If statistics is anything to go by, Ukraine keeps facing active urbanism processes, rural areas keep growing old and dying out. And only one region shows the opposite - and of all others it is Zakarpattia.
First, Zakarpattia is the least urbanized region of Ukraine - only 36.6% residents of the region live in towns; second, for the last 25 years this index fell 4% while having grown in any other regions of Ukraine. The towns artificially settled by villagers in soviet times keep suffering from chaotic development, village culture, and army of social workers while rural lands continue to depreciate. Urbanization was the most active in 20th-30th years of the XX century -in those times the population of towns grew considerably, and some “social towns” were built from the start. This phase passed Zakarpattia by; at that moment the region was a part of Hungary. It might be the reason why Zakarpattia managed to become the least urbanized region with the smallest oblast center and rural area still alive.
Not everything is so well here, though. Traditional agriculture, cattle breeding, trades and crafts lose their urgency and all the more become the attributes of the open-air museums than the way of living of true rural dwellers. At the same time, Ukrainians with increasing frequency see the news lines with the words ‘ecology’, ‘ecological compatibility’, pay their attention to the products labeled as eco, and start understanding what this is about. But hardly anybody truly thinks about what hides behind the hackneyed phrase “a friend of the nature” and how a man can interact as equal with the environment, preserving his traditions.
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