Andriy Nekrashchuk, 19, looks like an ordinary teenager, until he dons his linen tunic work uniform. Then he becomes a paper maker, working out of the recently restored 17th century paper mill in Zhytomyr Oblast’s Radomyshl, more than an hour’s drive from Kyiv.
“First you have to grind up linen and hemp and then boil it into a homogeneous mass,” Nekrashchuk says, stirring the green mass on the hot antique-style oven.
“Then you have to add it to the water to make the paper thicker and be able to write love letters on it.”
Together with the Radomysl castle complex, the 400-year-old paper mill was restored from ruins by Ukrainian doctor and romance singer Olha Bohomolets last year. It now houses her icon collection and has become the top tourist destination between Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
The mill officially opened on Nov. 30, and is now an integral part of the castle exhibition.
“We used old sketches and drawings found in scientific archives connected to the old paper mill to rebuild the machinery and technology of the papermaking process,” Bohomolets said at the opening ceremony. “This paper mill was founded in 1612 to meet the needs of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra … there are still books (around) that were printed on its paper.”
Though the mill fell into ruin just 80 years after its founding, it had made enough paper to supply the Lavra for another 100 years.
“From now on, all the visitors of Radomysl castle will be offered to take part in a small miracle – to order or even try to make a sheet of paper by themselves, as this paper mill is unique for Ukraine,” Bohomolets said.
The process is indeed stunning. In a big room with stone walls and candles on wooden tables there are dozens of white sheets of paper hanging from the ropes strung under the celling to dry. This is the final stage of several required to make paper by hand.
“After the ingredients are boiled they are added to water that then becomes such a white color blend, which is the basis for the ancient paper,” said Viktor Moskalets, the castle’s museum director and chief paper maker, also dressed in a linen tunic. “Our ancestors used to add onion and garlic pieces to the mass to protect the paper from different bugs.”
After the snow white amalgam is ready, Moskalets takes a wooden frame with a wire bed in the form of a church and scoops it up. When the water seeps out, he flips the white rectangle onto a big canvas and repeats the action. When there is no more space on the canvas, he puts another one on top of it. “We do that till there is a big ‘pie’ of canvas and then it goes under the press,” he explains while moving the pie into huge wooden construction to press out excess water from the newly made paper. Next, the artisans carefully hang the paper on ropes to dry.
The wires inside the frame create Kyiv Pechersk Lavra watermarks on the paper. “That’s the way Kyiv Pechersk Lavra paper archives were distinguished,” Moskalets says, adding that the complex hopes to introduce the option of customized watermarks in the future. For now, the price of producing a sheet bearing the church watermark is included in the entrance fee of Hr 40.
Restoring the paper mill took the Radomysl team around six months, as only the tills are antique, while the paper making machinery was specially ordered.
“I am not sure the paper mill opening will create a tourist boom, but it is going to be an attraction,” says Oksana Lysak, the complex’s executive director. “We already had over 16,000 visitors this year and I think the paper mill will help us to increase the castle’s popularity.”
Radomysl Castle Historical and Cultural Center
Radomyshl, Zhytomyr Oblast
098-339-1807; 096 426-2735.
Excursion inside the castle:
Hr 40; Hr 20 (for children, pensioners)
Entrance to park (without excursion):Hr 20
Days off: Monday, Tuesday
Getting there:
Kyiv-Radomyshl bus departs regularly from the Dachna bus station (Zhytomyrska metro) from 7 a.m. till 7:05 p.m.
Once in Radomyshl take bus number 2 from the bus station till the last stop “Castle.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]
