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Pirogovo is a restored village on the outskirs of Kiev, Ukraine. It is a "selo" (село), which means it is a small village with a church. Unfortunately, this restoration is not entirely correct. For example, the windows at Porogovo are made out of glass, although most peasants were too impoverished to afford glass windows in their dwellings. (Most peasant dwellings that had windows, employed not glass but highly stretched bull bladder, which was transparent. Otherwise the peasants used mica, also known as Muscovite or "Muscovy glass".) Also, the buildings have been repaired using nails, although iron was too expensive to be used by most peasants, especially as it wasn't necessary. If at all possible, the peasant huts would have had an oven which was used to bake bread as well as to sleep upon in the cold winters, in order to keep warm (shown elsewhere in this site); none of these ovens are in evidence at Pirogovo. (A more accurate reconstruction of a peasant hut typically found in Ukraine in the 18th and 19th centuries, may be seen in the Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.)
Windmills normally rested on a foundation in such a way that the windmill could be turned 360° so that the windmill blades faced the incoming wind; the windmill shown here has not been restored in such a manner as to permit rotation. The windmills were probably not typically used to pump water into wells (water wheels would have been used for that purpose), but were most likely used to grind grain for bread.
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