What is "khutor"

n. A single-homestead rural settlement of Eastern Europe.

A khutor or khutir (, khutir, pl. ху́тори, khutory) is the rural hamlet in some countries of Eastern Europe; in the past the term mostly referred to a single- homestead settlement.

They existed in Cossack-settled lands that encompassed today's Ukraine, Kuban, and the lower Don river basin while in Kuban and Don region the word khutor was also used to describe new settlements (irrespective of the number of homesteads) which had detached themselves from stanitsas. In some Cossack communities in Russia, these types of settlements were referred to as posyólok. In Russia the term "" (vyselki, literally, "those who moved away") was also used. To this day, khutor remains the official designation of many Russian villages in these regions.

During the Stolypin reforms in Russia, Peter Stolypin envisaged rich peasants "privatising" their share of the community ( obshchina) lands, leaving the obshchinas, and settling in khutors on their now individually owned land. A less radical concept was that of an otrub (отруб): a section of formerly obshchina land, whose owner has left the obshchina but still continued to live in the village and to "commute" to his land. By 1910 the share of khutors and otrubs among all rural households in the European part of Russia was estimated at 10.5%. These were practically eliminated during the collectivisation in the USSR.