Carpathian Shepherds

This is a story about shepherds, Gutsuls, living in the Ukrainian Carpathians and their everyday lives: household and seasonal work in the Carpathian meadows, called polonynas. They drive herds high into the mountain and produce cottage and brinza cheese, just like their ancestors did many hundreds of years ago.

The Ukrainian Carpathians border with Romania, partially with Poland and Slovakia. Their total area is 40000 sq. km, almost the territory of Switzerland. The height of the mountains  is up to 2000 m. above sea level. The territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians is inhabited mainly by Gutsuls, which is in fact the only Ukrainian ethnic group for which sheep-breeding has always been the main household activity.

As the natural environment is largely unsuitable for agriculture, it is sheep, cows and goats that have fed and clothed the Gutsuls. The job of a shepherd has always been considered an honourable man’s trade. However nowadays, sheep breeding, glorified in legends and fairy tales, is no longer romantic and attractive. The exhausting work, household and natural conditions at seasonal sheep breeding farmyards demand from shepherds not only experience but also a great deal of physical strength.

  
Progress and globalization have also reached the highest Carpathian peaks, changing the landscape, household and culture. However, in some regions of the Carpathians sheep breeding still preserves many of its original features and modern civilization has not touched the lifestyle of the shepherds. They manage sheep breeding farmyards the way they were many centuries ago.

On average, the season lasts from 4 to 5 months, starting in May and ending in the middle of September. The working day starts between 3 and 5 a.m. The shepherds live and work in polonynas with their whole families and children, who work no less hard. They take water from springs with buckets and cook dinner on the fire.

Village men climb the mountains to exchange cheese and brinza for food products, cigarettes and alcohol. The latter is now a part of a shepherd’s everyday meal. Nowadays, traditional sheep breeding in polonynas is gradually decaying and becoming exotic. The number of livestock in the herds has decreased several dozen times.

Neglected cattle-runs are overgrown with forest, and on slopes where once sheep and horses grazed, people are building ski resorts. Instead of stables and wooden huts, where shepherds used to live and make cheese, piles of rotten logs remind of their presence.