Year of the Mills, 2007 - De Hollandsche Molen 🌍

Year of the Mills, 2007 - De Hollandsche Molen

2007 the 600th anniversary of the first polder windmills being built in the Netherlands, so the Dutch mill association De Hollandsche Molen have declared 2007 the "Jaar van de Molens 2007" ("Year of the Mills, 2007"). I'm sure lots of events are planned around this, though I've not come across an English language summary of what's happening. That seems a real shame to me - it's obviously getting a big push, with lots of publicity, so why not target foreign tourists as well as simply domestic Dutch ones?

By a rough translation of the press release, I gather that:

• Maria van der Hoeven, Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science will launch the year on 27th January
• Hundreds of mills will be decorated with flags, and in operation for the occasion
• There are a number of exhibitions opening including 'Life of the wind' and 'Masters and Mills' in the Noordbrabants Museum
• The Netherlands has over 1000 complete mills, and 450 needing restoration.

Update: [28/1/07] The AFP ran a widely syndicated article on this : Dutch celebrate their history-defining windmill. Included are a number of quotes ascribed to Leo Endedijk, the chairman of the association for the conservation of Dutch windmills:

• "We only have 1,050 windmills in the Netherlands compared to 9,000 in the middle of the 19th century," (About half of the remaining mills belong to Endedijk's conservation foundation).
• "Some 30 percent of the surviving mills need to be restored, and if we want to bring that figure down to only 10 percent it will cost some 40 million euros (51 million dollars) in the coming five years"