Tag #147122 - Interview #77954 (Miron Manilov)

Back in that time, almost the entire population of Yagotin consisted of Jews. Jews and Ukrainians were very friendly towards each other. There were no conflicts on the nationality ground. There were several two-storied houses of the local rich men in the center of the town. Well-off people were mostly Jews. As far as I remember from my childhood, the rest of the houses were one-storied. Market square was the town center. There were also small private stores and shop, owned by Jews. Things were mostly sold at the market by Ukrainians, who lived on the outskirts of town. They provided the city with food products.

Jews lived mostly in the town center, where the land was more expensive. Garden plots were small in the town, so there was no room to make a kitchen garden or an orchard. That is why Jews were craftsmen: tailors, cobblers, hair-dressers, harness-makers, tinsmiths, etc. There were orchards, fields and gardens on the outskirts. The Ukrainian peasants took into consideration that their customers were mostly Jews, so they sold only live poultry, because none of the Jewish ladies would buy butchered poultry, which wasn't cut by the shochet, who worked right by the market. The ladies stopped by the shochet on their way from the market so that he could butcher the bird in accordance with all the rules. On Thursday, a lot of fresh fish was brought as they knew that on Friday gefilte fish would be cooked for Sabbath.

There was an Orthodox church and a synagogue in Yagotin. The synagogue was a long one-storied building. Women prayed in a separate room. There was a dormer window so that they could hear the prayers. There was a cheder in the yard of the synagogue.