Ladies and gentlemen.

now we are standing in front of a Ukrainian dwelling, which is typical of villages,

towns and even outskirts of big cities, the khata. This one is built of stone, but Ukrainians also used a
mixture of clay and cut straw. In forest areas the predominant building material was wood. You can see, the
house has a straw roof, which is rather high, making possible a high and convenient log will a small window.

The outside porch we are now on is almost always found in Ukrainian houses. Like the one here, it is built in
the form of a small gallery along the front wall.

Let me turn your attention to the front door. It's a single door on iron hinges and it is secured with wooden
locks. The threshold is quite high, so that water cannot get in, nor animals enter the house. As you can see,
the door jambs, as well as the window frames, which we'll examine a little later, have carvings of a
geometric character.

Now, let's get down the stairs and see the windows. They are six-paned, but it is not a rule. You can find
houses with one, two, three-paned windows. The windows have wooden shutters that are covered with
designs. This bird pattern was really very popular in this area at the beginning of the 20th century.

As for the homestead, its layout is not quite identical everywhere. In this region all the outbuildings are
separate from the farm house. In other areas they are under one roof with the main house, and form kind
of a fortress surrounded by a high wall. To have fence around the farmyard is quite characteristic of a
Ukrainian house. In the fence there are gates with wooden bars. You may have noticed how beautiful the
gates and the wicket are. On the left you can see the principal farm buildings. They don't look very
attractive, I'm afraid. The wooden hut on the left is a barn, next to it there are stables for cattle. The small
construction is not a dog kennel, it’s a henhouse, that's why the opening is rather high above the ground.
Now you can explore the outbuildings on your own. Well, now let's move inside the farmhouse.

It is a typical Ukrainian house. Your information about one-room dwellings is not correct. Actually, the
dominant type of Ukrainian khata has three parts, an entrance hall, rooms to live in and the storeroom. You
can see, that in this house part of the storeroom was converted into the second room and the living room
was evidently divided into two separate parts.

The walls of the rooms are whitewashed. I think, the peasants living in this house were well off, as they had
wooden floors, which is unusual. The floor was most frequently made of earth covered with clay.

Now I want to draw your attention to another interesting feature of the khata. Look at this beam. You can
see family dates carved on it.

Now a few words about the house arrangement. On one side of the entrance from the hall is a stove.
Between the stove and the shorter wall there is a plank bed —a sleeping place.

In the corner of honor. on the walls. hang the icons which are often decorated with embroidered towels and
dried flowers.