20% of the territory of the Netherlands is below sea level, and 50% of the territory is only one meter or less above sea level. The whole history of the Netherlands is the story of the struggle between man and the sea. And despite the dedication and amazing tenacity of the people, man was not always the winner in this endless struggle.
Therefore, the drainage system is of particular importance in Holland. For a long time, residents have needed an advanced water level management system in order to keep large areas from flooding.
For the Alblasserwaard polder, this problem became relevant as early as the 13th century. In order to get rid of excess water, it was dug a large number of artificial channels. However, while the drained soil has just begun to harden, the river level has risen due to river sand.
Several centuries later, a new way of keeping the polders dry was required. In this connection, it was decided to build a series of windmills capable of pumping water and keeping it in the inner basin at an intermediate level between the level of the polders and the water level in the river.
These mills are well preserved to this day and are located in the town of Kinderdijk near Rotterdam.
Parking at the entrance is paid - 5 euros, regardless of the duration. The entrance to the territory of the wind park is free. It is quite possible to come from Rotterdam by bike, the distance there is about 20-25 km. A beautiful and detailed plan of the object hangs at the entrance.
And although the place is tourist, it is very beautiful and unusual here. It is a pleasure to walk here. The real Holland - flat to the horizon terrain, a lot of water, many mills, one of which is even spinning. The place where the prevailing stereotype coincides with the surrounding reality.
All of these windmills were not used to make flour, but to pump water. Wind energy is transmitted through a system of shafts and gear wheels to a water wheel, which, due to rotation, pumps water from one channel to another, then the water enters the river, the level of which is above the earth's surface.
There are physical restrictions on the height to which one mill can raise water, so mills were often installed in cascades - each successive mill raises water higher than the previous one. In the 16th century, this technology was a real breakthrough and solved the age-old drainage problem. Well, there is plenty of wind from the North Sea in Holland.
The mills are excellently preserved, or can be simply restored.
This mill is operational, the blades rotate and you can go there to see how it all works.
1738! The blades rotate with a whistle, the power of the wind energy is felt.
To set the optimal position of the wind wheel depending on the direction of the wind, the upper part of the mill can be turned using a special mechanism. It is also interesting inside, everything revolves and works, below you can hear the noise of water - the mill is pumping water. The premises have recreated the furnishings of the 18th century.
Input channel.
Most of the territory of the Netherlands is flat.
Nowadays, instead of windmills, electric or diesel pumping stations are used that pump water around the clock. It is surprising that at this pumping station the pumps are driven not by electric motors, but by diesel engines like ship or diesel locomotives.
It's probably an expensive pleasure, pumping water with diesel engines, which have a limited motor resource, and fuel in our time is not cheap. Although it is quite possible that this is just a backup station, which is included in the work when the main ones do not cope, or if suddenly there are power outages.
When people in different countries As the world thinks about Holland, they usually think of landscapes with tulips and mills.
But rarely does anyone think about why Holland has become a land of mills. Did they grind grain more than in other countries? No. There were more mills in Holland for a different reason. Many Dutch mills have never ground anything. They pumped water. For this, they were invented and are an improved model of conventional mills.
About Dutch mills and the Dutch mentality in the report of the Dutch correspondent of Radio Liberty from the archive site. You can also listen to the original of this program in our audio file in the upper left corner of this page in the recording from the site. We have supplemented this overview with extracts from the official Dutch publication on Dutch mills, and provided it with footnotes.
- audio file # 1
Symbol
fighting the sea
Dutch polder mill and tulips - classic Dutch landscape.
“There used to be a sea here. The area is still called Schermeir, "inland sea". In the early 17th century, in just one year, the mill builder and inventor Jan Andrianzoon, nicknamed "Lejvater" ("empty water"), drained the sea, turning it into what is called in Dutch the word "polder" ("polder" ) - a fertile area of land below sea level, surrounded by dams. Without modern super-powerful electric and diesel pumps, for centuries the Dutch have been able to drain water from half-decks (and today these territories make up a good quarter of the kingdom) with the help of ... mills.
The Dutch polder mill did not produce anything... She pumped water into bypass channel and saved lives. Therefore, the mill in the Dutch mentality is a survival tool. Not for nothing most of them bore the name "De Hoop" - "Hope". This is not an insidious adversary, as in Don Quixote. The enemy, the object of conquest among the Dutch is one - the sea.
