MediaArhiv

Part 13

page 134/157

The settlements of the Ukrainian Carpathians all have the character of villages. The Lemko and Boiko villages usually form long rows of farms, which extend along the valley bottom. The Hutzulian villages, on the other hand, consist of separate farms which lie scattered on valley sides, valley plains, and even valley spurs. The huts are everywhere built of wood, and covered with shingles or boards; only among the Boikos, sometimes, with straw. The very practical block houses, adapted to the climate, which are built by the Hutzuls, look very neat.

There are no cities in the Carpathian region, but only small towns, inhabited for the most part by Jews, and bristling with dirt. The Lemko country (Lemkivshchina) has only one larger town, Sianik (11,000 inhabitants), with railway-car factories. Also noteworthy, on the Hungarian side, are the little towns of Svidnik and Strupkiv, on the Galician side the resorts of Krinitzia, Zeghestiv, Vissova, Rimaniv. In the little towns of the adjacent Polish (New Sandetz, Gorlice, Gribov, Dukla) and Slovenian territory (Bartfeld) the Lemkos supply their needs in industrial products and grain.

In the Boiko country (Boikivshchina) the towns are little centers for the retail trade and the lumber industry, as for instance, Turka on the Striy (11,000 pop.), Lisko on the San, Stari Sambir on the Dniester, and Skole on the Opir (match manufacture). The village of Smorze is noted for its cattle fairs, Sinevidsko for its fruit trade. Along the Opir valley lie numerous summer resorts (Tukhla, Slavsko).

In the Hutzul country, too, there are many summer resorts, particularly in the valley of the Pruth (Dora, Yaremche, Mikulichin, Tatariv, Vorokhta). The Hutzuls make their purchases in the little towns which lie at the exit of the main passes of the range — in Nadvirna (saw-mills), Delatin (salt-works), in Kossiv, noted for its mild climate, its flourishing home industry and fruitculture and its salt-works, in Kuti, where tanning and furriery flourish, and in Viznitza (saw-mills and lumber industrial school). In the center of the Hutzul country lies the large Hutzulian village of Zabye. There are noted mineral springs in Burkut and Pistin. On the southern slope of the range lies the only city of the Hutzul country (21,000 pop.) and the town of Hust (10.000 pop.), both important as trade centers of the Hungarian Hutzul country.

In the southern sub-Carpathian zone the Ukrainian territory extends forward but a slight distance. The economic conditions of the mountain range suddenly give way to agriculture and vine-growing. All the cities of the region lie on the borders of the Ukrainian territory at the points of exit of important railroad lines and highroads out of the mountains. Such is the position of Uzhorod (17,000 pop.) and Mukachiv (17,000 pop.) where the products of the plain and the mountains are exchanged.

The Galicia-Bukowina sub- Carpathian hill country (Pidhirye) forms a gentle transition from the mountains to the plain. With the great wealth of forest and meadow and a not very fertile soil, agriculture begins to predominate but slowly as we depart from the limits of the mountain district. Besides, the great abundance of salt and petroleum demands many hands. The villages of the Pidhirye are as a rule, not large; the huts are regularly covered with straw. Here we find the rather unattractive type of the Galician cities and towns. Their chief characteristic is unfathomable mud or unfathomable dust on the streets, depending on the season of the year. Only the suburbs inhabited by the Ukrainian city-farmer population appear at all friendly, with their orchards and their little whitepainted houses. The center of the city is regularly taken up by the Jews. Their houses, as a rule, defy all ideas of cleanliness and hygiene, and, amid bristling dirt, the retail trade surges thru miserable booths and shops. Almost nowhere in the Galician cities do we find wholesale trade or industry on a large scale, in the European sense. The Christian middle-class does not exist, and the educated class of the city population is represented by officials