Drawing of a village hut from the inside with a stove. Interior of a Russian hut

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The word “izba” (as well as its synonyms “yzba”, “istba”, “izba”, “istok”, “stompka”) has been used in Russian chronicles since ancient times. The connection of this term with the verbs “to drown”, “to heat” is obvious. In fact, it always designates a heated structure (as opposed to, for example, a cage).

In addition, all three East Slavic peoples - Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians - retained the term “heating” and again meant a heated structure, be it a storage room for winter storage vegetables (Belarus, Pskov region, Northern Ukraine) or a tiny living hut (Novogorodskaya, Vologda regions), but certainly with a stove.

The construction of a house for a peasant was a significant event. At the same time, it was important for him not only to solve purely practical problem- to provide a roof over your head for yourself and your family, but also to organize your living space so that it is filled with the blessings of life, warmth, love and peace. Such a dwelling could be built, according to the peasants, only by following the traditions of their ancestors; deviations from the behests of their fathers could be minimal.

When building a new house, great importance was attached to the choice of location: the place should be dry, high, bright - and at the same time its ritual value was taken into account: it should be happy. A lived-in place was considered happy, that is, a place that had stood the test of time, a place where people lived in complete prosperity. The places where people were previously buried and where there used to be a road or a bathhouse were unsuitable for construction.

Special requirements were also placed on the building material. The Russians preferred to cut huts from pine, spruce, and larch. These trees with long, even trunks fit well into the frame, tightly adjacent to each other, retained internal heat well, and did not rot for a long time. However, the choice of trees in the forest was regulated by many rules, violation of which could lead to the transformation of the built house from a house for people into a house against people, bringing misfortune. Thus, it was forbidden to take “sacred” trees for felling - they could bring death into the house. The ban applied to all old trees. According to legend, they must die a natural death in the forest. It was impossible to use dry trees that were considered dead - they would cause dryness in the household. A great misfortune will happen if a “lush” tree gets into the log house, that is, a tree that grew at a crossroads or on the site of former forest roads. Such a tree can destroy the frame and crush the owners of the house.

The construction of the house was accompanied by many rituals. The beginning of construction was marked by the ritual of sacrificing a chicken and a ram. It was carried out during the laying of the first crown of the hut. Money, wool, grain - symbols of wealth and family warmth, incense - a symbol of the holiness of the house were placed under the logs of the first crown, the window cushion, and the matitsa. The completion of construction was celebrated with a rich treat for all those involved in the work.

The Slavs, like other peoples, “unfolded” a building under construction from the body of a creature sacrificed to the Gods. According to the ancients, without such a “model” the logs could never have formed into an orderly structure. The “construction victim” seemed to convey its form to the hut, helping to create something rationally organized out of the primeval chaos... “Ideally,” the construction victim should be a person. But human sacrifice was resorted to only in rare, truly exceptional cases - for example, when laying a fortress for protection from enemies, when it came to the life or death of the entire tribe. In normal construction, they were content with animals, most often a horse or a bull. Archaeologists have excavated and studied in detail more than one thousand Slavic dwellings: at the base of some of them the skulls of these very animals were found. Horse skulls are especially often found. So the “skates” on the roofs of Russian huts are by no means “for beauty”. In the old days, a tail made of bast was also attached to the back of the horse, after which the hut was completely like a horse. The house itself was represented as a “body”, the four corners as four “legs”. Scientists write that instead of a wooden “horse”, a real horse’s skull was once strengthened. Buried skulls are found both under huts of the 10th century, and under those built five centuries after baptism - in the 14th-15th centuries. Over the course of half a millennium, they only began to put them in a shallower hole. As a rule, this hole was located at the holy (red) angle - just under the icons! - or under the threshold so that evil cannot enter the house.

Another favorite sacrificial animal when laying the foundation of a house was a rooster (chicken). Suffice it to recall “cockerels” as roof decorations, as well as the widespread belief that evil spirits should disappear at the crow of a rooster. They also placed a bull's skull at the base of the hut. And yet, the ancient belief that a house was built “at someone’s expense” persisted ineradicably. For this reason, they tried to leave at least something, even the edge of the roof, unfinished, deceiving fate.

Roofing diagram:
1 - gutter,
2 - stupid,
3 - Stamik,
4 - slightly,
5 - flint,
6 - prince's slega ("knes"),
7 - widespread,
8 - male,
9 - fall,
10 - prichelina,
11 - chicken,
12 - pass,
13 - bull,
14 - oppression.

General view of the hut

What kind of house did our great-great-great-grandfather, who lived a thousand years ago, build for himself and his family?

This, first of all, depended on where he lived and what tribe he belonged to. After all, even now, having visited villages in the north and south of European Russia, one cannot help but notice the difference in the type of housing: in the north it is a wooden log hut, in the south it is a mud hut.

Not a single product of folk culture was invented overnight in the form in which ethnographic science found it: folk thought worked for centuries, creating harmony and beauty. Of course, this also applies to housing. Historians write that the difference between the two main types of traditional houses can be traced during excavations of settlements in which people lived before our era.

Traditions were largely determined by climatic conditions and the availability of suitable building materials. In the north, moist soil always prevailed and there was a lot of timber, while in the south, in the forest-steppe zone, the soil was drier, but there was not always enough timber, so it was necessary to turn to other building materials. Therefore, in the south, until a very late time (until the 14th-15th centuries), the common people's dwelling was a half-dugout 0.5-1 m deep into the ground. In the rainy north, on the contrary, a ground house with a floor, often even slightly raised above the ground, appeared very early.

Scientists write that the ancient Slavic half-dugout “climbed” out of the ground into the light of God for many centuries, gradually turning into a ground hut in the Slavic south.

In the north, with its damp climate and abundance of first-class forest, semi-underground housing turned into above-ground (hut) much faster. Despite the fact that the traditions of housing construction among the northern Slavic tribes (Krivichi and Ilmen Slovenes) cannot be traced as far back in time as their southern neighbors, scientists have every reason to believe that log huts were erected here as early as the 2nd millennium BC era, that is, long before these places entered the sphere of influence of the early Slavs. And at the end of the 1st millennium AD, a stable type of log dwelling had already developed here, while in the south half-dugouts had long dominated. Well, every home the best way suitable for its territory.

This is, for example, what the “average” residential hut from the 9th-11th centuries from the city of Ladoga (now Staraya Ladoga on the Volkhov River) looked like. Usually it was a square building (that is, when viewed from above) with a side of 4-5 m. Sometimes the log house was erected directly on the site of the future house, sometimes it was first assembled on the side - in the forest, and then, disassembled, transported to the construction site and they were already folded “cleanly”. Scientists were told about this by notches - “numbers”, applied in order to the logs, starting from the bottom.

The builders took care not to confuse them during transportation: a log house required careful adjustment of the crowns.

To make the logs fit closer to each other, a longitudinal recess was made in one of them, into which the convex side of the other fit. Ancient craftsmen made a recess in the lower log and made sure that the logs were facing up with the side that was facing north in a living tree. On this side the annual layers are denser and smaller. And the grooves between the logs were caulked with swamp moss, which, by the way, has the property of killing bacteria, and were often coated with clay. But the custom of sheathing a log house with planks is historically relatively new for Russia. It was first depicted in miniatures of a 16th-century manuscript.

The floor in the hut was sometimes made of earth, but more often it was made of wood, raised above the ground on beams-lags cut into the lower crown. In this case, a hole was made in the floor into a shallow underground cellar.

Wealthy people usually built houses with two dwellings, often with a superstructure on top, which gave the house the appearance of a three-tier house from the outside.

A kind of hallway was often attached to the hut - a canopy about 2 m wide. Sometimes, however, the canopy was significantly expanded and a stable for livestock was built in it. The canopy was also used in other ways. In the spacious, neat entryway they kept property, made something in bad weather, and in the summer they could, for example, put guests to sleep there. Archaeologists call such a dwelling “two-chamber,” meaning that it has two rooms.

According to written sources, starting from the 10th century, unheated extensions to huts - cages - became widespread. They communicated again through the entryway. The cage served as a summer bedroom, a year-round storage room, and in winter - a kind of “refrigerator”.

The usual roof of Russian houses was made of wood, planks, shingles or shingles. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was customary to cover the top of the roof with birch bark to prevent moisture; this gave it a variegated look; and sometimes earth and turf were placed on the roof to protect against fire. The shape of the roofs was pitched on two sides with gables on the other two sides. Sometimes all departments of the house, that is, the basement, middle tier and attic, were under one slope, but more often the attic, and in others the middle floors had their own special roofs. Rich people had intricately shaped roofs, for example, barrel roofs in the shape of barrels, and Japanese roofs in the shape of a cloak. Along the edges, the roof was bordered with slotted ridges, scars, railings, or railings with turned balusters. Sometimes, along the entire outskirts, towers were made - depressions with semicircular or heart-shaped lines. Such recesses were mainly made in towers or attics and were sometimes so small and frequent that they formed the edge of the roof, and sometimes so large that there were only two or three of them on each side, and windows were inserted in the middle of them.

If half-dugouts, covered up to the roof with soil, were, as a rule, devoid of windows, then the Ladoga huts already have windows. True, they are still very far from modern ones, with bindings, windows and clear glass. Window glass appeared in Rus' in the 10th-11th centuries, but even later it was very expensive and was used mostly in princely palaces and churches. In simple huts, so-called drag (from “drag” in the sense of pushing apart and sliding) windows were installed to allow smoke to pass through.

Two adjacent logs were cut to the middle, and a rectangular frame with a wooden latch that ran horizontally was inserted into the hole. One could look out of such a window, but that was all. They were called that way - “enlighteners”... When necessary, skin was pulled over them; In general, these openings in the huts of the poor were small to preserve warmth, and when they were closed, it was almost dark in the hut in the middle of the day. In wealthy houses, windows were made large and small; the former were called red, the latter were oblong and narrow in shape.

The additional crown of logs encircling the Ladoga huts at some distance from the main one caused considerable controversy among scientists. Let's not forget that from ancient houses to our times, only one or two lower crowns and random fragments of a collapsed roof and floorboards have been well preserved: figure out, archaeologist, where everything is. Therefore, very different assumptions are sometimes made about the constructive purpose of the found parts. What purpose this additional external crown served - a single point of view has not yet been developed. Some researchers believe that it bordered the heap (a low insulating embankment along external walls hut), preventing it from spreading. Other scientists think that the ancient huts were not surrounded by rubble - the wall was, as it were, two-layered, the residential frame was surrounded by a kind of gallery, which served both as a heat insulator and utility pantry. Judging by archaeological data, a toilet was often located at the very rear, dead-end end of the gallery. The desire of our ancestors, who lived in a harsh climate with frosty winters, to use hut heat to heat the latrine and at the same time prevent a bad smell from entering the home is understandable. The toilet in Rus' was called the “backside”. This word first appears in documents from the early 16th century.

Like the semi-dugouts of the southern Slavs, the ancient huts of the northern Slavic tribes remained in use for many centuries. Already in that ancient time, folk talent developed a type of housing that very well suited local conditions, and life, almost until recently, did not give people a reason to deviate from the usual, comfortable and tradition-sanctified models.

The interior of the hut

Peasant houses, as a rule, had one or two, rarely three, living spaces connected by a vestibule. The most typical house for Russia was a house consisting of a warm room heated by a stove and a vestibule. They were used for economic needs and as a kind of vestibule between the cold of the street and the warmth of the hut.

In the houses of wealthy peasants, in addition to the room of the hut itself, heated by a Russian stove, there was another, summer, ceremonial room - the upper room, which in large families was also used in Everyday life. In this case, the room was heated with a Dutch oven.

The interior of the hut was distinguished by its simplicity and expedient placement of the objects included in it. The main space of the hut was occupied by the oven, which in most of Russia was located at the entrance, to the right or left of the door.

Only in the southern, central black earth zone of European Russia was the stove located in the corner farthest from the entrance. The table always stood in the corner, diagonally from the stove. Above it was a shrine with icons. There were fixed benches along the walls, and above them were shelves cut into the walls. In the back part of the hut, from the stove to the side wall under the ceiling, there was a wooden flooring - a floor. In the southern Russian regions, behind the side wall of the stove there could be a wooden flooring for sleeping - a floor, a platform. This whole immovable environment of the hut was built together with the house and was called a mansion outfit.

The stove was playing main role in the internal space of the Russian home throughout all stages of its existence. It’s not for nothing that the room where the Russian stove stood was called “a hut, a stove.” The Russian stove is a type of oven in which the fire is lit inside the stove, and not on an open area at the top. The smoke exits through the mouth - the hole into which the fuel is placed, or through a specially designed chimney. The Russian stove in a peasant hut had the shape of a cube: its usual length is 1.8-2 m, width 1.6-1.8 m, height 1.7 m. The upper part of the stove is flat, convenient for lying on. Furnace combustion chamber comparatively large sizes: 1.2-1.4 m high, up to 1.5 m wide, with a vaulted ceiling and a flat bottom - bottom. The mouth, usually rectangular in shape or with a semicircular upper part, was closed with a valve, an iron shield cut to the shape of the mouth with a handle. In front of the mouth there was a small platform - a pole on which household utensils were placed in order to push them into the oven with a handle. Russian stoves always stood on the stove, which was a log house with three or four crowns of round logs or blocks, on top of which a log roll was made, which was smeared with a thick layer of clay, this served as the bottom of the stove. Russian stoves had one or four stove pillars. Stoves differed in chimney design. The oldest type of Russian oven was a stove without a chimney, called a chicken stove or black stove. The smoke came out through the mouth and during the fire hung under the ceiling in a thick layer, causing the top rims of the logs in the hut to become covered with black resinous soot. Shelves were used to settle the soot - shelves located along the perimeter of the hut above the windows; they separated the smoky top from the clean bottom. To allow smoke to escape from the room, a door and a small hole in the ceiling or in the back wall of the hut - a smoke duct - were opened. After the firebox, this hole was closed with a wooden shield in the southern lip. the hole was plugged with rags.

