118 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photograph by Nevin O. Winter 



PEASANT GIRLS OF KHARKOV I LITTLE RUSSIA 



While the Kharkov district of Russia has developed greatly as a manufacturing and 

 industrial center in recent years, the chief occupation of the population is agriculture. The 

 breeding of sheep, cattle, and horses is also an important activity, and at the four great fairs 

 held annually in Kharkov, before the war, thousands of horses were bought and sold. 



spicuous feature will be a church or two 

 and the many windmills on the horizon. 



Windmills are exceedingly common 

 and dot the landscape on every hillside. 

 Some will be still, while others, with their 

 broad, far-reaching arms, furiously beat 

 the air that blows over the steppes. Sil- 

 very gray they appear from age, as all 

 are built of wood, and they are usually 

 unpainted. Many of them seem ready 

 to fall to pieces from age. 



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE UKRAINIAN 

 AND THE GREAT RUSSIAN 



The general use of windmills is due 

 not so much to lack of water, for they 

 will be found near streams, but the flat- 

 ness of the country does not give enough 

 fall to allow the use of water-power. 

 They are used to grind grain, and the 

 farmers may be seen bringing their do- 

 mestic grists to them, as they did to the 



pioneer water-mills in our own country. 

 In many ways can the dissemblances o*f 

 the Ukrainians with their former Musco- 

 vite compatriots of the north and east 

 be traced. They speak a dialect which 

 varies considerably from that spoken to 

 the north and northeast of them. Their 

 language is said to be nearer the old Sla- 

 vonic than that of the Great Russians. 



The people are handsomer than the 

 Great Russians. Better nourishment 

 probably has something to do with this, 

 or the natural distinction between a north- 

 ern and southern people, but the admix- 

 ture with other races has also left its 

 trace. They are, in general, taller and 

 more robust. 



The natural brightness and vivacity of 

 the Slav temperament, which one will 

 also find exemplified in the Pole, has not 

 been dimmed by the infusion of the more 

 stolid and melancholic Finnish blood, as 



