Windmills in Holland. The Dutch mill does not grind grain, it pumps out water. The mill and the Dutch mentality. From simple to complex

Holland is a constant struggle with the elements - canals, ramparts, dams, piled houses. There are windmills on the canals. For most Russians, the mill is associated with something purely patriarchal - a village morning, the smell of fresh bread, geese grazing by the river, and so on. It is unlikely that at the mention of mills, epithets such as “industrial breakthrough” or, for example, “triumph of engineering” will arise in someone’s head – but in vain, since this is how the importance of mills for Holland should be characterized. Mills in the Netherlands are not for grinding flour. Here, the mills became a weapon that allowed the forces of land to win the first serious victory over the forces of water. But let's go in order... The very first windmills were called "goats". And the construction of wooden houses was the basis for the construction of the mill building. The entire body of the mill could easily rotate along its entire axis. The mechanisms of the structure were located on the windward side, this ensured the centering of the mill. From below, a rather large beam (drawbar) was attached to the wooden beams, with its help the windmill could turn. The rotation from the large main shaft was transmitted to the gears of the mill in such a way that for one revolution of the main shaft the millstone would make from seven to twelve revolutions.Then more modern windmills appeared, meaning: dutch windmills or tent type. During the operation of such windmills, the entire body will stand still, and only the upper part with a large main shaft will turn in the wind. In this way, several millstones were already set in motion and were much more productive. The drawbar was placed on the back of the windmill so that the windmill turned in the wind. The most active use of windmills was found in Holland, this is due to its natural and climatic conditions, since in this country there is a need to pump water from lowland areas.Windmills areprototype, grandmothers of modern propeller wind generators (windmills), moreover, the first electric wind generator was built on the basis of a windmill. Every year on May 10, the Dutch celebrate windmill day, which along with tulips, canals and cheeseare the hallmark of the country. On this day, about 600 of the 1000 windmills that have survived in the country are opened for tourists and local residents.

Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriel. Mill on the polder canal.1889

The word "mill" is associated with the smell of fresh bread, and rightly so - the traditional function of the mills was precisely the processing of grain. But mills as such did not appear immediately. The first devices for grinding grain were hand millstones in the form of two round stones with a hole in the middle. The upper circle moved relative to the lower one, and by adjusting the gap between them, it was possible to achieve different fineness of grinding. Needless to say, this method was inefficient and extremely laborious.

Haes, Carlos de dutch mill

Haes, Carlos de windmill dutch

The next step was the creation of hand mills. It still required the use of physical force, but the upper millstone was set in motion by a whole system of wheels or gears, which significantly increased the speed of rotation and productivity.Less compact, but more powerful were horse mills, where horse power was used instead of human power. And only after these steps did a person learn to use the energy of water and wind - water and windmills appeared.Windmills are much older than one might think at first glance. According to some reports, the first windmills appeared in Persia during the time of Caliph Omar, that is, six hundred years before the birth of Christ. And even earlier they appeared in China. In the 12th century, Europe built the first windmill to grind grain. And by the 14th century, Holland began to use wind energy to pump water from the fields, because most of Holland is below sea level and is often flooded. In part, this allowed Holland to be one of the richest countries at that time. In the drier regions of Europe, the wind brought water to the fields to irrigate the land.

20% 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 history 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.

Since ancient times, residents have needed an advanced water level management system in order to save 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, a large number of artificial channels were dug. However, while the drained soil was just beginning to harden, the river level was raised by river sand. A few centuries later, a new way was needed to keep the polders dry. 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 they are located in the town of Kinderdijk near Rotterdam.
Parking at the entrance is paid - 5 euros, regardless of the duration. Entrance to the wind park is free. But since there seems to be no convenient way to get here except by car, the parking fee is an entrance fee in disguise. Although it is probably 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, the same plan is handed over by the parking attendant after accepting money for parking.
And although the place is touristic, it is very beautiful and unusual. Walking here is a pleasure. The real Holland is a flat area to the horizon, a lot of water, a lot of mills, one of which even spins! The place where the prevailing stereotype coincides with the surrounding reality :)
All these windmills were not used to produce flour, but to pump water. Wind energy is transmitted through a system of shafts and gears 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 here is higher than the surface of the earth. There are physical limits on the height to which one mill can raise water, so the 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 allowed to solve the age-old problem of drainage. So what, and there is plenty of wind from the North Sea in Holland.

The mills are excellently preserved, and may just be restored.

This photo clearly shows the water supply to the mill.

This mill is operational, the blades rotate and you can go there to see how it all works.

You have to pay a few euros for entry.

1738! The blades rotate with a whistle, the power of wind energy is felt. If this touches a person, then it will not seem enough!

Input channel

Most of the Netherlands is flat.

