“We met frequent caravans of the Malo-Russians [Ukrainians], who differ altogether from the inhabitants of the rest of Russia. Their features are those of the Polonese, or Cossacks. They are a much more noble race, and stouter and better-looking people than the Russians, and superior to them in everything that can exalt one set of men above another. They are cleaner, more industrious, more honest, more generous, more polite, more courageous, more hospitable, more truly pious, and of course less superstitious. Their language only differs from the Russian as the dialect of the meridianal provinces of France does from the dialect spoken near Paris. They have in many instances converted the desolate steppe into fields of corn. Their caravans are drawn by oxen, which proceed about thirty versts in a day. Towards evening, they halt in the middle of a plain, near some pool of water, when their little waggons are all drawn up in a circle, and their cattle are suffered to graze around; while the drivers, stretched out upon the smooth turf, take their repose, or enjoy their pipe, after the toil and heat of the day. If they meet a carriage, they all take off their caps, and bow. The meanest Russians bow to each other, but never to a stranger…
At this time, also, numerous caravans were passing from Ukraine and from the Don [River]; and the whole constituted so striking a contrast to scenes we had long been accustomed to view in the cold regions of the north, that we seemed suddenly transported to a different zone.” – observed famous British traveler Edward Clarke circa 1800 and later published in his ‘Travels in Russia and Tartary‘ bestseller.
Chumak was the traditional occupation of an ox-cart driver who transported goods for trade over long distances in late Medieval and early modern periods on the territory of present-day Ukraine. Taras Shevchenko, the most famous Ukrainian poet, mentions chumaks in his poems:
And as she sang, and thus embroidered it [the kerchief],
She by the window-ledge would watchful sit,
To hear the far-off oxen’s lowing cavils,
To see the chumak coming from his travels.
The Chumaks’ long-distance travels had a strong romantic allure in them and inspired the imagination of people who stayed home. Eventually, people started to imagine that in the afterlife, the Chumaks could reach the farthest stars and constellations. That is why in Ukraine, the Milky Way galaxy was commonly referred to as the Chumaks’ Way [Chumatsky Shlyakh in Ukrainian].
Edward Clarke was mistaken in one thing though – Russian is a dialect of Ukrianian Language not vice versa>
The Chumaks’ culture strikingly resembles another culture that dwelt in the same area almost 3,000 years ago – the famous Scythians. ‘Royal Scythia, Greece, Kyiv Rus‘ book takes a closer look at it.
Note: The Metropolitan Museum of Art labels the painter Ivan Aivazovsky as “Armenian, born in Russian Empire [now Ukraine].