Another type of Russian stove - half-white or half-kurnaya - is a transitional form from a black stove to a white stove with a chimney. Semi-white stoves do not have brick chimney, but a pipe is placed above the pole, and above it a small round hole is made in the ceiling, leading into a wooden pipe. During combustion, an iron piece is inserted between the pipe and the hole in the ceiling. round pipe, somewhat wider than the samovar. After heating the stove, the pipe is removed and the hole is closed.

A white Russian stove requires a pipe for the smoke to escape. A pipe is laid above the brick pole to collect the smoke that comes out of the mouth of the stove. From the nozzle, smoke enters a burnt brick hog laid horizontally in the attic, and from there into a vertical chimney.

In earlier times, stoves were often made of clay, with stones often added to the thickness, which allowed the stove to heat up more and hold heat longer. In the northern Russian provinces, cobblestones were driven into clay in layers, alternating layers of clay and stones.

The location of the stove in the hut was strictly regulated. In most of European Russia and Siberia, the stove was located near the entrance, to the right or left of the door. The mouth of the furnace, depending on the terrain, could be turned towards the front façade wall home or to the side. In the southern Russian provinces, the stove was usually located in the far right or left corner of the hut with the mouth facing the side wall or front door. There are many ideas, beliefs, rituals, and magical techniques associated with the stove. In the traditional mind, the stove was an integral part of the home; if a house did not have a stove, it was considered uninhabited. By folk beliefs, under the stove or behind it lives a brownie, the patron of the hearth, kind and helpful in some situations, capricious and even dangerous in others. In a system of behavior where such opposition as “friend” - “stranger” is essential, the attitude of the hosts towards the guest or to a stranger changed if he happened to sit on their stove; both the person who dined with the owner’s family at the same table and the one who sat on the stove was already perceived as “one of our own.” Turning to the stove occurred during all rituals, the main idea of which was the transition to a new state, quality, status.

The stove was the second most important “center of holiness” in the house - after the red, God's corner - and maybe even the first.

The part of the hut from the mouth to the opposite wall, the space in which all women’s work related to cooking was carried out, was called the stove corner. Here, near the window, opposite the mouth of the stove, in every house there were hand millstones, which is why the corner is also called a millstone. In the corner of the stove there was a bench or counter with shelves inside, used as a kitchen table. On the walls there were observers - shelves for tableware, cabinets. Above, at the level of the shelf holders, there was a stove beam, on which kitchen utensils were placed and a variety of household utensils were stacked.

The stove corner was considered a dirty place, in contrast to the rest of the clean space of the hut. Therefore, the peasants always sought to separate it from the rest of the room with a curtain made of variegated chintz, colored homespun, or a wooden partition. The corner of the stove, covered by a board partition, formed a small room called a “closet” or “prilub.”
It was an exclusively female space in the hut: here women prepared food and rested after work. During holidays, when many guests came to the house, a second table was placed near the stove for women, where they feasted separately from the men who sat at the table in the red corner. Men, even their own families, could not enter the women’s quarters unless absolutely necessary. The appearance of a stranger there was considered completely unacceptable.

The traditional stationary furnishings of the home lasted the longest around the stove in the women's corner.

The red corner, like the stove, was an important landmark in the interior space of the hut.

In most of European Russia, in the Urals, and Siberia, the red corner was the space between the side and front walls in the depths of the hut, limited by the corner located diagonally from the stove.

In the southern Russian regions of European Russia, the red corner is the space enclosed between the wall with the door in the hallway and the side wall. The stove was located in the depths of the hut, diagonally from the red corner. In a traditional dwelling throughout almost the entire territory of Russia, with the exception of the southern Russian provinces, the red corner is well lit, since both walls composing it had windows. The main decoration of the red corner is a shrine with icons and a lamp, which is why it is also called “holy”. As a rule, everywhere in Russia, in addition to the shrine, there is a table in the red corner, only in a number of places in the Pskov and Velikoluksk provinces. it is placed in the wall between the windows - opposite the corner of the stove. In the red corner, next to the table, two benches meet, and on top, above the shrine, there are two shelves; hence the Western-South Russian name for the corner of the day (the place where the elements of home decoration meet and connect).

All significant events of family life were noted in the red corner. Here at the table both everyday meals and festive feasts took place, many events took place calendar rituals. In the wedding ceremony, the matchmaking of the bride, her ransom from her girlfriends and brother took place in the red corner; from the red corner of her father's house they took her to the church for the wedding, brought her to the groom's house and took her to the red corner too. During harvesting, the first and last were installed in the red corner. Preservation of the first and last ears of the harvest, endowed, according to folk legends, magical power, promised well-being for the family, home, and entire household. In the red corner, daily prayers were performed, from which any important undertaking began. It is the most honorable place in the house. According to traditional etiquette, a person who came to a hut could only go there at the special invitation of the owners. They tried to keep the red corner clean and elegantly decorated. The name “red” itself means “beautiful”, “good”, “light”. It was decorated with embroidered towels, popular prints, and postcards. The most beautiful household utensils were placed on the shelves near the red corner, the most valuable papers and objects were stored. Everywhere among Russians, when laying the foundation of a house, it was a common custom to place money under the lower crown in all corners, and a larger coin was placed under the red corner.

Some authors associate the religious understanding of the red corner exclusively with Christianity. In their opinion, the only sacred center of the house in pagan times was the stove. God's corner and the oven are even interpreted by them as Christian and pagan centers. These scientists see in their mutual arrangement a kind of illustration of Russian dual faith; they were simply replaced in God’s corner by more ancient pagan ones, and at first they undoubtedly coexisted there with them.

As for the stove... let us think seriously whether the “kind” and “honest” Empress Stove, in whose presence they did not dare to say a swear word, under which, according to the concepts of the ancients, lived the soul of the hut - the Brownie - could she personify " darkness"? No way. It is much more likely to assume that the stove was placed in the northern corner as an insurmountable barrier to the forces of death and evil seeking to break into the home.

Relatively small space The hut, about 20-25 sq.m., was organized in such a way that a fairly large family of seven or eight people could comfortably live in it. This was achieved due to the fact that each family member knew his place in the common space. Men usually worked and rested during the day in the men's half of the hut, which included a front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. Women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove during the day. Places for sleeping at night were also allocated. Old people slept on the floor near the doors, the stove or on the stove, on a cabbage, children and single youth slept under the sheets or on the sheets. In warm weather, adult married couples spent the night in cages and vestibules; in cold weather, on a bench under the curtains or on a platform near the stove.

Each family member knew his place at the table. The owner of the house sat under the icons during a family meal. His eldest son was located at right hand from the father, the second son is on the left, the third is next to his older brother. Children under marriageable age were seated on a bench running from the front corner along the facade. Women ate while sitting on side benches or stools. It was not supposed to violate the established order in the house unless absolutely necessary. The person who violated them could be severely punished.

On a holiday, the hut was transformed: the table was moved to the middle, covered with a tablecloth, and festive utensils, previously stored in cages, were displayed on the shelves.

The interior of the upper room differed from the interior of the hut by the presence of a Dutch stove instead of a Russian stove or the absence of a stove altogether. The rest of the mansion outfit, with the exception of the beds and sleeping platform, repeated the fixed outfit of the hut. The peculiarity of the upper room was that it was always ready to receive guests.

Benches were made under the windows of the hut, which did not belong to the furniture, but formed part of the extension of the building and were fixedly attached to the walls: the board was cut into the wall of the hut at one end, and supports were made on the other: legs, headstocks, headrests. In ancient huts, benches were decorated with an “edge” - a board nailed to the edge of the bench, hanging from it like a frill. Such shops were called “edged” or “with a canopy”, “with a valance”. In a traditional Russian home, benches ran along the walls in a circle, starting from the entrance, and served for sitting, sleeping, and storing various household items. Each shop in the hut had its own name, associated either with the landmarks of the internal space or with the prevailing traditional culture ideas about the confinement of the activities of a man or a woman to a specific place in the house (men's, women's shops). Under the benches they stored various items that were easy to get if necessary - axes, tools, shoes, etc. In traditional rituals and in the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the bench acts as a place in which not everyone is allowed to sit. Thus, when entering a house, especially for strangers, it was customary to stand at the threshold until the owners invited them to come in and sit down. The same applies to matchmakers: they walked to the table and sat on the bench only by invitation. In funeral rituals, the deceased was placed on a bench, but not just any bench, but one located along the floorboards.

A long shop is a shop that differs from others in its length. Depending on the local tradition of distributing objects in the space of the house, a long bench could have a different place in the hut. In the northern and central Russian provinces, in the Volga region, it stretched from the conic to the red corner, along the side wall of the house. In the southern Great Russian provinces it ran from the red corner along the wall of the facade. From the point of view of the spatial division of the house, the long shop, like the stove corner, was traditionally considered a women's place, where at the appropriate time they did certain women's work, such as spinning, knitting, embroidery, sewing. The dead were placed on a long bench, always located along the floorboards. Therefore, in some provinces of Russia, matchmakers never sat on this bench. Otherwise, their business could go wrong.

A short shop is a shop that runs along the front wall of a house facing the street. During family meals, men sat on it.

Konik was the name for a men's shop. It was short and wide. In most of Russia, it took the form of a box with a hinged flat lid or a box with sliding doors. The konik probably got its name from the horse’s head carved from wood that adorned its side. Konik was located in the residential part of the peasant house, near the door. It was considered a "men's" shop, since it was workplace men. Here they were engaged in small crafts: weaving bast shoes, baskets, repairing harnesses, knitting fishing nets, etc. Under the conic there were also the tools necessary for these works.

A place on a bench was considered more prestigious than on a bench; the guest could judge the attitude of the hosts towards him, depending on where he was seated - on a bench or on a bench.

Furniture and decoration

In the forest zone of Russia, carpentry tables had a unique shape: a massive underframe, that is, a frame connecting the legs of the table, was covered with boards, the legs were made short and thick, the large tabletop was always made removable and protruded beyond the underframe in order to make it more comfortable to sit. In the underframe there was a cabinet with double doors for tableware and bread needed for the day.

In traditional culture, in ritual practice, in the sphere of norms of behavior, etc., great importance was attached to the table. This is evidenced by its clear spatial fixation in the red corner. Any promotion of him from there can only be associated with a ritual or crisis situation. The exclusive role of the table was expressed in almost all rituals, one of the elements of which was a meal. It manifested itself with particular brightness in the wedding ceremony, in which almost every stage ended with a feast. The table was conceptualized in the popular consciousness as “God’s palm”, giving daily bread, therefore knocking on the table at which one eats was considered a sin. In ordinary, non-feast times, only bread, usually wrapped in a tablecloth, and a salt shaker could be on the table.

In Russian life, the following types of benches were distinguished: saddle bench, portable bench and extension bench. Saddle bench - a bench with a folding backrest ("saddleback") was used for sitting and sleeping. If necessary, arrange a sleeping place with a backrest along the top, along circular grooves made in upper parts the side restraints of the bench were thrown over to the other side of the bench, and the latter was moved towards the bench, so that a kind of bed was formed, limited in front by a “crossbar”. The back of the saddle bench was often decorated with through carvings, which significantly reduced its weight. This type of bench was used mainly in urban and monastic life.

Portable bench - a bench with four legs or two blank boards, as needed, attached to the table, used for sitting. If there was not enough sleeping space, the bench could be moved and placed along the bench to increase space for an additional bed. Portable benches were one of the oldest forms of furniture among the Russians.
An extension bench is a bench with two legs, located only at one end of the seat; the other end of such a bench was placed on a bench. Often this type of bench was made from a single piece of wood in such a way that the legs were two tree roots, chopped to a certain length.

In the old days, a bed was a bench or bench attached to the wall, to which another bench was attached. On these lavas they laid a bed, which consisted of three parts: a down jacket or feather bed, a headboard and pillows. A headboard or headrest is a support under the head on which a pillow was placed. It is a wooden sloping plane on blocks; at the back there could be a solid or lattice back, at the corners - carved or turned columns. There were two headboards - the lower one was called paper and was placed under the upper one, and a pillow was placed on the upper one. The bed was covered with a sheet made of linen or silk, and the top was covered with a blanket that went under the pillow. Beds were made more elegantly on holidays or at weddings, and more simply on ordinary days. In general, however, beds belonged only to rich people, and even those had their decorations more for show, and the owners themselves were more willing to sleep on simple animal skins. For people of means, felt was the usual bed, and poor villagers slept on stoves, putting their own clothes under their heads, or on bare benches.

The dishes were placed in stands: these were pillars with numerous shelves between them. On the lower, wider shelves, massive dishes were stored; on the upper, narrower shelves, small dishes were placed.

A vessel was used to store separately used utensils: wooden shelf or an open shelf cabinet. The vessel could have the shape of a closed frame or be open at the top; often its side walls were decorated with carvings or had figured shapes (for example, oval). Above one or two shelves of the dishware, a rail could be nailed on the outside to stabilize the dishes and to place the plates on edge. As a rule, the dishware was located above the ship's bench, at hand at the hostess. It has long been a necessary detail in the immovable decoration of the hut.

