Roofing in Ukraine

Ukraine's traditional roofs reflect its landscapes: thatch of straw or reed over the whitewashed cottages (khata) of the steppe and forest-steppe, boards and wooden shingles in the forests and Carpathian mountains, and tiered, shingle-clad domes on the wooden churches of the west. In the 20th century, Soviet industry made corrugated asbestos-cement sheet (shifer) the common rural roof, and since 2022 the repair of war-damaged roofs has become one of the country's most urgent building tasks.

Climate and hazards

Ukraine has a temperate continental climate with cold, snowy winters and hot summers, milder on the Black Sea coast and snowier in the Carpathians. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, many buildings have been damaged by bombing, and asbestos in damaged shifer roofs is a health hazard when debris is cleared.

Roofing history

Thatch was the traditional covering of most Ukrainian houses. Roofs usually had four sloping sides carried on rafters, and the materials varied by region: bundles of straw or reed in the steppe and forest-steppe, roof poles and bunches of straw in Right-Bank Ukraine, sheaves on the Left Bank, and thin boards or shingles in forested and mountain areas. In Volhynia, roofs were thatched with rye straw; in Transcarpathia with straw or wooden shingles; and in Podolia and Poltava with straw, including broad straw roofs on farm buildings. Many houses in Chernihiv Polissia still had no chimneys in the early 20th century, letting smoke escape through holes in the roof. Tiles came into use later, and two-sloped roofs, which give a taller attic with a window, have become popular more recently.

In the Carpathians, Hutsul and Boyko homesteads had galleries with tall straw-covered roofs around the house front, and in the Hutsul grazhda the house and farm buildings share one roof, enclosed by a high fence with its own narrow roof. Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities built wooden churches (tserkvas) of horizontal logs from the 16th to the 19th centuries, with domes and roofs clad in wooden shingles. See wooden tserkva roofs.

During the Soviet period, collectivisation in the 1930s and post-war rebuilding transformed villages, and corrugated asbestos-cement sheet became a common roof on rural houses and farm buildings.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Thatched khata: four-sloped roof of straw or reed over whitewashed walls.
• Shingle and board roofs: in Polissia's forests and the Carpathians.
• Tserkva roofs: tiered, shingle-clad domes and pyramids of the Hutsul, Boyko, Lemko and Halych traditions.

Roofing today

Slate containing chrysotile asbestos is still used for house roofs, fences and farm buildings. A draft law to prohibit asbestos products (No. 4142) passed its first reading.

Notable roofs

• Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region (UNESCO, 2013), eight of them in Ukraine: Drohobych, Matkiv, Nyzhnii Verbizh, Potelych, Rohatyn, Uzhok, Yasinia and Zhovkva.

Local roofing terms

• khata - traditional cottage
• grazhda - enclosed Hutsul homestead with a roofed fence
• tserkva - wooden church
• shifer - corrugated asbestos-cement sheet

Sources and gaps

National statistics on roof materials and information on domestic roofing manufacturers: published information is limited. War damage to roofs and on current building norms: published information is limited.