The image of the mill, on the other hand, is a symbol of safety, a constant motive of pictorial meditations. Mills adorn the canvases of most Dutch artists. Vainand Nuien's are frightening in their splendor, Jan van Goyen's are smoky, transparent, Meindert's Hobbems are bourgeois-cozy, with swans, Johan Jongkind's are cheerful, romantic caricatures, Paul Gabrieel's are dark, like illustrations to old fairy tales, Johan Härbäru's minimalistic, Hugo Landheer's naive popular prints, Jacob Maris's industrial-impressionistic ones, Jan Slouters and early Mondrian's are red, flushed, Rembrandt's are home-made, sketchy. And even a contemporary of Cervantes, an admirer of the chivalric romance, the Amsterdam playwright Herbrand Adriens Bredero, in his famous comedy of 1613 "The Miller's Joke" made the mill a symbol of hope for the best. "T Kan verkeren" ("Everything can turn around") - says the cheated wife to the dissolute miller in the play, mentally repeating the movement of the rotating mill. The phrase became winged "...
Miller Fred, one of the few remaining in the profession, tells a Radio Liberty correspondent about his work: “Inside every mill there is a miller’s dwelling. The miller had to live at the mill, because the wind is an unpredictable thing. And as soon as the wind appeared, it was necessary to waste no time grabbing it by the tail. Sometimes the wind blew for 48, or even 72 hours in a row, so it was beneficial to have an employee always on site. Accommodation at the mill was free, plus peat for heating, candles. The salaries of millers were almost never paid, so, some 80-100 guilders a year. So they had to hire peasants as workers, sell vegetables from their garden, in general, always earn extra money. The period of hard work at the mill fell, as a rule, in the winter, dark time. The North Sea is nearby, 20 kilometers away. V good weather as now, the mills were not used. The mills were operated only in bad weather. So the millers had to work in the dark, in the cold ... The miller must also be able to predict the weather and use it "...
For more information on the Dutch mill as part of the Dutch mentality, see the audio file in the upper left corner of this page.
Material from the site's archive was broadcast by the American radio station "Radio Liberty", Russian broadcasting, on January 31, 2007 to mark the 600th anniversary of the invention of the first polder mill in 2007 in Holland. The report is abbreviated. Record audio radio programs from the site
Audio radio program recording, preface and note Portalostrahah.ru
Additionally:
Dutch mills
Further, the text from the official publication "Holland. A Mosaic of Impressions ”(2013, Russian), published by the“ Dutch Alliance in Russia ”(tourism promotion community). We have annotated these excerpts on the site:
“Holland was once called the land of ten thousand windmills, but now there are over a thousand historic vertical mills, which is more than in any other country in the world. Vertical mills come in a variety of shapes, from column mills, including hollow column mills, to tower and octagonal mills. In fact, these are all variations of a swing mill, which has a vertical column and the wings attached to it can rotate to face the wind. Some upright mills have a simple central column, while others even have vast rooms that served as the miller's dwelling.
There are different types of windmills in Holland, and each one has a specific purpose: pumping water, draining polders (areas of land located in the lowlands), sawing wood, grinding grain, and many others.
Some areas are known for their windmills, so visiting them should be included in any tour in Holland:
Kinderdijk Is an area where windmills pump water between the river and the polders. (Kinderdijk is a small village in the province of South Holland, about 15 km east of Rotterdam. The name Kinderdijk translates as "children's dam" in memory of the flood of 1421, when a floating wooden cradle with a child and a cat was found in the flooded area. Note Portalostanah.ru);
Schiedam windmills are the tallest in the world... Of the original twenty, only five survived. In 2006, a modern wind turbine was built in the area, similar to a traditional windmill. (The city and community of Schiedam are located in the south-west of the Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The aforementioned ancient mills of Schiedam date back to the 18th - 19th centuries, the wingspan of these mills is about 26 meters, and the height of the tallest of the local ancient mills is De Noord 44.5 meters. It is the tallest old windmill in the world. At the same time, built in Schiedam in 2006, the modern wind turbine De Nolet, stylized as an old mill, is almost ten meters higher than De Noord.