The main decoration of houses were icons. Icons were placed on a shelf or open cabinet called a shrine. It was made of wood and often decorated with carvings and paintings. The goddess quite often had two tiers: new icons were placed in the lower tier, old, faded icons were placed in the upper tier. It was always located in the red corner of the hut. In addition to the icons, the shrine contained objects consecrated in the church: holy water, willow, an Easter egg, and sometimes the Gospel. Important documents were stored there: bills, promissory notes, payment notebooks, memorials. Here also lay a wing for sweeping icons. A curtain, or shrine, was often hung on the shrine to cover the icons. This kind of shelf or cabinet was common in all Russian huts, since, according to the peasants, icons should have stood and not hung in the corner of the hut.

The bozhnik was a narrow, long piece of homespun canvas, decorated along one side and at the ends with embroidery, woven ornaments, ribbons, and lace. The god was hung so as to cover the icons from above and from the sides, but did not cover the faces.

The decoration of the red corner in the form of a bird, 10-25 cm in size, was called a dove. It is suspended from the ceiling in front of the images on a thread or rope. Doves were made from wood (pine, birch), sometimes painted red, blue, white, green. The tail and wings of such doves were made of splinter chips in the form of fans. Birds were also common, the body of which was made of straw, and the head, wings and tail were made of paper. The appearance of the image of a dove as a decoration of the red corner is associated with the Christian tradition, where the dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit.

The red corner was also decorated with a shroud, a rectangular piece of fabric sewn from two pieces of white thin canvas or chintz. The dimensions of the shroud can be different, usually 70 cm long, 150 cm wide. White shrouds were decorated along the lower edge with embroidery, woven patterns, ribbons, and lace. The shroud was attached to the corner under the images. At the same time, the goddess or icon was surrounded by a godman on top.

The Old Believers considered it necessary to cover the faces of the icons from prying eyes, so they were hung with the gospel. It consists of two stitched panels of white canvas, decorated with embroidery with a geometric or stylized floral pattern in several rows with red cotton threads, stripes of red cotton between the rows of embroidery, flounces along the bottom edge or lace. The field of canvas free from embroidery stripes was filled with stars made with red thread. The gospel was hung in front of the icons, secured to the wall or shrine using fabric loops. It was only pulled apart during prayer.

For the festive decoration of the hut, a towel was used - a sheet of white fabric, home-made or, less often, factory-made, trimmed with embroidery, woven colored patterns, ribbons, stripes of colored chintz, lace, sequins, braid, braid, fringe. It was decorated, as a rule, at the ends. The panel of the towel was rarely ornamented. The nature and quantity of decorations, their location, color, material - all this was determined by local tradition, as well as the purpose of the towel. They were hung on the walls, icons for major holidays, such as Easter, Christmas, Pentecost (the day of the Holy Trinity), for the patronal holidays of the village, i.e. holidays in honor of the patron saint of the village, for cherished days - holidays celebrated on the occasion of important events that took place in the village. In addition, towels were hung during weddings, at a christening dinner, on the day of a meal on the occasion of a son’s return from military service or the arrival of long-awaited relatives. Towels were hung on the walls that made up the red corner of the hut, and in the red corner itself. They were worn on wooden nails- “hooks”, “matches” driven into the walls. According to custom, towels were a necessary part of a girl's trousseau. It was customary to show them to the husband's relatives on the second day of the wedding feast. The young woman hung towels in the hut on top of her mother-in-law’s towels so that everyone could admire her work. The number of towels, the quality of the linen, the skill of embroidery - all this made it possible to appreciate the hard work, neatness, and taste of the young woman. The towel generally played a big role in the ritual life of the Russian village. It was important attribute wedding, birth, funeral and memorial rituals. Very often it acted as an object of veneration, an object of special importance, without which the ritual of any rite would not be complete.

On the wedding day, the towel was used by the bride as a veil. Throwed over her head, it was supposed to protect her from the evil eye and damage at the most crucial moment of her life. The towel was used in the ritual of “union of the newlyweds” before the crown: they tied the hands of the bride and groom “forever and ever, for many years to come.” The towel was given to the midwife who delivered the baby, and to the godfather and godmother who baptized the baby. The towel was present in the “babina porridge” ritual that took place after the birth of a child. However, the towel played a special role in funeral and memorial rituals. According to the beliefs of Russian peasants, a towel hung on the window on the day of a person’s death contained his soul for forty days. The slightest movement of the fabric was considered a sign of its presence in the house. At forties, the towel was shaken outside the village, thereby sending the soul from “our world” to the “other world.”

All these actions with a towel were widespread in the Russian village. They were based on ancient mythological ideas of the Slavs. In them, the towel acted as a talisman, a sign of belonging to a certain family and clan group, and was interpreted as an object that embodied the souls of the ancestors of the “parents” who carefully observed the lives of the living.

This symbolism of the towel excluded its use for wiping hands, face, and floor. For this purpose, they used a rukoternik, a wiping machine, a wiping machine, etc.

Over the course of a thousand years, many small wooden objects disappeared without a trace, rotted, and crumbled to dust. But not all. Something has been found by archaeologists, something may be suggested by study cultural heritage related and neighboring peoples. Later examples recorded by ethnographers also shed some light... In a word, one can talk endlessly about the interior decoration of a Russian hut.

Utensil

It was difficult to imagine a peasant house without numerous utensils that had accumulated over decades, if not centuries, and literally filled the space. In the Russian village, utensils were called “everything movable in the house, dwelling,” according to V.I. Dahl. In fact, utensils are the entire collection of objects necessary for a person in his everyday life. Utensils are utensils for preparing, preparing and storing food, serving it on the table; various containers for storing household items and clothing; items for personal hygiene and home hygiene; items for lighting fires, storing and consuming tobacco and for cosmetics.

In the Russian village, mostly wooden pottery utensils were used. Metal, glass, and porcelain were less common. According to the manufacturing technique, wooden utensils could be chiseled, hammered, cooper's, carpentry, or lathe. Utensils made from birch bark, woven from twigs, straw, and pine roots were also in great use. Some of the wooden items needed in the household were made by the male half of the family. Most of the items were purchased at fairs and markets, especially for cooperage and turning utensils, the manufacture of which required special knowledge and tools.

Pottery was used mainly for cooking food in the oven and serving it on the table, sometimes for salting and pickling vegetables.

Metal utensils of the traditional type were mainly copper, tin or silver. Its presence in the house was a clear indication of the family’s prosperity, its thriftiness, and respect for family traditions. Such utensils were sold only at the most critical moments in a family’s life.

The utensils that filled the house were made, purchased, and stored by Russian peasants, naturally based on their purely practical use. However, in some cases, from the point of view of the peasant important points In life, almost every one of its objects turned from a utilitarian thing into a symbolic one. At one point during the wedding ceremony, the dowry chest turned from a container for storing clothes into a symbol of the family’s prosperity and the bride’s hard work. A spoon with the scoop facing upward meant that it would be used at a funeral meal. An extra spoon on the table foreshadowed the arrival of guests, etc. Some utensils had a very high semiotic status, others a lower one.

Bodnya, a household item, was a wooden container for storing clothes and small household items. In the Russian village, two types of bodny were known. The first type was a long hollowed-out wooden log, the side walls of which were made of solid boards. A hole with a lid on leather hinges was located at the top of the deck. Bodnya of the second type is a dugout or cooper's tub with a lid, 60-100 cm high, bottom diameter 54-80 cm. Bodnya were usually locked and stored in cages. From the second half of the 19th century V. began to be replaced by chests.

To store bulky household supplies in cages, barrels, tubs, and baskets of various sizes and volumes were used. In the old days, barrels were the most common container for both liquids and bulk solids, for example: grain, flour, flax, fish, dried meat, horse meat and various small goods.

Lukoshkom was an open cylindrical container made of bast, with a flat bottom, made of wooden planks or bark. It was done with or without a spoon handle. The size of the basket was determined by its purpose and was called accordingly: “nabirika”, “bridge”, “berry”, “mycelium”, etc. If the basket was intended for storing bulk products, it was closed with a flat lid placed on top.

For many centuries, the main kitchen vessel in Rus' was a pot - a cooking utensil in the form of a clay vessel with a wide open top, a low rim, and a round body, smoothly tapering to the bottom. The pots could be of different sizes: from a small pot for 200-300 g of porridge to a huge pot that could hold up to 2-3 buckets of water. The shape of the pot did not change throughout its existence and was well suited for cooking in a Russian oven. They were rarely ornamented; they were decorated with narrow concentric circles or a chain of shallow dimples and triangles pressed around the rim or on the shoulders of the vessel. In the peasant house there were about a dozen or more pots of different sizes. They treasured the pots and tried to handle them carefully. If it cracked, it was braided with birch bark and used for storing food.

A pot is a household, utilitarian object; in the ritual life of the Russian people it acquired additional ritual functions. Scientists believe that this is one of the most ritualized household utensils. In popular beliefs, a pot was conceptualized as a living anthropomorphic creature that had a throat, a handle, a spout, and a shard. Pots are usually divided into pots that carry a feminine essence, and pots with a masculine essence embedded in them. Thus, in the southern provinces of European Russia, the housewife, when buying a pot, tried to determine its gender: whether it was a pot or a potter. It was believed that food cooked in a pot would be more tasty than in a pot.

It is also interesting to note that in the popular consciousness there is a clear parallel between the fate of the pot and the fate of man. The pot found itself quite wide application in funeral rites. Thus, in most of the territory of European Russia, the custom of breaking pots when removing the dead from the house was widespread. This custom was perceived as a statement of a person’s departure from life, home, or village. In Olonets province. this idea was expressed somewhat differently. After the funeral, a pot filled with hot coals in the deceased’s house was placed upside down on the grave, and the coals scattered and went out. In addition, the deceased was washed with water taken from a new pot two hours after death. After consumption, it was taken away from the house and buried in the ground or thrown into water. It was believed that the last vital force of a person was concentrated in a pot of water, which was drained while washing the deceased. If such a pot is left in the house, then the deceased will return from the other world and frighten the people living in the hut.

The pot was also used as an attribute of some ritual actions at weddings. So, according to custom, the “wedding celebrants,” led by groomsmen and matchmakers, came in the morning to break pots to the room where the wedding night of the newlyweds took place, before they left. Breaking pots was perceived as demonstrating a turning point in the fate of a girl and a guy who became a woman and a man.

In the beliefs of the Russian people, the pot often acts as a talisman. In Vyatka province, for example, to protect chickens from hawks and crows, an old pot was hung upside down on the fence. This was done without fail on Maundy Thursday before sunrise, when witchcraft spells were especially strong. In this case, the pot seemed to absorb them into itself and receive additional magical power.

To serve food on the table, such tableware was used as a dish. It was usually round or oval in shape, shallow, on a low tray, with wide edges. In peasant life, mainly wooden dishes were common. Dishes intended for holidays were decorated with paintings. They depicted plant shoots, small geometric figures, fantastic animals and birds, fish and skates. The dish was used both in everyday and festive life. On weekdays, fish, meat, porridge, cabbage, cucumbers and other “thick” dishes were served on a platter, eaten after soup or cabbage soup. IN holidays In addition to meat and fish, pancakes, pies, buns, cheesecakes, gingerbreads, nuts, candies and other sweets were served on the platter. In addition, there was a custom to serve guests a glass of wine, mead, mash, vodka or beer on a platter. The end of the festive meal was indicated by the removal of an empty dish, covered with another or a cloth.

Dishes were used during folk rituals, fortune telling, and magical procedures. In maternity rituals, a dish of water was used during the ritual of magical cleansing of the woman in labor and the midwife, which was carried out on the third day after childbirth. The woman in labor “silvered her grandmother,” i.e. threw silver coins into the water poured by the midwife, and the midwife washed her face, chest and hands. In the wedding ceremony, the dish was used for public display of ritual objects and the presentation of gifts. The dish was also used in some rituals of the annual cycle. For example, in Kursk province. On the day of St. Basil of Caesarea, January 1 (January 14), according to custom, a roast pig was placed on a dish - a symbol of the wealth of the house expected in the new year. The head of the family raised the plate with the pig to the icons three times, and everyone else prayed to St. Vasily about the numerous offspring of livestock. The dish was also an attribute of the girls’ Christmas fortune-telling, called “podblyudnye”. In the Russian village there was a ban on its use on some days of the folk calendar. It was impossible to serve a dish of food on the table on the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist on August 29, (September 11), since, according to Christian legend, on this day Solome presented the severed head on a platter to her mother Herodias. At the end of the 18th and 19th centuries. a dish was also called a bowl, plate, bowl, saucer.

A bowl was used for drinking and eating. A wooden bowl is a hemispherical vessel on a small tray, sometimes with handles or rings instead of handles, and without a lid. Often an inscription was made along the edge of the bowl. Either along the crown or along the entire surface, the bowl was decorated with paintings, including floral and zoomorphic ornaments (bowls with Severodvinsk painting are widely known). Bowls of various sizes were made, depending on their use. Bowls big size, weighing up to 800 g or more, were used along with skobary, bratiny and ladles during holidays and eves for drinking beer and mash, when many guests gathered. In monasteries, large bowls were used to serve kvass to the table. Small bowls, hollowed out of clay, were used in peasant life during lunch - for serving cabbage soup, stew, fish soup, etc. During lunch, food was served on the table in a common bowl; separate dishes were used only during holidays. They began to eat at a sign from the owner; they did not talk while eating. Guests who entered the house were treated to the same thing that they ate themselves, and from the same dishes.

The cup was used in various rituals, especially in rituals life cycle. It was also used in calendar rituals. Signs and beliefs were associated with the cup: at the end of the festive dinner, it was customary to drink the cup to the bottom for the health of the host and hostess; those who did not do this were considered an enemy. Draining the cup, they wished the owner: “Good luck, victory, health, and that there would be no more blood left in his enemies than in this cup.” The cup is also mentioned in conspiracies.

