TRADITIONAL HOUSES OF URICH
The folk Boyko architecture has preserved and developed the traditions of wooden architecture of the times of the Halych-Volyn principality. Urych has architectural features of the Northern and Eastern regions of Boykivshchyna. The width of the houses is mostly not more than 5 meters, residential and household premises are located on the same axis and united by a common roof, forming the so-called. "long house". The longest "long house" in Urich reached 25 meters.
The residential part consisted of halls (vestibules) and a house (living room), which served as a kitchen, dining room and bedroom. There was no ceiling in the halls - for better access to the attic and air circulation in the building. The ceiling of the room was held on a dragar - a special beam, in the centre of which a cross was traditionally carved. The end of the dragar can be seen on the end facade of the house. The stove was half-smoky, so there was no chimney on the facade. The household part had two or more rooms - a stable, a barn, a pantry, a grain threshing floor, etc.
The walls were made of plenytsyas – half-sawn logs. They were not plastered, only the facades of the living quarters were whitewashed, and the seams between the crowns were covered with white clay. Therefore, the facades of "long houses" were often of two tones: the residential part was white, and the household one was dark.
The roofs of residential and household buildings had a quadrangular shape and were covered with rye straw. Their height was significantly bigger than the height of the facade walls of the building. Boyko roofs were one of the steepest in the Ukrainian Carpathians! At the beginning of the twentieth century, along with the replacement of straw with other roofing materials, the roof structure was changed to a lower, gabled one, with folds at the ends. The old four-sloped roof has been recreated in the Cultural Centre "House in Hluboke".