Water Mill in the village Lipovec. Part One.

The village Lipovets (ukr: Липовець), Khust district, is located at 407 m and is known for its fantastic natural beauty and dozens of places of interest. In fact, there are two villages of the name Lipovets in Transcarpathia. Another one is in Perechin district and there starts "Betonka" (a concrete road) to the Polonina Rovnaya. The main place of interest of the village is mountain lake "Morskoe Oko" (Sea Eye). Other sights are waterfall, two red rocks "Malyj Charlenyj Kamin`" and "Velykyj Charlenyj Kamin`" , the high mountain fish farm, the natural formation "Kotel", the old water mill. Somewhere on its slopes there are fascinating cottages of Uzhgorod tax collectors, where Mr Yushchenko being a prime minister liked to have a rest. I would like to talk about the old water mill and its creator in this article.

The water mill is located on one of the hundreds of small streams, which are flown through the village Lipovec. It is situated on a private courtyard near the main road and therefore will be interesting even for pampered tourists. It was built in 1948 by a blacksmith Alexei Semen (ukr: Олексій Семен), it works still perfectly and performs its functions. Since 1948 a lot of flour was grinded for people needs. In addition, the water mill has such functions as to cut the firewood and to wash the clothes. Through a system of the gears and the transitions the rotational motion is transmitted to a circular saw, which is set near the millstones. There is a small private forge with the old leather fur and the treadle system. When Alexei Semen was younger he worked as a blacksmith and maintained the water mill. He even "invented" his own small "water electric generator".

Some photos. It is the upper part of the mill equipment in the photo below. All the units are hidden inside the wooden monster.



And this is "produktopriemnik". The flour falls off from the millstones. The bags with flour are on the right.



This is the "pyramidal" gutter for receiving the raw materials. You can see the remnants of the "product" as right before our visit the maize flour was produced.



And this is Alexei himself. He is starting the mill now on our request. He turns that wheel and then he opens the valve and unlocks it...



...but first he will have to set the gear. Yes, it is similar to a car gearbox. The speed of millstone’s rotation depends on which wheel the belt is running. The speed affects the quality of grinding.



To make next few pictures I slipped the camera on my outstretched hands into the depths of the mill.








Water Mill in the village Lipovec. Part Two.

06.09.2010. 09:27

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