A mug was used to drink various drinks. A mug is a cylindrical container of varying volume with a handle. Clay and wood mugs were decorated with paintings, and wooden mugs were decorated with carvings; the surface of some mugs was covered with birch bark weaving. They were used in everyday and festive life, and they were also the subject of ritual actions.

A glass was used to drink intoxicating drinks. It is a small round vessel with a leg and a flat bottom, sometimes there could be a handle and a lid. The glasses were usually painted or decorated with carvings. This vessel was used as an individual vessel for drinking mash, beer, intoxicated mead, and later wine and vodka on holidays, since drinking was allowed only on holidays and such drinks were a festive treat for guests. It was accepted to drink for the health of other people, and not for oneself. Bringing a glass of wine to a guest, the host expected a glass in return.

Charka was most often used in wedding ceremonies. The priest offered a glass of wine to the newlyweds after the wedding. They took turns taking three sips from this glass. Having finished the wine, the husband threw the glass under his feet and trampled it at the same time as his wife, saying: “Let those who begin to sow discord and dislike among us be trampled under our feet.” It was believed that whichever spouse stepped on it first would dominate the family. The owner presented the first glass of vodka at the wedding feast to the sorcerer, who was invited to the wedding as an honored guest in order to save the newlyweds from damage. The sorcerer asked for the second glass himself and only after that began to protect the newlyweds from evil forces.

Until forks appeared, the only utensils for eating were spoons. They were mostly wooden. Spoons were decorated with paintings or carvings. Various signs associated with spoons were observed. It was impossible to place the spoon so that it rested with its handle on the table and the other end on the plate, since evil spirits could penetrate along the spoon, like across a bridge, into the bowl. It was not allowed to knock spoons on the table, as this would make “the evil one rejoice” and “the evil ones would come to dinner” (creatures personifying poverty and misfortune). It was considered a sin to remove spoons from the table on the eve of the fasts prescribed by the church, so the spoons remained on the table until the morning. You cannot put an extra spoon, otherwise there will be an extra mouth or evil spirits will sit at the table. As a gift, you had to bring a spoon for a housewarming, along with a loaf of bread, salt and money. The spoon was widely used in ritual actions.

Traditional utensils for Russian feasts were valleys, ladles, bratins, and brackets. Valleys were not considered valuable items that needed to be displayed in the best place in the house, as was, for example, done with ladles or ladles.

A poker, a grip, a frying pan, a bread shovel, a broom - these are objects associated with the hearth and oven.

A poker is a short, thick iron rod with a curved end, which was used to stir coals in the stove and rake out the heat. Pots and cast iron pots were moved in the oven with the help of a grip; they could also be removed or installed in the oven. It consists of a metal bow mounted on a long wooden handle. Before planting the bread in the oven, coal and ash were cleared from under the oven by sweeping it with a broom. A broomstick is a long wooden handle, to the end of which pine, juniper branches, straw, a washcloth or a rag were tied. Using a bread shovel, they put bread and pies into the oven, and also took them out of there. All these utensils participated in one or another ritual actions.

Thus, the Russian hut, with its special, well-organized space, fixed attire, movable furniture, decoration and utensils, was a single whole, constituting the whole world for the peasant.

The Russian hut symbolizes Russia in small ways. Its architecture represents the persistence of traditions that have come down to us thanks to the loyalty of the peasants to the commandments of the past. Over the course of several centuries, the style, layout and decor of the Russian hut were developed. The interior of all houses is practically no different; it contains several elements: several living rooms, a canopy, a closet and a room, as well as a terrace.

Izba in Russia: history

The hut is a wooden structure, which up to a third of its part goes underground, reminiscent of a semi-dugout. Those houses where there was no chimney were called chicken houses. Smoke from the stove came out into the street through the entrance doors, so it hung above the ceiling during the fire. To prevent soot from falling on people, special shelves were built along the entire perimeter of the walls. A little later they started making holes in the wall, and then in the ceiling, which was closed with a valve. D decor of Russian hut the chicken was unremarkable. There were no floors as such, they were earthen, the house also had no windows, there were only small windows for lighting. At night they used a torch to illuminate the room. A few centuries later, white huts began to appear, which had stoves with chimneys. This is the kind of house that is considered a classic Russian hut. It was divided into several zones: the stove corner, separated from the others by a curtain; on the right at the entrance there was a women's corner, and near the hearth - a men's corner. On the eastern side of the horizon in the house there was a so-called red corner, where the iconostasis was placed in a certain order on a special shelf under embroidered towels.

Interior decoration

The ceiling in the house was made of poles, which were previously split in half. The beams were laid on a powerful beam, and the cracks were covered with clay. Earth was poured on top of the ceiling. The cradle was hung from the beam using a special ring. This one supposed to have lining inside interior walls linden boards. Near the walls there were benches where people slept and chests where things were stored. Shelves were nailed to the walls. There was no special luxury inside the hut. Every thing that could be seen there was needed in the household; there was nothing superfluous. In the women's corner, items needed for cooking were placed, and there was also a spinning wheel.

Decorative elements of a Russian hut

Everything in the huts sparkled with cleanliness. Embroidered towels were hung on the walls. There was little furniture; beds and wardrobes appeared only in the nineteenth century. The main element was dinner table, which was located in the red corner. Each family member always sat in his own place, the owner sat under the icons. The table was not covered with a tablecloth, and no decorations were hung on the walls. On holidays, the hut was transformed, the table was moved into the middle of the room, covered with a tablecloth, and festive dishes were placed on shelves. Another decorative element was the large chest that was in every hut. Clothes were stored in it. It was made of wood, covered with strips of iron and had a large lock. Also, the decor of the Russian hut implied the presence of benches where they slept and for infants, which was passed down from generation to generation.

Threshold and canopy

The first thing they encountered when entering the hut was the canopy, which was a room between the street and the heated room. They were very cold and were used for economic purposes. A rocker and other necessary items hung here. Food was also stored in this place. Before entering the warm room, a high threshold was built, where the guest had to bow to the owners of the house. Over time, the bow was supplemented by the sign of the cross in front of the icons.

Russian stove

When you got into the main room, the first thing you noticed was the stove. Thus, it assumes the presence of such a main element as a Russian stove, without which the room was considered uninhabitable. Food was also cooked on it, and garbage was burned in it. It was massive and retained heat for a long time; it had several dampers for smoke. There were many shelves and niches for storing dishes and other household items. For cooking, they used cast iron pots, which were placed in the oven using stags, as well as frying pans, clay pots and jugs. There was a samovar here. Since the stove was in the center of the room, it heated the house evenly. A bed was placed on it, which could accommodate up to six people. Sometimes the structure was so large that people could wash in it.

red corner

An integral part of the interior decor of the hut was considered to be located in the eastern part of the house. It was considered a sacred place, embroidered towels, icons, holy books, candles, holy water, Easter eggs and so on were placed here. Under the icons there was a table where they ate food; there was always bread on it. The icons symbolized the altar Orthodox church, and the table is a church throne. The most honored guests were received here. Of the icons in each hut, the faces of the Mother of God, the Savior and St. Nicholas the Pleasant were obligatory. The headboards of the beds faced the red corner. Many rituals related to birth, wedding or funeral were performed in this place.

Shops and chests

The chest was also an important decorative element. It was inherited from mother to daughter and was placed near the stove. All the decoration of the house was very harmonious. There were several types of shops: long, short, kutny, court and so-called beggars. Various household items were placed on them, and a person could sit on a “beggar’s” bench. uninvited guest or a beggar who entered a house without an invitation. Benches symbolized the road in many old rituals.

Thus, before us appears a cozy Russian hut, unity of design and decor which is a beautiful creation that a peasant created. There was nothing superfluous in the house; all interior items were used in the daily life of the owners. On holidays, the hut was transformed, it was decorated with handmade items: embroidered towels, woven tablecloths and much more. This must be remembered if you need to bring a drawing on this topic to school. In the 5th grade in fine art, “decor of a Russian hut” is one of the tasks provided for in the program.

People arranged their huts, matching them with the world order. Here every corner and detail is filled special meaning, they show a person’s relationship with the outside world.

Russian national housing - in Russian traditional culture, which was widespread back in late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, it was a structure made of wood - a hut, built using log or frame technology.
The basis of the Russian national dwelling is a cage, a rectangular covered one-room simple log house without extensions (log house) or hut. The dimensions of the cages were small, 3 by 2 meters, and there were no window openings. The height of the cage was 10-12 logs. The cage was covered with straw. A cage with a stove is already a hut.

How did our ancestors choose their places of residence and construction material for home?
Settlements often arose in wooded areas, along the banks of rivers and lakes, since waterways were then natural roads that connected numerous cities of Rus'. In the forest there are animals and birds, resin and wild honey, berries and mushrooms, “To live near the forest, you won’t go hungry” they said in Rus'. Previously, the Slavs conquered living space from the forest, cutting and cultivating the cornfield. Construction began with the felling of forests and a settlement - a “village” - appeared on the cleared land. The word “village” is derived from the word “derv” (from the action “d’arati”) - something that is torn out by the roots (forest and thickets). It didn't take a day or two to build. First it was necessary to develop the site. They prepared the land for arable land, cut down, and uprooted the forest. This is how “zaimka” arose (from the word “to borrow”), and the first buildings were called “repairs” (from the word “initial”, i.e. beginning). Relatives and just neighbors settled nearby (those who “sat down” nearby). To build a house, our ancestors cut down coniferous trees (the most resistant to decay) and took only those that fell with their tops to the east. Young and old trees, as well as dead wood, were unsuitable for this. Single trees and groves that grew on the site of a destroyed church were considered sacred, so they were also not taken to build a house. They cut it down in cold weather because the tree was considered dead at that time (wood is drier at this time). They chopped it down, not sawed it: it was believed that the tree would be better preserved this way. The logs were stacked, the bark was removed from them in the spring, they were leveled, collected in small log houses and left to dry until the fall, and sometimes until the following spring. Only after this did they begin to select a location and build a house. This was the experience of centuries-old wooden construction.

“The hut is not cut for summer, but for winter” - what was the name of the peasant log house and how did they choose the place for it?
The most ancient and simplest type of Russian buildings consists of “cages” - small tetrahedral log houses. One of the cages was heated by a “hearth” and therefore was called “istba”, from the word “istobka”, hence the name of the Russian house - “izba”. IZBA is a wooden (log) log residential building. Large houses were built, grandfathers and fathers, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all lived together under one roof - “A family is strong when there is only one roof over it.” The hut was usually cut from thick logs, stacking them in a log house. The log house was made up of “crowns”. The crown is four logs laid horizontally in a square or rectangle and connected at the corners with notches (recesses so that the logs “sit” tightly on top of one another). From the ground to the roof, about 20 such “crowns” had to be assembled. The most reliable and warmest was considered to be the fastening of logs “in the oblo” (from the word “obly” - round), in which the round log ends of the logs were cut into each other and they came out a little outside the wall, the corners of such a house did not freeze. The logs of the log house were tied together so tightly that even a knife blade could not pass between them. The location for the house was chosen very carefully. They never built a hut on the site of an old one if the previous housing burned down or collapsed due to troubles. In no case was a hut built “on blood” or “on bones” - where even a drop of human blood fell on the ground or bones were found, this happened! A place where a cart once overturned (there will be no wealth in the house), or where a road once passed (misfortunes could come to the house along it), or where a crooked tree grew, was considered bad. People tried to notice where the cattle liked to rest: this place promised good luck to the owners of the house built there.

What are the names of the main elements of the decorative decoration of a hut?
1. “The Little Horse” is a talisman for the home against evil forces. The horse was hewn out of a very thick tree, which was dug up by the roots, the root was processed, giving it the appearance of a horse's head. Skates look into the sky and protect the house not only from bad weather. In ancient times the horse was a symbol of the sun, according to ancient beliefs, the sun is carried across the sky by winged invisible horses, so they piled a skate on the roof to support the sun. 2. From under the ridge descended a skillfully carved board - “Towel”, so named for its resemblance to the embroidered end of a real towel and symbolizing the sun at its zenith; to the left of it the same board symbolized the sunrise, and to the right it symbolized sunset. 3. The facade of the house is a wall facing the street - it was likened to a person’s face. There were windows on the façade. The word "window" comes from ancient name eyes – “eye”, and windows were considered the eyes on the face of the house, so the wooden carved window decorations are called “Cut frames”. Often the windows were supplemented with “shutters”. In the southern huts you could reach the windows with your hands, but in the north the houses were placed on a high “basement” (that is, what is under the cage). Therefore, to close the shutters, special bypass galleries were arranged - “gulbishchas”, which encircled the house at the level of the windows. Windows used to be closed with mica or bull's bubbles; glass appeared in the 14th century. Such a window let in little light, but in winter the hut retained heat better. 4. Roof of the house from the front and back walls in the form of log triangles symbolized the “forehead” on the face of the house, the Old Russian name for the forehead sounds like “chelo”, and the carved boards protruding from under the roof are “Prichelina”.

