Mills located on the waterways of Ukraine still remain little-explored architectural
monuments. The main waterway of Podillya is Southern Bug River, which is quite fast and
overflowing. Being associated with the activities of mankind, the water mill was not only
an industrial object, but also mythological and mysterious and had a distinctive
architecture and bright decorated facades, which often distinguished it from other
buildings in the city. The mill in Medzhibozh on the Southern Bug is the oldest building in
the region. M. Hrushevsky pointed out the important fortification function of the mill
during the siege of the city. F. Vovk and M. Sumtsov studied mills as an ethnographic
component of people's life, and according to S. Taranushenko, mills together with bell
towers and churches determined the nature of Ukrainian monumental folk architecture
and were the main accents in village or city planning. Modern researches by M. Dolynska
and R. Mohytych localize topography and investigate economic significance of mills. The
Medzhibizh mill stands in the area of the upper Pobuzhye in the zone of flooding of the
Southern Bug and Buzhok rivers in a wide swampy ravine. Iconography and cartography
depicting the mill is uncommon, from the first drawing to reproduction in postcards and
photographs there are about 10 fixations. The water mill in Medzhibozh, Khmelnytsky
region, which is now in a terrible state, was explored in the summer of 2019 by an
expedition of Kharkiv National University of Construction and Architecture led by PhD in
architecture I.R. Akmen, T.D. Kutsenko, M.V. Rusanova. Research of the object aw well
as architectural and archeological measurements are stored in the archives of the State
Historical and Cultural Reserve "Mezhibizh". According to the existing appearance of the
dilapidated mill with the remains of industrial culture, carrying out historical and
architectural-archaeological research, as well as looking at the iconographic material, it
was determined that from its inception to the state of the XXI century. the construction of
the mill went through four stages: the period of active construction of the city by Mykola
Senyavsky and the time of the Polish-Turkish wars (1540–1699); the period of activity of
the Senyavsky family, who restored the castle and fortifications (1699–1727); the period of
the Czartoryski economy and the transfer of Medzhibozh to a military unit of the Russian
Empire (1730–1941); period of perestroika in the postwar period to the end of the XXbeginning
of the XXI century.
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