Zaanse Schans Is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the north of Holland. In this village-museum under open air collected historical buildings and windmills so that visitors can get an idea of what Holland was like in previous centuries. (Zaanse Schans is a village in the province of North Holland, near the city of Zaandam. Note site);
Amsterdam - a city with eight windmills... These include the polder-draining mill, the Molen van Stolen, the only functioning De Otter sawmill and the de Goyer towers overlooking the popular Brouwerij 't IJ brewery. (The name of Amsterdam, the main city of the Netherlands, comes from the phrase “dam ( dam) to the Amstel River ". Approx. site);
Getting to know the windmills in Holland is a very exciting experience. The Dutch have restored many of them. Every year (namely every second Saturday in May) Holland celebrates National Mill Day.
On National Mill Day, millers try their best to decorate their windmills and watermills with flowers and flags. Some of them even organize tours and other activities. On this day, you will have a chance to see a particle of Dutch historical heritage because mills have played a fundamental role in the development of Holland, both geographically and economically. "
You can also read about another symbol of Holland on the site -. In our section about ... Turkey. After all, the tulip, like the windmills, was by no means always a part of the Dutch landscape. In fact, the tulip was originally considered a Turkish (Ottoman) flower. In Turkey, it is still considered the national flower.
Volendam is a former fishing village turned into an international tourist attraction. In the port of this old fishing village you can see a wide variety of fishing boats and yachts. The Volendam fish auction is no less famous - here you can buy delicious smoked eel and the freshest herring.
Volendam is also famous for the beauty of folk costumes. Women wear sweaters in a fold, with blue or black stripes, over a seven-color skirt called "Zevenclurige rock". But the most characteristic feature of the costume is the headdress: it almost completely covers the face and resembles a medieval helmet. Men wear short jackets with silver buttons tied at the waist, puffy black pantaloons, and round hats.
Lovers active rest in Volendam you can play tennis, fishing, windsurfing, sailing, canoeing, walking and cycling. Since the city is close to water and on the water, vacationers make boat trips along the harbor to see this amazing fabulous settlement from the sea.
V late XIX century Volendam was very popular place among impressionist painters. In the local hotel "Spaander" they often paid with their paintings. Today these works, which are more than 100 years old, can be seen on the walls of the hotel.
Cheese Farm Catherina Hoeve
Cheese is one of those national Dutch products with deep historical roots. In the village of Zaanse Schans, located near Amsterdam, there is a real cheese dairy that keeps the old secrets of making the legendary Dutch cheese.
Here cheese is brewed according to ancient recipes of Dutch masters and not only from cow, but also from goat and sheep milk. The value of cheese is also due to the high consumption of milk: 1 kg of cheese requires at least 10 liters.
The variety of assortment will surprise even the most discerning gourmet. Visitors are given a unique opportunity to taste and purchase several dozen different types of cheeses: from classic to exclusive. Soft and hard cheeses, smoked, with various additives (nuts, spices, garlic, herbs, etc.)
A visit to the cheese dairy is free for everyone.
What sights of Volendam did you like? There are icons next to the photo, by clicking on which you can rate this or that place.
The city of mills Zaanse Schans
The city of mills - the Zaanse Schans - is only half an hour's drive from Amsterdam. In this city, all architecture is typically Dutch.
Today, this town is a tourist reserve, which contains the most ancient exhibits, and some of them still house cheese dairies and workshops for the production of klomp. Here in almost every house there are small museums, restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops that attract many tourists. For wealthy and especially prosperous tourists, rent of any of the presented houses is available, in which you can feel like a true Dutchman of bygone centuries. Also in this town there are windmills working daily, crushing peanut butter or sawing logs.
In the 18th century, there were more than 1,000 windmills in the city, of which only 6 remain in operation. Inside the mills, you can even chat with the miller and learn about the intricacies of his work or about the history of the city and each house.
Klomps are the national wooden footwear of the Dutch, which is one of the symbols of this country. Originally from the Middle Ages, klomps are still in demand by some residents of Holland. They are worn by peasants who value high strength and practicality in clogs. Klomps are easy to put on and wear, and the leg in a wooden shoe is reliably protected from cuts and bruises.
There is a museum in the town of Zaanse Schans, where the largest collection of klomps is collected. There are simple shoes without patterns for everyday wear, and there is also a painted one, which the Dutch wear on holidays. Some examples can be called works of art. A person wearing klomps used to be recognized by a unique ornament peculiar to a particular place in Holland.
There is a workshop in the museum building where klomps are made. Previously, they were cut by hand, but now they use a sophisticated technique in production, thanks to which shoes are made in a matter of minutes right in front of visitors.