What did the upper and lower boundaries in the living space of the hut symbolize and how were they arranged?
The ceiling in the hut was made of planks (that is, from boards hewn from logs). The upper boundary of the hut was the ceiling. The boards were supported by “Matitsa” - a particularly thick beam, which was cut into the upper crown when the frame was erected. The matitsa ran across the entire hut, fastening and holding the walls, ceiling and base of the roof. For a house, the mother was the same as the root for a tree, and the mother for a person: the beginning, support, foundation. Various objects were hung from the motherboard. A hook was nailed here for hanging the ochep with a cradle (a flexible pole, even with a slight push, such a cradle swayed). Only that house was considered full-fledged, where the fireplace creaks under the ceiling, where the children, growing up, nurse the younger ones. Ideas about the father's house, happiness, and good luck were associated with the mother. It is no coincidence that when setting off on the road, it was necessary to hold on to the mat. The ceilings on the motherboard were always laid parallel to the floorboards. Floor is the boundary separating people from “non-humans”: brownies and others. The floor in the house was laid from halves of logs (hence the word “floorboards”), and it rested on thick beams cut into the lower crowns of the log house. The floorboards themselves were associated with the idea of the path The bed (and in the summer they often slept directly on the floor) was supposed to be laid across the floorboards, otherwise the person would leave the house. And during matchmaking, the matchmakers tried to sit so that they could look along the floorboards, then they would conspire and take the bride away from the house.

What was it like inner world Russian hut?
In a peasant hut, every corner had its own meaning. The main space of the hut was occupied by the stove. The stove was made of clay with the addition of stones. The Russian stove was used for heating, cooking food for people and animals, for ventilation and lighting of the room. The heated stove served as a bed for old people and children, and clothes were dried here. Babies were washed in the warm mouth of the stove, and if there was no bathhouse, then adult family members also “bathed” here. Things were stored on the stove, grain was dried, it healed - people took a steam bath in it for illnesses. On the bench next to the stove the housewife prepared food, and the bread taken out of the stove was also stored here. This place in the hut was called “Stove Corner” or “Woman’s Corner” - from the mouth of the stove to the front wall of the house - the kingdom of a woman, all the simple utensils that were in the household stood here, here she worked, rested, and raised children. Next to the stove, a cradle hung on a flexible pole attached to the mat. Here, right next to the window, they always placed hand millstones - a grinding device (two large flat stone), therefore the corner was also called “Millstone”. The front part of the hut was the “Red Corner”. No matter how the stove was located in the hut (to the right or left of the entrance), the red corner was always located diagonally from it. In the very corner there was always a “Goddess” with icons and a lamp, which is why the corner also received the name “Saint”. From time immemorial, the “back corner” has been masculine. Here they placed a “konnik” (“kutnik”) - a short, wide bench in the shape of a box with a hinged flat lid; tools were stored in it. It was separated from the door by a flat board, which was often shaped like a horse's head. This was the owner's place. Here he rested and worked. Here they wove bast shoes, repaired and made utensils, harnesses, knitted nets, etc.

What is the purpose and location of the table in a Russian hut?
The most honorable place in the “red corner” near the converging benches (long and short) was occupied by a table. The table must be covered with a tablecloth. In the 11th – 12th centuries, the table was made of adobe and motionless. It was then that his permanent place in the house was determined. Movable wooden tables appear only in the 17th – 18th centuries. The table was made rectangular in shape and was always placed along the floorboards in the red corner. Any promotion of him from there could only be associated with a ritual or crisis situation. The table was never taken out of the hut, and when a house was sold, the table was sold along with the house. The table played a special role in wedding ceremonies. Each stage of matchmaking and preparation for the wedding necessarily ended with a feast. And before leaving for the crown, in the bride’s house there was a ritual walk around the table by the bride and groom and blessing them. The newborn was carried around the table. On ordinary days, it was forbidden to walk around the table; everyone had to leave from the side from which they entered. In general, the table was conceptualized as an analogue to the temple throne. The flat tabletop was revered as the “palm of God” that gives bread. Therefore, knocking on the table at which they were sitting, scraping a spoon on the dishes, throwing leftover food on the floor was considered a sin. People used to say: “Bread on the table, so is the table, but not a piece of bread, so is the table.” In normal times, between feasts, only bread wrapped in a tablecloth and a salt shaker could be on the table. The constant presence of bread on the table was supposed to ensure prosperity and well-being at home. Thus, the table was a place of family unity. Each household member had his own place at the table, which depended on his marital status. The most honorable place at the table - at the head of the table - was occupied by the owner of the house.

With what and how did they illuminate the interior of the hut?
Mica, and bubbles, and even glass of that time only let in a little light and the hut had to be additionally illuminated. The oldest device for lighting a hut is considered to be a “fireplace” - a small depression, a niche in the very corner of the stove. A burning splinter was placed in the fireplace; a well-dried splinter gave a bright and even light. A splinter was a thin sliver of birch, pine, aspen, oak, ash, and maple. A little later, the fireplace was illuminated by a torch inserted into the “Svetets”. To obtain thin (less than 1 cm) long (up to 70 cm) wood chips, the log was steamed in an oven over a cast iron pot with boiling water and split at one end with an ax, then torn into splinters by hand. They inserted splinters into the lights. The simplest light was a wrought iron rod with a fork at one end and a point at the other. With this point, the light was inserted into the gap between the logs of the hut. A splinter was inserted into the fork. And to catch the falling embers, they placed a trough of water under the light. Later, forged lights appeared, in which several torches burned. On major holidays, expensive and rare candles were lit in the hut to provide full light. With candles in the dark they walked into the hallway and went down to the underground. In winter, they threshed with candles on the “threshing floor” (covered area for threshing). The candles were greasy and waxy. Tallow candles were more often "Macans". To make them, they took beef, lamb, goat fat, melted it and dipped a wick thrown over a splinter into it, froze it and so on several times, they got “Makans”, which often came out skinny and uneven. Wax candles were made by rolling. The wax was heated in hot water, rolled it into a roller, flattened it into a long flat cake and, placing a flax or hemp wick on the edge of the flat cake, rolled it back into the roller.

How were the poker, grip, broom and bread shovel used in the house?
People used to say: “The poker is the mistress of the stove.” In the old days, a stove poker was one of the symbols of the hearth, providing food and warmth, without which family well-being is impossible. While the stove is heating, the owner’s poker works tirelessly. As soon as the firewood has flared up in the stove and the burning logs need to be moved deeper into the stove, the poker is right there. A log has fallen out of the fire and is smoking in the far corner of the firebox; the same poker comes to its aid. A “grab” was used to bring cast iron pots (from one and a half to ten liters) into the Russian stove. Before sending the cast iron into the furnace, it was placed on a pole near the mouth and the grip horns were brought under its body. Next to the cast iron, a suitable sized roller (round log) was placed under the grip handle. By pressing the end of the handle, the cast iron was slightly lifted and, resting the handle on the roller, rolled into the furnace and placed in the intended location of the hearth. It was not easy to do this without skill. The grips, like the pots, were of different sizes, so there were a lot of them near the stove, they were taken care of and they served people for a long time. “Pomelo” is invariably located near the Russian oven and is intended for cleaning the hearth and hearth. Most often, the oven floor was swept before baking pies. The broom was intended exclusively for the stove. It was strictly prohibited to use it for any other purposes. In the old years, when in every village house They baked bread, and on holidays pies; when baking they were supposed to have a wide wooden “shovel” on a long handle. A shovel made from a board was used to put bread into the oven. The bread shovel also required respectful attitude. It was placed only with the handle down.

Where were clothes, fabrics and valuable household items stored?
“Chest” - this word meant a large rectangular box made of sawn boards with a lid on hinges, closed with a lock. Russian people kept clothes and valuables in it. For centuries, various chest items formed an important part of the interior of peasant huts; it was displayed in a prominent place, testifying to the wealth of the family. The chests in which the bride's dowry was kept were often very large and were brought into the house only once - during its construction. In Rus', when a girl was born, they immediately began to prepare a dowry for her - this was called “pumping up the chests.” A dowry was the key to a successful marriage. After marriage, the girl left her home and took with her dowry chests: pillows, feather beds, blankets, towels (made by the bride herself), clothes, household utensils, jewelry. In many houses, chests of different sizes were displayed in the form of a slide, i.e. stacked one on top of the other, sometimes their numbers reached the ceiling. In a peasant house, chests were used not only to store goods, but also served as a pillow stand, a bench, and sometimes a place for an afternoon nap. Chests, headrests, caskets, hideaways, caskets were richly decorated. Usually they were bound for strength with strips of iron, tinned or blued. Customers presented certain artistic demands to chest makers: chests should not only be spacious and durable, but also beautiful. For this purpose, chests were painted with tempera paints diluted in egg yolk. Images of a lion or griffin were often found on chest items; they were considered strong, courageous animals, good defenders good acquired by a person.

What was the significance of an embroidered towel in peasant life?
In Rus', towels were hung in the hut for festive decoration. Their colorful patterns enlivened its log walls, adding festivity and making the home elegant. They surrounded the shrine in the red corner with a towel and hung it on windows, mirrors, and walls. In the old peasant life, a towel was called a sheet of home-made white fabric, trimmed with embroidery, a woven colored pattern, ribbons, stripes of colored chintz, lace, etc. The length of the towels was from 2 to 4 m, width 3638 cm. It was decorated, as a rule, at the ends; the cloth was rarely ornamented. The large “hand-knitted” towel, the so-called “wall” (the length of the wall), was especially richly decorated. During the hand-waving ceremony it was given to the groom, hanging it around his neck. This meant that the bride had been matched, and the groom threw the towel to his relatives. The shrine was decorated with it for the entire duration of the wedding, and during the trip to the crown it was tied to the arch of the wedding cart. “Gift” towels, which the bride gave to the groom’s relatives, were less decorated than hand-knitted ones. The bride was covered with a towel (and a shawl on top) when she was taken to church. The bride and groom were tied with a towel, as if symbolizing the strength of their family life. The towel played a significant role in maternity and baptismal rites, as well as in funeral and memorial rites. According to custom, richly ornamented towels were a necessary part of a girl's trousseau. On the second day of the wedding, the young woman hung her handmade towels in the hut on top of her mother-in-law’s towels so that all the guests could admire her work. The towel was present in many customs and rituals of the Russian family. This purpose of the towel precluded its use for wiping hands, face, or floor. For this purpose, they used a “rucker or wiping.”

What vegetable and animal oils were produced in Rus'?
So what exactly is “butter”? Whatever you say, you love it or you don’t love it, but without fat, which forms the basis of oil, human life would be impossible, since every cell of our body is surrounded by a protective fatty film. The most commonly used vegetable oils in Rus' have always been flaxseed and hemp. And what is familiar to us sunflower oil came into use much later, at the beginning of the 19th century. The use of vegetable oils was allowed even during the strictest multi-day fasts, which is why its second “folk” name is vegetable oil. Hemp oil fatty vegetable oil, obtained from the fruits of the hemp plant, usually by squeezing, it has excellent nutritional, protective and regenerative properties. Unfortunately, nowadays hemp is perceived as a narcotic plant and is prohibited from cultivation. Flaxseed oil was not inferior to hemp oil and has always been one of the most valuable and important food products. Flax oil is food, medicine, and cosmetics. But, if flaxseed oil has a specific smell, then pumpkin and cedar oils are among the most delicious. Rosehip and nut oils were often used for medicinal purposes. Animal butter in Rus' was churned from cream, sour cream and whole milk. The most common way to prepare butter was to melt sour cream or cream in a Russian oven. The separated oily mass was cooled and beaten with wooden whorls, spatulas, spoons, and often with hands. The finished oil was washed in cold water. Since fresh butter could not be stored for a long time, peasants melted it in ovens to obtain clarified butter.

Why did they say in Rus' - “Without salt, without bread - half a meal”?
There was always bread on the table in a Russian house, and a salt shaker stood next to it; salt was a kind of amulet, because our ancestors believed that salt protected from hostile forces. In the old days, when subsistence farming dominated, salt was Eastern Slavs almost the only purchased product. Salt was very expensive and was taken care of. This explains the widespread sign that spilling salt is not good - punishment will follow. A loaf of bread and a salt shaker decorated the wedding table, it was given as a housewarming gift, they came with it to a newborn child, as if with a blessing, and when they met a traveler setting off on a journey and a dear guest, they brought bread and salt with a wish for wealth and prosperity, thereby expressing your disposition towards them. Once upon a time, the word “loaf” was pronounced and written as “korovai”. A very long time ago, people sacrificed domestic animals (cows) to appease the Gods, but life did not allow them to part with the cow nurse. That’s when they began to make cows from dough, and later - bread with horns, which was called “korovai”. Since the main grain crop was rye, they baked mainly rye bread. In Rus', since ancient times, rye bread was the main food product; it was kneaded with natural leaven and came in three varieties: 1) fur, or chaff, made from poorly winnowed rye and wholemeal; 2) sieve made from rye flour, sifted through a very thin sieve (sieve); 3) sieve made from rye flour, sifted through a regular fine sieve. But where wheat was sown, white bread was also baked. The best was considered “brick” bread, baked from well-sifted wheat flour. The grinding of flour and the thoroughness of its sifting determined the taste of the bread.

“The porridge is good, but the cup is small” - they loved porridge in Rus', but what cereals were they prepared from?
Since medieval antiquity, rye, oats, wheat, barley, millet, and buckwheat have been cultivated in our country. Today in our country the following types of cereals are produced from these cereals: from buckwheat - core and prodel; from millet - polished millet; from oats - cereals: uncrushed, rolled, flakes and oatmeal; from barley - pearl barley and barley; from durum wheat, when ground, they produce semolina. Our ancestors long ago borrowed the skills of making flour and mastered the “secrets” of baking various products from fermented dough. That is why pies, pies, pancakes, pies, kulebyaki, pancakes, pancakes, etc. are of significant importance in the food of our ancestors. Many of these products have long become traditional for festive tables: kurniks - at weddings, pies, pancakes - at Maslenitsa, "larks" "from dough - on spring holidays, etc. No less typical for Russian traditional cuisine are dishes from all kinds of cereals: various porridges, krupeniki, oatmeal jelly, casseroles. In the more northern regions of our country, dishes prepared from millet are of particular importance. Millet served as a raw material for producing flour, cereals, brewing beer, kvass, preparing soups and sweet dishes. This folk tradition continues to this day. Porridge was an everyday food and there were three main types - crumbly, viscous and liquid; milk, fat, butter, eggs, mushrooms, etc. were added to it. There are more than twenty of them in Rus': plain buckwheat, buckwheat with peas, millet, oatmeal, wheat, carrot, turnip, pea, etc. “Kutia” was a special dish in Rus'; it was prepared from wheat grains with the addition of honey.

