The industry of the Ukraine is now in an important stage of transition. The originally very important home industries which, until recently, satisfied all the needs of the peasantry, cannot endure the competition with the factory system of large-scale industry, which is penetrating more and more deeply into those regions of the Ukraine that lie farthest from the highways of the world’s trade. Home industry is declining irresistibly, factory industry is developing more and more, and, altho the latter is still young and is retarded, in the textile branches, by the centralization of industry at Moscow, still the Ukraine (especially the southern part) is on the way to becoming the most important industrial district of all Russia.
Ukrainian home industry is just as old and of as high a grade as all the popular culture of the Ukrainians—this typical primitive agricultural people. The products of Ukrainian home industry are characterized above all by their great solidity and durability. Their distinguishing feature is in the original ornamentation on all objects, even those destined for every-day use, noticeable particularly in the products of the textile, wood-carving and pottery industries. Anyone who knows Ukrainian home industry is overcome by a sad feeling when he perceives that this industry, which may really be called a fine art, will [[283]]soon be a thing of the past. The foreign rulers of the Ukraine are hostile, or at best indifferent, to Ukrainian home industry, and all efforts of the Ukrainians to promote their very vital native home industry are hindered at every turn. The middlemen ruthlessly exploit the artisan, whose earnings are a mere pittance, insufficient even for the contented Ukrainian. More and more of those who work at a trade are turning their backs upon their thankless occupations, if they can only find a means of subsistence at something else.
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 [[284]]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 Lokhvitzia (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, [[285]]decorated with artistic carvings and with the beautifully conventionalized specifically Hutzulian bead and brass-wire ornaments are produced, e.g., canes, boxes, picture-frames, 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.