian Mountains, of the Polissye, Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, knows the carpenter trade. The best carpenters are the Hutzulians, who, independently, without drawn plans, build churches of fine style, even for the most distant villages of the low country.
Ship-building is carried on chiefly in the Polissye (Mosir, Petrikiv, Balazevichi on the Pripet, and particularly Davidhorodok on the Horin). On the Dnieper River, ships are built at Horodnia, small sea-vessels in Nikopol, Oleshki, Hola Pristan, Kherson; on the Don in Osiv (Azof). On the Dniester, river-ships are built in Zuravno, Halich, Zvanetz, Mohiliv, Yampol.
Cabinet-making, altho in general but slightly developed, still supplies the demand of the peasantry and the common city-dwellers. Artistic cabinet-making is carried on in the Hutzul country (Kossiv, Yavoriv, Richka, Viznitza), where, besides furniture, various kinds of woodwork,
decorated with artistic carvings and with the beautifully conventionalized specifically Hutzulian bead and brasswire ornaments are produced, e. g., canes, boxes, pictureframes, etc. The furniture industry is common in the District of Cherkassia (Kiev) and in the entire Poltava country. Here, too, beautiful and durable wooden chests are made. Wooden spoons are produced in the districts of Poltava (Kalaidintzi), Kiev (Chornobil, Hornostapol), in the Hutzul country (Porohy, Yavoriv), in the Rostoche region (Yavoriv, Vishenka), and smoking-pipes of wood in the Poltava region (Velika Pavlivka).
Cooperage and the making of wooden vessels is common everywhere, but it is most extensive in the districts of Poltava (3,700 families), Kharkiv (Okhtirka, Kotelva), Polissye (Mosir), Kiev (District of Radomishl), Chernihiv, Volhynia and the Hutzul country.
Wagon-making and the making of sleds and wooden agricultural implements has its chief center in the Poltava country, where it occupies over 2400 families (Districts of Sinikiv, Lubni, Hadyach). In the Kharkiv country this industry is important about Starobilsk, Bohodukhiv, Isium, Kupiansk, as well. In Ardon (Government of Chernihiv) beautiful carriages are produced and in Tarashcha (Government of Kiev) the world-renowned tarantas.