Which vegetable crops cultivated in Rus'?
Not only grain crops were cultivated by our ancestors. From ancient times, through the centuries, such crops as cabbage, beets, turnips, rutabaga, pumpkin, carrots, and peas have come down to the present day and have become the main crops in our garden. The most widely used cabbage in Rus' was sauerkraut, which could be preserved until the next harvest. Cabbage served as an indispensable snack, seasoning for different dishes. Cabbage soup made from various types of cabbage is the well-deserved pride of our national cuisine, although they were prepared in ancient Rome, where a lot of cabbage was specially grown. Just many vegetable plants and recipes for dishes “migrated” from Ancient Rome through Byzantium to Rus' after the adoption of Christianity in Rus'. Turnips in Russia until the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. was as important as potatoes are today. Turnips were used everywhere and many dishes were prepared from turnips, stuffed, boiled, steamed. Turnips were used as a filling for pies, and kvass was made from it. Turnips contain very valuable biochemical sulfur compounds, which, when eaten regularly, are excellent immunostimulants. Later, turnips began to fall out of use, but potatoes and the proverb appeared - “Potatoes help bread,” and tomatoes and cucumbers began to be cultivated. Pumpkin appeared in Rus' in the XYI century and immediately became popular among peasants due to its productivity, unpretentiousness, usefulness and ability for long-term storage. Beetroot was considered an exclusively medicinal product; from early spring to late autumn, both roots and tops of the plant were eaten.

“When it’s hot in the oven, then it’s cooked” - how does a Russian oven work?
For Russians, already in ancient times, the so-called “Russian stove” appeared and became firmly established in everyday life. A good stove is the pride of the owner, the holy of holies of the home. The fire burning in the stove provided light and warmth, and food was cooked on it. This unique structure played the role of a kind of vital center for the family. Russian stoves have always been installed on the stove. This is a small log house with three or four crowns of round logs. A horizontal “roll-up” was arranged on top of it, which was covered with sand and smeared with a thick layer of clay. This clay served as a “hearth” for the furnace. A grip, a poker, and a scoop were kept in the “oven”; it was believed that the brownie lived there. The stove was made of stone (brick) and coated with clay on top; it was supposed to hold heat for as long as possible and require as little firewood as possible. The design of the stove is also related to the shape of the clay dishes in which food was prepared (the so-called “Slavic pots.” The fact is that in this stove the dishes are heated from the sides and therefore must have a large lateral surface. In addition, the shape of the pots is best suited for The size of the oven was almost cubic: length 1.8-2 m, width 1.6-1.8 m, height 1.7 m. The upper part of the oven was made wide and flat, comfortable for lying on. The inner space of the oven was “. firebox", "crucible" - made large: 1.2-1.4 m high, up to 1.5 m wide, with a vaulted ceiling and a flat bottom - "bottom". the mouth" - they were tightly closed with a large "damper", in order to avoid heat loss, a platform was set up in front of the mouth - a wide board - a "pole", on which utensils were placed so that they could be pushed into the oven with a grip. "ash pits" were located to the right and left of the pole. hot coals were stored for a year.

“One day feeds a year” - why was the timing of land cultivation important for the farmer?
The peasants lived surrounded by beautiful but harsh nature. Their life depended on drought and rain, the number of workers in the family, and the safety of the harvest. Their main occupation is gradually becoming “farming”. First, in the winter, a section of the forest was cut down. In the spring it was burned, the ash served as fertilizer. After this, they loosened it with a hoe, mixing the ash with the soil, and then the field was sown. In most of Russia, the main arable tool was the “plow” or “plow”; along with the plow, the “roe deer” was known, which was used to raise new soil (uncultivated soil). For loosening the soil after plowing, mixing layers and removing weeds they used “bough harrows” (this was the name given to a large tree branch with branches that were not completely cut off). Throughout Russia, baskets called “seeders” were used for sowing grain, flax seeds and hemp; “sickles” were used for harvesting; they were the most common harvesting tool; “flails” were used for threshing grain crops; “rollers” were used for threshing flax and hemp. ”, for winnowing - “shovels”, for processing grain into flour at home - “millstones”. Peasants sowed millet, wheat, barley, oats, rye, buckwheat, hemp, flax, and less often beans and peas. The Slavs called bread “zhit” (from the word “to live”), because they could not live without it: it was the main food product. Each village had its own experts who determined the timing of agricultural work. The peasant determined the right moment of “ripeness” of the land for plowing based on the centuries-old experience of his ancestors: taking a handful of soil and squeezing it tightly in his fist, he released it. If the lump crumbles when it falls, it means the soil is ready for sowing; if it falls in a lump, it means it is not yet ripe (i.e., has not dried out). In June, haymaking began, in July and August - the hard time of harvesting grain.

Where did the proverb come from: “When you sow flax, you reap gold”?
Since ancient times, flax was cultivated in Rus', which fed and clothed people; our ancestors said about it with respect: “You sow flax, and you reap gold.” To process flax stems into fiber, from fiber into thread, they used “beaters”, “ruffles”, “combs”, “rollers”, “spinning wheels”, “self-spinning wheels”, “spindles”. The spinning wheel was a necessary item of peasant household use: it was a tool of labor, a decoration for the hut, and a wedding gift. For centuries, the technology of growing and processing flax has remained unchanged. Ripe flax is tugged, that is, pulled out of the ground, along with the roots. Then it is dried, freed from the seed heads (combed), threshed, soaked, which makes it possible to separate the fiber from the woody part of the stem, crumpled and crushed. The frayed flax is combed and a thin twisted ribbon is obtained - a roving. On long winter evenings, women spun flax yarn from it - twisting flax fibers into thread on spindles or spinning wheels. During spinning, the fingers of the left hand had to be wetted to give the thread “strength.” Spinning is a rather complex and monotonous job; to make work more fun, the girls gathered in some hut, sang and had conversations there, but did not forget about work. Everyone tried to work as best as possible, because the girl’s skill will be judged by what kind of thread it turns out. Having received a sufficient number of threads, they were used to make fabric on a handloom. Flax in Rus' was grown not only to obtain linen fabric, which was very valuable in its properties. It is known that in ancient Rus', delicious bread and flatbreads were baked from flaxseed flour, obtained from ground flax seeds, and flaxseed oil was added to food on fasting days.

What material was used to make dishes in Rus'?
The peasants did everything they needed for the household themselves. Dishes were made from tree bark (carts, bowls, buckets, barrels), carved from wood (spoons, cups, basins), sculpted from clay, then fired over a fire in an oven. Utensils for the same purpose, but made from different materials: a vessel made of clay - “pot”, made of cast iron - “cast iron”, made of copper - “coppler”. Clay pots and jugs were used for cooking for people for a very long time. Pots were made in a variety of sizes. The main advantage of the pot was its strength. On the farm they treasured the pots and took care of them. If a pot was cracked, it was braided with birch bark ribbons and cereals were stored in it. Later, the pot was replaced by cast iron - tinned metal vessels; they retained the shape of the pot. Over the centuries, a huge variety of products made of wood, clay, and metal have been created. Among them there were many truly artistic creations, when household item, without losing its utilitarian qualities, at the same time it became a work of high aesthetic level. It is difficult to imagine a peasant house without numerous utensils that have accumulated over decades. “Utensils” are utensils for preparing, preparing and storing food, serving it on the table - pots, patches, tubs, krinkas, bowls, dishes, valleys, ladles, crusts (they drank honey, kvass, beer from them), etc. .; all kinds of containers for collecting berries and mushrooms - baskets, bodies, containers, etc.; various chests, caskets, caskets for storing household items, clothing and cosmetics; fire starting items and interior lighting at home - flint, lamps, candlesticks and much more.

“Only the bast shoes are woven on both legs, but the mittens are different” - what and how did they dress in Rus'?
The work of Russian craftsmen served a variety of aspects of peasant life, including the production of clothing and shoes. For peasants, the main clothing was the “shirt,” for both men and women. It was believed that all vulnerable spots of the human body should have been covered. Everyone had casual and festive shirts. Everyday people only sewed red thread along the seams and edges to block the path of evil. Festive shirts were richly decorated with embroidery. It was believed that a person conveys his requests to God using the language of the pattern. In different regions of Rus', they put a “poneva” or “sarafan”, an “apron” or “soul warmer” on a shirt, and they were decorated in every possible way. The Russian headdress has always been an important part of the costume. Girls wore “ribbons”, and married women covered their heads with a scarf or hid them under a kokoshnik, which different places called differently: kika, duckweed, heel. Men wore wide trousers - “ports” and “blouse shirts”. All clothes were belted with a “sash”. They wore a cap on their heads. In winter and summer, peasants put “bast shoes” on their feet. They were woven from the inner part of linden or birch bark - bast. Bast shoes were usually worn on canvas (in summer), wool or cloth (in winter) wrappings (“onuchi”). Onuchi were secured to the leg with “frills” - leather or hemp ropes; they were attached to the bast shoes, wrapped around the leg and tied under the knee. The bast shoes were woven without distinction between the right and left legs. Everyday bast shoes without additional accessories had a shelf life of three to ten days. Weaving bast shoes was mainly done by old people. A good craftsman could weave two pairs of bast shoes in a day.

Litvinova Elena Evgenevna

The hut was the main living space of a Russian house. Its interior was distinguished by strict, long-established forms, simplicity and expedient arrangement of objects. Its walls, ceiling and floor, usually not painted or covered with anything, had a pleasant warm color wood, light in new houses, dark in old ones.

The main place in the hut was occupied by the Russian stove. Depending on the local tradition, it stood to the right or left of the entrance, with its mouth towards the side or front wall. This was convenient for the inhabitants of the house, since the warm stove blocked the path of cold air penetrating from the entryway (only in the southern, central black earth zone of European Russia, the stove was located in the corner farthest from the entrance).

There was a table diagonally from the stove, above which hung a shrine with icons. There were fixed benches along the walls, and above them there were shelves cut into the walls of the same width - shelf holders. In the back part of the hut, from the stove to the side wall under the ceiling, a wooden flooring was installed - a floor. In the southern Russian regions, behind the side wall of the stove there could be a wooden flooring for sleeping - a floor (platform). This entire immovable environment of the hut was built by carpenters along with the house and was called a mansion outfit.

The space of the Russian hut was divided into parts that had their own specific purpose. The front corner with the shrine and the table was also called large, red, holy: family meals were held here, prayer books, the Gospel, and the Psalter were read aloud. There were beautiful cutlery on the shelves here. In houses where there was no upper room, the front corner was considered the front part of the hut, a place for receiving guests.

The space near the door and stove was called woman's corner, stove corner, middle corner, middle, middle. It was a place where women prepared food, worked various jobs. There were pots and bowls on the shelves, and near the stove there were grips, a poker, and a broom. The mythological consciousness of the people defined the stove corner as a dark, unclean place. In the hut there were, as it were, two sacred centers located diagonally: a Christian center and a pagan center, equally important for a peasant family.

Enough limited space The Russian hut was organized in such a way that it could comfortably accommodate a family of seven or eight people. This was achieved due to the fact that each family member knew his place in the common space. Men usually worked and rested during the day in the men's half of the hut, which included the front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. Women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove during the day.

Places for sleeping were also strictly allocated: children, boys and girls slept on the floors; the owner and the mistress of the house - under the sheets on a special flooring or bench, to which a wide bench was moved; old people on the stove or cabbage. It was not allowed to violate the established order in the house unless absolutely necessary. A person who violates it was considered ignorant of the commandments of the fathers. The organization of the interior space of the hut is reflected in the wedding song:

Will I enter my parents' bright room,
I will pray for all four directions,
Another first bow to the front corner,
I will ask the Lord for a blessing,
In a white body - health,
In the head of the mind-mind,
Smart with white hands,
To be able to please someone else's family.
I will give another bow to the middle corner,
For his bread for salt,
For the drinker, for the nurse,
For warm clothes.
And I’ll give my third bow to the warm corner
For his warmth,
For hot coals,
The bricks are hot.
And I’ll take my final bow
Kutny corner
For his soft bed,
For the title there is down,
For sleep, for sweet slumber.

The hut was kept as clean as possible, which was most typical for northern and Siberian villages. The floors in the hut were washed once a week, and on Easter, Christmas and the patronal holidays, not only the floor, but also the walls, ceiling, and benches were scraped bare and sandy. Russian peasants tried to decorate their hut. On weekdays, her decoration was quite modest: a towel on the shrine, homespun rugs on the floor.

On a holiday, the Russian hut was transformed, especially if the house did not have an upper room: the table was covered with a white tablecloth; embroidered or woven towels with colored patterns were hung on the walls closer to the front corner and on the windows; the benches and chests in the house were covered with elegant paths. The interior of the upper room was somewhat different from the interior decoration of the hut.