But once upon a time, mills in Holland did literally everything: they ground flour, pumped out water from drained plots of land, stirred paint, sawed wood, well, except that they didn’t cut firewood.

Many centuries ago, when there was no blender, no coffee grinder in the houses, what to say, and there was no electricity either, a person learned to “catch” the wind with the wings of windmills and use its power for his own good. Windmills ground flour, were used as a sawmill or as a water station. Already with the advent of steam engines, the importance of mills in the life of mankind was not so high, and over the years, windmills have become just a pleasant addition to the landscape on the plains of Europe and the seashores in the Netherlands.

But the mills in Holland were used for their intended purpose much longer than in its neighboring countries. Until now, their blades are spinning tirelessly, struggling with the gusts of wind of a gloomy dark sea, and somehow I don’t want to believe that in fact it’s not mills in Holland and a small, barely noticeable float that are “filled” with a system of water stations, but the ubiquitous technical progress .

There are different types of windmills in the Netherlands, and each of them has a specific purpose: pumping water, draining polders, sawing wood, grinding grain, and many others. Some areas are known specifically for windmills, if you ask, they will definitely tell you where the most beautiful windmills are located.

Windmills in Holland will always spin their wings. Museum of old and small windmills in the Netherlands

Windmills in Holland have always been a faithful assistant to man in this difficult matter. Then windmills began to help drain man of the earth and pumped and pumped and pumped water all the time.

Sometimes you really forget that the Dutch had to grind flour in the same way as, for example, the Greeks. Today, so much has been said about the fact that the country is below sea level, that at least a third of its land area has been reclaimed from nature by drainage, that you need to keep a vigilant eye on the tides, that you really get the feeling that the windmills in Holland were built solely for fighting. with constantly flowing water. This, of course, is an erroneous opinion, therefore, in order to better understand the issue of windmills, it is worth visiting one of the windmill museums.

If you intend to learn as much as possible about windmills, then you can’t go to the capital at all - there are only two windmills left in Amsterdam, alas. But one of them, Molin de Otter, is the only operating windmill-sawmill in the world.

There are several mills in Leiden, a couple of them in Harlem. To get a more or less complete picture of the Dutch windmills, you can go to Zanse Schans, a small village near Zaandam, an open-air museum of wooden architecture. There is a bus from Amsterdam Central Station, but nothing will stop you from taking a little trip around Holland by car.

Getting to know windmills in Holland is a very exciting experience. The Dutch restored many of them. Mill Day is celebrated annually in Holland. Every second Saturday in May, 600 watermills and windmills across the country open their doors to visitors. This is a great opportunity to see some of the old windmills, which usually do not receive guests.

If you have time, take a trip to Kinderdijk, a small village in the province of South Holland, located 15 km from Rotterdam, stands at the confluence of two rivers, Lek and Nord, in drained and cultivated areas of lowland, protected by dams from flooding.

Back in 1740, a system of 19 windmills was built here to drain the polders. This group of mills is by far the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands today. This place can be called a windmill museum in Holland. The windmill complex in Kinderdijk was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997.

A touching legend is associated with the name of the village Kinderdijk:

"Kinderdijk" is translated from Dutch as "children's dam". In 1421, during the flood of St. Elizabeth, the area of ​​the polders was partially flooded. It was said that when the terrible storm subsided, people went to see what had survived, and saw a floating cradle in the water. They did not hope to find someone alive in it, but when the cradle swam closer, some kind of movement became visible. Then someone saw a cat jumping from one corner to another in order to maintain balance and not roll over. When the cradle swam to the shore, it turned out that inside it was absolutely dry, and even more so, the child was sleeping quietly in it.

Drive to Schiedam, the city that has the tallest vertical windmills in the world. Of the original twenty, only five survived. This is also a kind of windmill museum in Holland. In 2006, a wind turbine similar to a traditional windmill was built in the area. There is a metro line from Rotterdam to Schiedam, although you can always take a bike.

There are over 1000 windmills in the Netherlands today. Some of them are still used for drainage, such as two of Kinderdijk's twenty mills. Molen de Otter is still in operation in Amsterdam and is also used for drainage purposes. In Leiden, the Molin de Falk mill was restored, and it again, as in the old days, grinds grain. Some working windmills can be stopped: the buildings around them are getting taller, so the windmills can no longer catch the wind like they used to.

All my life I've lived in absolute certainty that mills are built to grind flour. And just seeing the world-famous Kinderdijk- a reserve of real old mills in the town of Alblasserdam, which is 20 km from Rotterdam, I realized how mistaken I was.

19 huge windmills, built in the 1740s-1760s, lined up along the artificial canal. Once upon a time, day and night, they rotated their wings and pumped water from this channel into the nearby Lek River, the level of which is higher, thereby protecting the surrounding fields and villages. Therefore, inside these majestic structures there are not millstones and flour, but giant wheels with metal scoop blades that spin in a narrow stone bag.