Dutch national footwear can be purchased as a souvenir in a small souvenir shop: the choice is very rich. Interesting accessories made of different wood species are also sold here.
The museum is open from April to September daily from 8:00 to 18:30, from October to March from 9:00 to 17:00. The entrance is free.
The most popular attractions in Volendam with descriptions and photos for every taste. Choose best places for visiting famous places Volendam on our website.
Individual and group
Holland. Accents, associations, the brightest strokes - the first that came to mind.
Eternal reveler, relaxed Amsterdam with its canals and Red Quarters. An almost unexpected love for Rotterdam. Admiration for the scale of the battle with water for every meter of land. Affectionate sun, warming on sandy beach The Hague to the lapping waves of the North Sea. Regret about the failure with the Dutch herring (it turns out that for this it is advisable to come to Holland in June). Wooden shoes at every turn. Huge multi-colored fields of tulips. And, of course, there are more than a thousand windmills in Holland.
They say that there is even a special holiday in this country - the Day of the Mills (Miller's Day) - every second Saturday in May 600 water and windmills open their doors to visitors across the country. It is now the mills are perceived as a symbolic Dutch pastoral, a decoration and a magnet to attract tourists, but there was a time for them to work - they ground, sawed, but most importantly, they drained the spaces and pumped out water. So with their help, man used the power of nature for good.
The village of Kinderdijk is one of the places where tourists come to visit the mills against the backdrop of a typical Dutch landscape.
I read it on one of the sites: "The motto on the coat of arms of the Netherlands reads:" I fight and swim! "
You can't say more precisely. The whole essence of Dutch life for many centuries.
Already by the 11th century, the Dutch began to lack land. At first, they fought for land with the help of canals and dams, later they learned to use wind energy and whole systems of pumps driven by windmills. Dozens of mills pumped water from canal to canal, eventually diverting it over dams. This is how additional land arose, or, according to Voltaire, "God created the earth, and the Dutch added Holland to it."
So I'm on my way to Kinderdijk to see nineteen toiler mills. By ship, along the river.
Water transport in the Netherlands is very important. Ferries, boats, river trams and even taxis in cities are conventional ways transportation of passengers, Dutch everyday life. And for us, who come, it is also an opportunity to see Holland from a slightly different angle - from the water.
You can get from Rotterdam to Kinderdijk by boat. The pier should be looked for near the Erasmus bridge. I got a pleasure boat, delivering to the place, waiting and returning back. All the fun cost 15 euros.
There was a bar on board, and green tea and apple pie were found in the bar just in time.
At first, the passengers settled on the deck, did not have time to freeze.
The ship moves unhurriedly, around Rotterdam, huge barges pass by, smaller vessels, and all this between the banks of the river, carefully fortified.
Forest plots are no exception.
It was not for nothing, not for nothing that Peter I studied with the Dutch.
On the ship to Kinderdijk sailed a little over an hour.
By the middle of the way, the most persistent, not afraid of the wind, or the lucky owners of hats remained on the deck.
Soon the wind and rain completely drove the audience inside.
We arrived at the pier. The ferry in the photo transports passengers and cars from one bank to the other.
Until the mill village itself, marked by UNESCO, from the pier, fifteen minutes at a quick pace.
But we must take into account - it may not work out quickly, you are constantly distracted to photograph something from the surrounding “cuteness”.
Nineteen Kinderdijk windmills were built around 1740 at the confluence of the Nord and Lek rivers.
The main purpose of the local windmills was to regulate the water level in the river.
The mills themselves served as a place of work and housing for the local residents of Kinderdijk.
In 1997, Kinderdijk was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The word "Kinderdijk" is translated from Dutch as "children's dam". It is said that the village received this name in memory of an event that occurred during the flood in 1421. The storm died down, a cradle was nailed to the shore, and in it people found a peacefully sleeping baby.
Mills in Kinderdijk are called "polder" mills. Polder is land reclaimed from water, drained and cultivated. Polders are located below sea level, so mills are needed to drain them. These polders make up a large part of the Netherlands. This is to the question of hard work, the ingenuity of the Dutch and their painstaking creation of their country.
The Dutch people needed a water level management system to protect the land from flooding. Artificial canals were dug to remove excess water from the Alblasserwaard polder, to which Kinderdijk belongs. But later the channels became insufficient. A new way to keep polders dry was to build windmills. With their help, water was pumped and retained in the inner basin between the level of the polders and the water level in the river.
