A village wedding

Ukraine distilled? A group of colourfully-dressed peasants lounge on a hayrick near a row of thatched cottages.  As people pass, the loungers grab musical instruments and break into a catchy folk tune.  One handsome fellow whirls a young visitor into a dance.  Welcome to the Pyrohovo Museum of Folk Architecture.  

When you arrive in the hilly landscape of Pyrohovo and find it speckled with windmills, churches and seven separate villages representing regions of Ukraine, you know you've found something special.  The scene teems with convincing, traditional types playing banduras, baking bread, acting out folk weddings and, above all, singing haunting, off-key melodies.  Cauldrons of stew simmer over log fires; crowds of women bearing flowers parade across the hillside; and stalls sell kvas, a non-alcoholic traditional summer drink.  If you have the legs you can walk for kilometres to find the "Carpathian village", hidden up a hill amongst the trees.  The structures are original, moved to Pyrohovo from across the country; many have furnished interiors where you can imagine how people lived in the 16th or 17th centuries.  My favourite is an old school, its layout eerily similar to an abandoned school near Chernobyl (see 14 June), but here with the schoolteacher's living quarters next door to the classroom.  So far in a year in Ukraine I've visited cities in the north, east, south and west of the country.  Pyrohovo is a reminder that I still have much to see.