They "pick up" the water below, lift it up and pour it into the gutter 1.5 meters higher. These 1.5 meters of difference between the level of the river and the space reclaimed from it is the price of the life of many generations of the Dutch. After all, for the first time people settled here already in the 9th century, and the first mill for pumping water in Alblasserdam was built back in 1366.

Get to Kinderdijk from Rotterdam you can take a bus, or even better, take a boat. The journey lasts about an hour and it lands literally at the entrance to the park. You can just walk along the paths along the dam that separates the canal and the river. But it is much more pleasant to ride along all the mills on a boat (ticket 3 euros), which leaves every few minutes. You can also rent bicycles (one 2.5 euros, if you take two - 4 euros).

Although Kinderdijk is famous first of all, with its mills, but it can also be safely called a reserve of frightened birds - only here I saw very close wild cranes or a beautiful crested grebe with a crest, which do not pay attention to tourists at all, and only react disapprovingly to workers harvesting reeds on the shore: with this Dried reeds, as in ancient times, are constantly covered on the roofs of mills.

Since the Dutch lived(and still live) in constant expectation of floods, the old millers (those who followed the water, not the flour) never left their post. Their wives and children also helped them watch the mill, rotate it with the help of ingenious lever systems, "catch the wind."

Therefore, in every mill there was a residential part. You can also see it in Kinderdijk. Entrance to the mill costs 3.5 euros. I highly recommend not to miss this opportunity. We saw not only the mechanisms, but also the kitchen and children's rooms. Only instead of white aprons and caps, the Dutch millers have a huge number of boots and waterproof raincoats in their houses.

And leaving the Netherlands on the plane, having cast a last glance at the country reclaimed from the sea, I understood why there are so many mills here and such a reverent attitude towards them. And now nothing has changed. Only instead of wind, the pumps are turned by electricity. The fight against water continues.

Volendam is a former fishing village that has been turned into an international tourist attraction. A wide variety of fishing boats and yachts can be seen in the port of this old fishing village. No less famous is the Volendam fish auction - here you can buy delicious smoked eel and the freshest herring.

Volendam is famous for the beauty of folk costumes. Women wear sweaters with pleats, blue or black stripes, over a seven-colored skirt called "zevenklurige rock". But the most characteristic feature of the costume is the headdress: it almost completely covers the face and resembles a medieval helmet. The men wear short jackets with silver buttons cinched at the waist, puffy black pantaloons and round hats.

Fans of outdoor activities in Volendam can play tennis, go fishing, windsurf, go yachting and canoeing, go hiking and cycling. Since the city is located near and on the water, vacationers take boat trips along the harbor to see this amazing fairy-tale settlement from the sea.

At the end of the 19th century, Volendam was a very popular place among impressionist painters. In the local hotel "Spaander" they often paid with their paintings. Today, these works, which are over 100 years old, can be seen on the walls of the hotel.

Catherina Hoeve Cheese Farm

Cheese is one of those national Dutch products with deep historical roots. In the village of Zaanse Schans, located near Amsterdam, a real cheese factory has been preserved, keeping the ancient secrets of making the legendary Dutch cheese.

Here, cheese is brewed according to ancient recipes of Dutch masters and not only from cow's milk, but also from goat's and sheep's 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 demanding gourmet. Visitors are given a unique opportunity to taste and purchase dozens of cheeses of different varieties: from classic to exclusive. Soft and hard cheeses, smoked, with various additives (nuts, spices, garlic, herbs, etc.)

Visiting the cheese factory 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 a particular place.

City of Mills Zaanse Schans

The city of mills - Zaanse Schans - is located just half an hour from Amsterdam. In this city, all the architecture is typically Dutch.

Today, this town is a tourist reserve, which contains the oldest exhibits, and some of them still house cheese dairies and workshops for making klomps. Here, in almost every house there are small museums, restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops that attract many tourists. For rich and especially wealthy tourists, renting any of the presented houses is available, in which you can feel like a true Dutchman of bygone centuries. Also in this town, windmills operate 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 remained active. 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 shoes 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 comfortable to put on and wear, and the foot in a wooden shoe is reliably protected from cuts and bruises.

In the town of Zaanse Schans there is a museum with the largest collection of klomps. There are simple shoes without patterns for everyday wear, as well as painted shoes that the Dutch wear on holidays. Some samples 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.

In the museum building there is a workshop where klomps are made. Previously, they were cut by hand, but now the production uses a sophisticated technique, thanks to which the shoes are made in a matter of minutes right in front of the eyes of visitors.

The national shoes of the Dutch can be purchased as a keepsake in a small souvenir shop: the choice is very rich. It also sells interesting accessories made of wood of different species.

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 the best places to visit the famous places of Volendam on our website.

Individual and group