But this is a glorious past, and the present of Kinderdijk mills is to please by the very fact of its existence.
Walking along the central paths is free, you can get inside one mill.
Ticket price - 6 euros (April 2014).
You can approach the desired mill by the bridge.
It is said that in winter the Kinderdijk canals freeze over and become a natural ice rink.
Until the 20th century, ice skating on frozen canals was the most in a simple way get from one point to another.
And why are the Dutch successes in speed skating not surprising?
And here is the insides of the "tourist" mill.
The miller and his family.
Everyday details of the miller's family life.
The whole life of the mill is in full swing around the constantly revolving central pillar.
On the top floor there is a mechanism that sets the restless pillar in motion. You can see it through the iron mesh.
Middle floor, beds in wardrobes and other details.
Lower floor.
Kitchen, dining room, bedroom - in the complex.
Long winter evenings
They say that by the position of the mill wings, neighbors could find out what was happening in the miller's family. If nothing out of the ordinary - after completing the work, the miller stopped the mill wings in the position of a straight cross - one wing parallel to the ground, the other perpendicular. The tilt of the wings could mean the addition to the family or the death of loved ones.
In the meantime, I examined everything and move out to the exit.
And people still live in the mills, but this is a completely different story, closed from prying prying eyes.
A cycle path runs along the canal.
You can also take a boat ride along the canal.
It's time to leave Kinderdijk and on the way to the pier again look at the quiet, calm, not in a hurry Holland.
Invites you on a trip to the country of 10,000 mills, as Holland was once called.
Mills were invented in ancient times, and for a long time they were the only mechanisms used by mankind. With the development of steam engines in the 19th century, the use of mills gradually began to decline - almost everywhere, with the exception of Holland. This is due to its geography.
To begin with, the commonly used name "Holland" is not entirely correct: South and North Holland are only two of the country's 12 provinces. They, however, were the most technically advanced, which led to their wide popularity outside the state. The country itself is officially called "Netherlands". This word in translation means "low-lying lands", recalling that locals settled in the flat plains of the river deltas. About half of the territory, in which 60% of the population lives, lies below sea level, and another 1/3 has a height of less than 1 m. Moreover, 10% of the territory was obtained by drainage, and mills played a large role in this.
Reclaiming the land from water element, the Dutch built systems of parallel canals, and dozens of mills pumped water through them, diverting it behind the dam that surrounded the area to be drained. It was also important that the drained low-lying areas (polders) remain dry. To this end, windmills have been developed that are capable of pumping water and retaining it in the inner basin at an intermediate level between the level of the polders and the water level in the river.
At present, the water level is automatically regulated using modern equipment and pumping stations, but before their invention, each village had its own mill. Holland was then called "the land of 10,000 windmills". Now there are much less of them - about 1000, but this is more than anywhere else in the world. All of them are no longer of practical use, remaining a historical museum heritage.
Among the places best known for its mills is the village of Zanse Schans, located in the north of the country. They say that Napoleon, who visited these parts, described it as "unique in its kind." Today, an open-air museum operates here, where, in addition to mills, ancient buildings are presented - examples of wooden architecture of the 17th-18th centuries.
Of considerable interest is the village of Kinderdijk, located in the province of South Holland at the confluence of two rivers - Lek and Nord. Around 1740, 19 windmills were built here to drain the polders, and this group is now the largest concentration of ancient windmills in the entire country. In 1997, the Kinderdijk windmill complex was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is worth noting that with all the practice of fighting the elements developed by the Dutch, the latter was often one step ahead - full control over the water level was never achieved. Kinderdijk, like many others settlements Holland, was flooded more than once due to destroyed dams.
In the city of Schiedam in the same province, five windmills have survived - with a height of about 40 m, they are the largest in the world. And in 2006, a wind turbine was built in the area, similar to a traditional windmill.
By the way, the first windmills producing electricity were invented in the 19th century in Denmark: for the Netherlands then the issue of draining the land was more relevant. But now wind turbines are being built here everywhere - according to data for 2014, the country is in 17th place in the world in terms of energy production based on wind.
And although windmills have gone down in history, they have not been forgotten. Windmills Day is celebrated annually on the second Saturday in May in the Netherlands. On this holiday, more than 600 of them open their doors to visitors, and millers demonstrate their art. You and I do not need to wait for a special day to get acquainted with this most interesting page in the history of Holland: you just need to take a walk with the help of our panoramas.
