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As expected, revered tourist guide, and learned: "To understand what a real Dutch village, you will no doubt go to Zaanse Schans. Here you can visit the museum of windmills, to see how to cook the cheese, go on a trip to the factory production of wooden shoes. "
Doubts have nevertheless emerged: as a not very word "museum" is correlated with the words "this Dutch village." But still the same directory of our doubts were dispelled: the village, these were actually real ... 200 years ago. And they stood around the coast of the river Zaan. They were called: Koog aan de Zaan, West Zaan, Oost Zaan, Zaandijk, Zaandam. Even the dialect spoken here is called Zaans.
In district Zaanstreek people lived, using wind power. The terrain here was a marshy, damp soil, the trees do not grow, and the wind blew incessantly, and therefore became the only thing in those days, the means of existence - the source of energy.
It was like this. More than 400 years ago, more precisely in 1596 by Dutch lesopilschikom Kornelizoonom Cornelis (Cornelis Corneliszoon) from Uitgeesta (Uitgeest) was invented and built the first sawmill, working on wind turbines. Wind sawmill to process the tree was 30 times faster than by hand. Cornelis patented his invention in 1597, and then perfected, and it played a key role in the economic development of Dutch "Golden" 17-th century: it is possible to quickly and efficiently build ships, and thus promote trade with other countries, discovering new lands, and even grow them. It is known that, thanks to seafaring, the Netherlands had colonies on all continents.
Over three centuries since the invention in the Netherlands were built thousands of wind mills for industrial processing of wood, grains, nuts, seeds, cocoa, corn, to grind the bark, stones, chalk, for paint and snuff. Only in the district Zaanstreek century ago wooden windmills been around for thousands. This was the first world industrial zone.
Time of war and fire have done their job - and by the mid 20th century from the 17 th century in the Netherlands is little left. But that still left, they brought ashore Zaana and blind Dutch village à la Potemkine ... something restored, to build something from scratch, put five working mills for every taste: Oil pressed, rubbed paint, mustard, make, wood chip. Painted all in green, added a cheese factory, klompodelnyu and a bit of civilization (toilets half a euro, boat rentals, entrance fees and other democratic values) and now the Look - a real 17 th century Dutch village.
Go to Zaanse Schans from Amsterdam Central Station for about 15 minutes. Go to the Koog-Zaandijk - immediately after the stop "station Zaandam. Zaandam is famous because it was here in 1697, he studied carpentry and built its first ships of Peter the Great. It even survived a house where he lived for eight days under the name of Peter Mikhailov.
The train is coming from Amsterdam and Zaandam through Cooga-Zaandik toward Uitgeest - in this city was first built a windmill, which is now in the Netherlands has any self-respecting village.
We went to the Cooga-Zaandik and follow the signs through the village went peshochkom Zaandijk to the river to the ferry to drive in the Zaanse Schans - a windmill that could be seen on the horizon.
We have not met a single person. Maybe because it was Saturday. No one was dug in the gardens, no one was looking out the window. Children are not running down the street. No one. Silence, cleanliness, smell of fresh bread.
We approached one of the houses, windmills, standing on the street and looked into the open door. The owner, before sitting idly at the table, shook himself, jumped to the door and motioned to enter - inside something like a souvenir shop: a model melnichek, Klomp, dolls, and some other trinkets. The mill is clearly the new or recently renovated, although under the wings affixed with two dates - 1656 and 1955. When we asked what was meant by these dates, the owner replied: his ancestors built this mill processing of corn in 1656. Since then, the family lives here. The mill was rebuilt several times - the last time in 1955 by his grandfather.
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This is truly a cosmopolitan state