The upper room was the front room of the house and was not intended for permanent residence of the family. Accordingly, its internal space was designed differently - there were no beds or a platform for sleeping, instead of a Russian stove there was a Dutch stove lined with tiles, suitable only for heating the room, the benches were covered with beautiful bedding, ceremonial tableware was placed on the shelves, and popular prints were hung on the walls near the shrine. pictures of religious and secular content and towels. Otherwise, the genteel attire of the upper room repeated the stationary attire of the hut: in the corner farthest from the door there is a shrine with icons, along the walls of the shop, above them there are shelves, many chests, sometimes placed one on top of the other.

It is difficult to imagine a peasant house without numerous utensils that accumulated over decades, if not centuries, and literally filled its space. Utensils are utensils for preparing, preparing and storing food, serving it on the table - pots, patches, tubs, krinkas, bowls, dishes, valleys, ladles2, crusts, etc.; all kinds of containers for collecting berries and mushrooms - baskets, bodies, containers, etc.; various chests, caskets, caskets for storing household items, clothing and cosmetics; items for lighting a fire and interior lighting at home - flint, lights, candlesticks, and many others. etc. All these items necessary for running a household were available in greater or lesser quantities in every peasant family.

Household utensils were relatively the same throughout the entire area of settlement of the Russian people, which is explained by the commonality of the household way of life of Russian peasants. Local variants of utensils were practically absent or, in any case, were less obvious than in clothing and food. Differences appeared only in the utensils served on the table on holidays. At the same time, local originality found its expression not so much in the form of tableware, but in its decorative design.

A characteristic feature of Russian peasant utensils was the abundance of local names for the same item. Vessels of the same shape, the same purpose, made of the same material, in the same way, were called differently in different provinces, districts, volosts and further villages. The name of the item changed depending on its use by a particular housewife: the pot in which porridge was cooked was called a “kashnik” in one house, the same pot used in another house for cooking stew was called a “shchennik”.

Utensils for the same purpose, but made from different materials, had different names: a vessel made of clay - a pot, a vessel made of cast iron - a cast iron pot, a vessel made of copper - a coppersmith. The terminology often changed depending on the method of making the vessel: a cooper's vessel for pickling vegetables - a tub, dug out of wood - a dugout, made of clay - a korchaga. The decoration of the interior space of a peasant house began to undergo noticeable changes in the last third of the 19th century. First of all, the changes affected the interior of the upper room, which was perceived by the Russians as a symbol of the wealth of the peasant family.

The owners of the upper rooms sought to furnish them with objects characteristic of the urban way of life: instead of benches, there were chairs, stools, canapels - sofas with lattice or blank backs, instead of an ancient table with a base - an urban-type table covered with a “loin” tablecloth. An indispensable accessory of the upper room was a chest of drawers, a slide for festive dishes and an elegantly decorated bed with plenty of pillows, and near the shrine hung framed photographs of relatives and a clock.

After some time, innovations also affected the hut: wooden partition separated the stove from the rest of the space, urban household items began to actively displace traditional fixed furniture. So, the bed gradually replaced the bed. In the first decade of the 20th century. The decoration of the hut was replenished with cabinets, sideboards, mirrors and small sculptures. The traditional set of utensils lasted much longer, until the 30s. XX century, which was explained by the stability of the peasant way of life and the functionality of household items. The only exception was the festive dining room, or rather, tea utensils: from the second half of the 19th century. In the peasant house, along with the samovar, porcelain cups, saucers, sugar bowls, vases for jam, milk jugs, and metal teaspoons appeared.

In wealthy families, during festive meals they used individual plates, jelly molds, glass glasses, cups, goblets, bottles, etc. The change in the lifestyle of peasants in the 20th century, an orientation towards the style and lifestyle of a big city led to an almost complete replacement previous ideas about the interior decoration of the house and the gradual withering away of traditional everyday culture.

- 6850

The part of the hut from the mouth to the opposite wall, the space in which all women’s work related to cooking was carried out, was called stove corner. Here, near the window, opposite the mouth of the stove, in every house there were hand millstones, which is why the corner is also called millstone.

In the corner of the stove there was a bench or counter with shelves inside, used as a kitchen table. On the walls there were observers - shelves for tableware, cabinets. Above, at the level of the shelf holders, there was a stove beam, on which kitchen utensils were placed and a variety of household utensils were stacked.

It was an exclusively female space in the hut: here women prepared food and rested after work. During holidays, when many guests came to the house, a second table was placed near the stove for women, where they feasted separately from the men who sat at the table in the red corner. Men, even their own families, could not enter the women’s quarters unless absolutely necessary. The appearance of a stranger there was considered completely unacceptable.

red corner, like the stove, was an important landmark in the interior space of the hut. In most of European Russia, in the Urals, and Siberia, the red corner was the space between the side and front walls in the depths of the hut, limited by the corner located diagonally from the stove.

The main decoration of the red corner is goddess with icons and a lamp, which is why it is also called "saints". As a rule, everywhere in Russia in the red corner, in addition to the shrine, there is table. All significant events of family life were noted in the red corner. Here at the table both everyday meals and festive feasts took place, and many calendar rituals took place. During harvesting, the first and last spikelets were placed in the red corner. The preservation of the first and last ears of the harvest, endowed, according to folk legends, with magical powers, promised well-being for the family, home, and entire household. In the red corner, daily prayers were performed, from which any important undertaking began. It is the most honorable place in the house. According to traditional etiquette, a person who came to a hut could only go there at the special invitation of the owners. They tried to keep the red corner clean and elegantly decorated. The name “red” itself means “beautiful”, “good”, “light”. It was decorated with embroidered towels, popular prints, and postcards. The most beautiful household utensils were placed on the shelves near the red corner, the most valuable papers and objects were stored. Everywhere among Russians, when laying the foundation of a house, it was a common custom to place money under the lower crown in all corners, and a larger coin was placed under the red corner.

The lower boundary of the living space of the hut was floor. In the south and west of Rus', floors were often made of earthen floors. Such a floor was raised 20-30 cm above ground level, carefully compacted and covered with a thick layer of clay mixed with finely chopped straw. Such floors have been known since the 9th century. Wooden floors are also ancient, but are found in the north and east of Rus', where the climate is harsher and the soil is wetter.

Pine, spruce, and larch were used for floorboards. The floorboards were always laid along the hut, from the entrance to the front wall. They were laid on thick logs, cut into the lower crowns of the log house - crossbars. In the North, the floor was often arranged as double: under the upper “clean” floor there was a lower one - “black”. The floors in the villages were not painted, preserving the natural color of the wood. Only in the 20th century did painted floors appear. But they washed the floor every Saturday and before the holidays, then covering it with rugs.

The upper boundary of the hut served ceiling. The basis of the ceiling was made of matitsa - a thick tetrahedral beam on which the ceiling tiles were laid. Various objects were hung from the motherboard. A hook or ring was nailed here for hanging the cradle. It was not customary to go behind the mother strangers. Ideas about the father's house, happiness, and good luck were associated with the mother. It is no coincidence that when setting off on the road, it was necessary to hold on to the mat.

The ceilings on the motherboard were always laid parallel to the floorboards. Sawdust and fallen leaves were thrown on top of the ceiling. It was impossible to just sprinkle earth on the ceiling - such a house was associated with a coffin. The ceiling appeared in city houses already in the 13th-15th centuries, and in village houses - at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century. But even until the middle of the 19th century, when firing “in black”, in many places they preferred not to install ceilings.

It was important hut lighting. During the day the hut was illuminated with the help of windows. In a hut, consisting of one living space and a vestibule, four windows were traditionally cut: three on the facade and one on the side. The height of the windows was equal to the diameter of four or five crowns of the frame. The windows were cut down by carpenters already in the erected frame. A wooden box was inserted into the opening, to which a thin frame was attached - a window.

The windows in the peasant huts did not open. The room was ventilated through a chimney or door. Only occasionally could a small part of the frame lift up or move to the side. Sash frames that opened outward appeared in peasant huts only at the very beginning of the 20th century. But even in the 40-50s of the 20th century, many huts were built with non-opening windows. They didn’t make winter or second frames either. And in cold weather, the windows were simply covered from the outside to the top with straw, or covered with straw mats. But the large windows of the hut always had shutters. In the old days they were made with single doors.

A window, like any other opening in a house (door, pipe) was considered a very dangerous place. Only light from the street should enter the hut through the windows. Everything else is dangerous for humans. Therefore, if a bird flies into the window - to the deceased, a night knock on the window - the return to the house of the deceased, who was recently taken to the cemetery. In general, the window was universally perceived as a place where communication with the world of the dead takes place.

However, the windows, being “blind”, provided little light. And therefore, even on the sunny day, the hut had to be illuminated artificially. The oldest lighting device is considered to be fireplace- a small recess, a niche in the very corner of the stove (10 X 10 X 15 cm). A hole was made in the upper part of the niche connected to the stove chimney. A burning splinter or smolje (small resinous chips, logs) was placed in the fireplace. Well-dried torch and tar gave a bright and even light. By the light of the fireplace one could embroider, knit and even read while sitting at the table in the red corner. A child was placed in charge of the fireplace, who changed the torch and added tar. And only much later, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, did they begin to call a small fireplace brick stove, attached to the main one and connected to its chimney. On such a stove (fireplace) they cooked food during the hot season or additionally heated it in cold weather.

A little later the firelight appeared torch, inserted into secularists. A splinter was a thin sliver of birch, pine, aspen, oak, ash, and maple. To obtain thin (less than 1 cm) long (up to 70 cm) wood chips, the log was steamed in an oven over cast iron with boiling water and split at one end with an ax. The split log was then torn into splinters by hand. They inserted splinters into the lights. The simplest light was a wrought iron rod with a fork at one end and a point at the other. With this tip, the light was stuck into the gap between the logs of the hut. A splinter was inserted into the fork. And for falling embers, a trough or other vessel with water was placed under the light. Such ancient secularists dating back to the 10th century were found during excavations in Staraya Ladoga. Later, lights appeared in which several torches burned at the same time. They remained in peasant life until the beginning of the 20th century.

On major holidays, expensive and rare candles were lit in the hut to provide full light. With candles in the dark they walked into the hallway and went down to the underground. In winter, they threshed on the threshing floor with candles. The candles were greasy and waxy. At the same time, wax candles were used mainly in rituals. Tallow candles, which appeared only in the 17th century, were used in everyday life.

The relatively small space of the hut, about 20-25 sq.m., was organized in such a way that a fairly large family of seven or eight people could comfortably accommodate it. This was achieved due to the fact that each family member knew his place in the common space. Men usually worked and rested during the day in the men's half of the hut, which included a front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. Women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove during the day.

Each family member knew his place at the table. The owner of the house sat under the icons during a family meal. His eldest son was located on the right hand of his father, the second son on the left, the third next to his elder brother. Children under marriageable age were seated on a bench running from the front corner along the facade. Women ate while sitting on side benches or stools. It was not supposed to violate the established order in the house unless absolutely necessary. The person who violated them could be severely punished.

On weekdays the hut looked quite modest. There was nothing superfluous in it: the table stood without a tablecloth, the walls without decorations. Everyday utensils were placed in the stove corner and on the shelves. On a holiday, the hut was transformed: the table was moved to the middle, covered with a tablecloth, and festive utensils, previously stored in cages, were displayed on the shelves.

Huts were made under the windows shops, which did not belong to the furniture, but formed part of the extension of the building and were fixedly attached to the walls: the board was cut into the wall of the hut at one end, and supports were made on the other: legs, headstocks, headrests. In ancient huts, benches were decorated with an “edge” - a board nailed to the edge of the bench, hanging from it like a frill. Such shops were called “edged” or “with a canopy”, “with a valance”. In a traditional Russian home, benches ran along the walls in a circle, starting from the entrance, and served for sitting, sleeping, and storing various household items. Each shop in the hut had its own name, associated either with the landmarks of the internal space, or with the ideas that had developed in traditional culture about the activity of a man or woman being confined to a specific place in the house (men's, women's shops). Under the benches they stored various items that were easy to get if necessary - axes, tools, shoes, etc. In traditional rituals and in the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the bench acts as a place in which not everyone is allowed to sit. Thus, when entering a house, especially for strangers, it was customary to stand at the threshold until the owners invited them to come in and sit down. The same applies to matchmakers: they walked to the table and sat on the bench only by invitation. In funeral rituals, the deceased was placed on a bench, but not just any bench, but one located along the floorboards. A long shop is a shop that differs from others in its length. Depending on the local tradition of distributing objects in the space of the house, a long bench could have a different place in the hut. In the northern and central Russian provinces, in the Volga region, it stretched from the conic to the red corner, along the side wall of the house. In the southern Great Russian provinces it ran from the red corner along the wall of the facade. From the point of view of the spatial division of the house, the long shop, like the stove corner, was traditionally considered a women's place, where at the appropriate time they did certain women's work, such as spinning, knitting, embroidery, sewing. The dead were placed on a long bench, always located along the floorboards. Therefore, in some provinces of Russia, matchmakers never sat on this bench. Otherwise, their business could go wrong. A short shop is a shop that runs along the front wall of a house facing the street. During family meals, men sat on it.

The shop located near the stove was called kutnaya. Buckets of water, pots, cast iron pots were placed on it, and freshly baked bread was placed on it.
The threshold bench ran along the wall where the door was located. It was used by women instead of a kitchen table and differed from other benches in the house in the absence of an edge along the edge.
A bench is a bench that runs from the stove along the wall or door partition to the front wall of the house. The surface level of this bench is higher than other benches in the house. The bench at the front has folding or sliding doors or can be closed with a curtain. Inside there are shelves for dishes, buckets, cast iron pots, and pots. Konik was the name for a men's shop. It was short and wide. In most of Russia, it took the form of a box with a hinged flat lid or a box with sliding doors. The konik probably got its name from the horse’s head carved from wood that adorned its side. Konik was located in the residential part of the peasant house, near the door. It was considered a "men's" shop because it was a men's workplace. Here they were engaged in small crafts: weaving bast shoes, baskets, repairing harnesses, knitting fishing nets, etc. Under the bunk were also the tools necessary for these works. A place on a bench was considered more prestigious than on a bench; the guest could judge the attitude of the hosts towards him, depending on where he was seated - on a bench or on a bench.

A necessary element of home decoration was a table that served for daily and holiday meals. The table was one of the most ancient types of movable furniture, although the earliest tables were made of adobe and fixed. Such a table with adobe benches around it were discovered in Pronsky dwellings of the 11th-13th centuries (Ryazan province) and in a Kyiv dugout of the 12th century. The four legs of a table from a dugout in Kyiv are racks dug into the ground. In a traditional Russian home, a movable table always had a permanent place; it stood in the most honorable place - in the red corner, in which the icons were located. In Northern Russian houses, the table was always located along the floorboards, that is, with the narrower side towards the front wall of the hut. In some places, for example in the Upper Volga region, the table was placed only for the duration of the meal; after eating it was placed sideways on a shelf under the images. This was done so that there was more space in the hut.
In the forest zone of Russia, carpentry tables had a unique shape: a massive underframe, that is, a frame connecting the legs of the table, was covered with boards, the legs were made short and thick, the large tabletop was always made removable and protruded beyond the underframe in order to make it more comfortable to sit. Under the table there was a cabinet with double doors for tableware and bread needed for the day. In traditional culture, in ritual practice, in the sphere of behavioral norms, etc., the table was given great importance. This is evidenced by its clear spatial fixation in the red corner. Any promotion of him from there can only be associated with a ritual or crisis situation. The exclusive role of the table was expressed in almost all rituals, one of the elements of which was a meal. It manifested itself with particular brightness in the wedding ceremony, in which almost every stage ended with a feast. The table was conceptualized in the popular consciousness as “God’s palm”, giving daily bread, therefore knocking on the table at which one eats was considered a sin. In ordinary, non-feast times, only bread, usually wrapped in a tablecloth, and a salt shaker could be on the table.

In the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the table has always been a place where the unity of people took place: a person who was invited to dine at the master’s table was perceived as “one of our own.”
The table was covered with a tablecloth. In the peasant hut, tablecloths were made from homespun, both simple plain weave and made using the technique of bran and multi-shaft weaving. Tablecloths used every day were sewn from two motley panels, usually with a checkered pattern (the colors are very varied) or simply rough canvas. This tablecloth was used to cover the table during lunch, and after eating it was either removed or used to cover the bread left on the table. Festive tablecloths were distinguished by the best quality of the linen, such additional details as lace stitching between two panels, tassels, lace or fringe around the perimeter, as well as a pattern on the fabric. In Russian life, the following types of benches were distinguished: saddle bench, portable bench and extension bench. Saddle bench - a bench with a folding backrest ("saddleback") was used for sitting and sleeping. If it was necessary to arrange a sleeping place, the backrest along the top, along the circular grooves made in the upper parts of the side stops of the bench, was thrown to the other side of the bench, and the latter was moved towards the bench, so that a kind of bed was formed, limited in front by a “crossbar”. The back of the saddle bench was often decorated with through carvings, which significantly reduced its weight. This type of bench was used mainly in urban and monastic life.

Portable bench- a bench with four legs or two blank boards, as needed, attached to the table, used for sitting. If there was not enough sleeping space, the bench could be moved and placed along the bench to increase space for an additional bed. Portable benches were one of the oldest forms of furniture among the Russians.
An extension bench is a bench with two legs, located only at one end of the seat; the other end of such a bench was placed on a bench. Often this type of bench was made from a single piece of wood in such a way that the legs were two tree roots, cut to a certain length. The dishes were placed in shelves: these were pillars with numerous shelves between them. On the lower, wider shelves, massive dishes were stored; on the upper, narrower shelves, small dishes were placed.

A crockery dish was used to store separately used dishes: a wooden shelf or an open shelf cabinet. The vessel could have the shape of a closed frame or be open at the top; often its side walls were decorated with carvings or had figured shapes (for example, oval). Above one or two shelves of the dishware, a rail could be nailed on the outside to stabilize the dishes and to place the plates on edge. As a rule, the dishware was located above the ship's bench, at hand at the hostess. It has long been a necessary detail in the immovable decoration of the hut.
The red corner was also decorated with a shroud, a rectangular piece of fabric sewn from two pieces of white thin canvas or chintz. The dimensions of the shroud can be different, usually 70 cm long, 150 cm wide. White shrouds were decorated along the lower edge with embroidery, woven patterns, ribbons, and lace. The shroud was attached to the corner under the images. At the same time, the shrines or icons were girded with a shrine on top. For the festive decoration of the hut, a towel was used - a sheet of white fabric, home-made or, less often, factory-made, trimmed with embroidery, a woven colored pattern, ribbons, stripes of colored calico, lace, sequins, braid, braid, fringe. It was decorated, as a rule, at the ends. The panel of the towel was rarely ornamented. The nature and quantity of decorations, their location, color, material - all this was determined by local tradition, as well as the purpose of the towel. In addition, towels were hung during weddings, at a christening dinner, on the day of a meal on the occasion of a son’s return from military service or the arrival of long-awaited relatives. Towels were hung on the walls that made up the red corner of the hut, and in the red corner itself. They were put on wooden nails - “hooks”, “matches”, driven into the walls. According to custom, towels were a necessary part of a girl's trousseau. It was customary to show them to the husband's relatives on the second day of the wedding feast. The young woman hung towels in the hut on top of her mother-in-law’s towels so that everyone could admire her work. The number of towels, the quality of the linen, the skill of embroidery - all this made it possible to appreciate the hard work, neatness, and taste of the young woman. The towel generally played a big role in the ritual life of the Russian village. It was an important attribute of wedding, birth, funeral and memorial rituals. Very often it acted as an object of veneration, an object of special importance, without which the ritual of any ceremony would not be complete. On the wedding day, the towel was used by the bride as a veil. Throwed over her head, it was supposed to protect her from the evil eye and damage at the most crucial moment of her life. The towel was used in the ritual of “union of the newlyweds” before the crown: they tied the hands of the bride and groom “forever and ever, for many years to come.” The towel was given to the midwife who delivered the baby, and to the godfather and godmother who baptized the baby. The towel was present in the “babina porridge” ritual that took place after the birth of a child.
However, the towel played a special role in funeral and memorial rituals. According to legends, a towel hung on the window on the day of a person’s death contained his soul for forty days. The slightest movement of the fabric was considered a sign of its presence in the house. In the forties, the towel was shaken outside the village, thereby sending the soul from “our world” to the “other world.” All these actions with the towel were widespread in the Russian village. They were based on ancient mythological ideas of the Slavs. In them, the towel acted as a talisman, a sign of belonging to a certain family group, and was interpreted as an object that embodied the souls of the ancestors of the “parents” who carefully observed the lives of the living. This symbolism of the towel excluded its use for wiping hands, face, and floor. For this purpose, they used a rukoternik, a wiping machine, a wiping machine, etc.

Utensil

Utensils are utensils for preparing, preparing and storing food, serving it on the table; various containers for storing household items and clothing; items for personal hygiene and home hygiene; items for starting a fire, for cosmetics. In the Russian village, mainly wooden pottery utensils were used. Metal, glass, and porcelain were less common. According to the manufacturing technique, wooden utensils could be chiseled, hammered, cooper's, carpentry, or lathe. Utensils made from birch bark, woven from twigs, straw, and pine roots were also in great use. Some of the wooden items needed in the household were made by the male half of the family. Most of the items were purchased at fairs and markets, especially for cooperage and turning utensils, the manufacture of which required special knowledge and tools. Pottery was used mainly for cooking food in an oven and serving it on the table, sometimes for salting and fermenting vegetables. Metal utensils of the traditional type were mainly copper, tin or silver. Its presence in the house was a clear indication of the family’s prosperity, its thriftiness, and respect for family traditions. Such utensils were sold only at the most critical moments of a family’s life. The utensils that filled the house were made, purchased, and stored by Russian peasants, naturally based on their purely practical use. However, at certain, from the peasant’s point of view, important moments in life, almost each of its objects turned from a utilitarian thing into a symbolic one. At one point during the wedding ceremony, the dowry chest turned from a container for storing clothes into a symbol of the family’s prosperity and the bride’s hard work. A spoon with the scoop facing upward meant that it would be used at a funeral meal. An extra spoon on the table foreshadowed the arrival of guests, etc. Some utensils had a very high semiotic status, others a lower one. Bodnya, an item of household utensils, was a wooden container for storing clothes and small household items. In the Russian village, two types of bodny were known. The first type was a long hollowed-out wooden log, the side walls of which were made of solid boards. A hole with a lid on leather hinges was located at the top of the deck. The second type of tub is a dugout or cooper's tub with a lid, 60-100 cm high, and a bottom diameter of 54-80 cm. Bodni were usually locked and stored in cages. From the second half of the 19th century. began to be replaced by chests.

To prepare pickles, pickles, soaks, kvass, water for future use, and to store flour and cereals, tubs were used. As a rule, the tubs were made by coopers, i.e. were made from wooden planks - rivets, fastened with hoops. they were made in the shape of a truncated cone or cylinder. they could have three legs, which were a continuation of the rivets. The necessary accessories for the tub were a circle and a lid. The food placed in the tub was pressed in a circle, and oppression was placed on top. This was done so that the pickles and pickles were always in the brine and did not float to the surface. The lid protected food from dust. The mug and lid had small handles. Lukoshkom was an open cylindrical container made of bast, with a flat bottom, made of wooden planks or bark. It was done with or without a spoon handle. The size of the basket was determined by its purpose and was called accordingly: “nabirika”, “bridge”, “berry”, “mycelium”, etc. If the basket was intended for storing bulk products, it was closed with a flat lid placed on top. For many centuries, the main kitchen vessel in Rus' was a pot - a cooking utensil in the form of a clay vessel with a wide open top, having a low rim, a round body, smoothly tapering towards bottom. The pots could be of different sizes: from a small pot for 200-300 g of porridge to a huge pot that could hold up to 2-3 buckets of water. The shape of the pot did not change throughout its existence and was well suited for cooking in a Russian oven. They were rarely ornamented; they were decorated with narrow concentric circles or a chain of shallow dimples and triangles pressed around the rim or on the shoulders of the vessel. In the peasant house there were about a dozen or more pots of different sizes. They treasured the pots and tried to handle them carefully. If it cracked, it was braided with birch bark and used for storing food.

Pot- an everyday, utilitarian object, in the ritual life of the Russian people acquired additional ritual functions. Scientists believe that this is one of the most ritualized household utensils. In popular beliefs, a pot was conceptualized as a living anthropomorphic creature that had a throat, a handle, a spout, and a shard. Pots are usually divided into pots that carry a feminine essence, and pots with a masculine essence embedded in them. Thus, in the southern provinces of European Russia, the housewife, when buying a pot, tried to determine its gender: whether it was a pot or a potter. It was believed that food cooked in a pot would be more tasty than in a pot. It is also interesting to note that in the popular consciousness there is a clear parallel between the fate of the pot and the fate of man. The pot found quite wide application in funeral rituals. Thus, in most of the territory of European Russia, the custom of breaking pots when removing the dead from the house was widespread. This custom was perceived as a statement of a person’s departure from life, home, or village. In Olonets province. this idea was expressed somewhat differently. After the funeral, a pot filled with hot coals in the deceased’s house was placed upside down on the grave, and the coals scattered and went out. In addition, the deceased was washed with water taken from a new pot two hours after death. After consumption, it was taken away from the house and buried in the ground or thrown into water. It was believed that the last vital force of a person was concentrated in a pot of water, which was drained while washing the deceased. If such a pot is left in the house, the deceased will return from the other world and frighten the people living in the hut. The pot was also used as an attribute of some ritual actions at weddings. So, according to custom, the “wedding celebrants,” led by groomsmen and matchmakers, came in the morning to break pots to the room where the wedding night of the newlyweds took place, before they left. Breaking pots was perceived as demonstrating a turning point in the fate of a girl and a guy who became a woman and a man. Among the Russian people, the pot often acts as a talisman. In Vyatka province, for example, to protect chickens from hawks and crows, an old pot was hung upside down on the fence. This was done without fail on Maundy Thursday before sunrise, when witchcraft spells were especially strong. In this case, the pot seemed to absorb them into itself and receive additional magical power.

To serve food on the table, such tableware was used as a dish. It was usually round or oval in shape, shallow, on a low tray, with wide edges. Wooden dishes were mainly common in everyday life. Dishes intended for holidays were decorated with paintings. They depicted plant shoots, small geometric figures, fantastic animals and birds, fish and skates. The dish was used both in everyday and festive life. On weekdays, fish, meat, porridge, cabbage, cucumbers and other “thick” dishes were served on a platter, eaten after soup or cabbage soup. On holidays, in addition to meat and fish, pancakes, pies, buns, cheesecakes, gingerbread cookies, nuts, candies and other sweets were served on the platter. In addition, there was a custom to serve guests a glass of wine, mead, mash, vodka or beer on a platter. The horses of the festive meal were indicated by bringing out an empty dish, covered with another or a cloth. The dishes were used during folk ritual actions, fortune telling, and magical procedures. In maternity rituals, a dish of water was used during the ritual of magical cleansing of the woman in labor and the midwife, which was carried out on the third day after childbirth. The woman in labor “silvered her grandmother,” i.e. threw silver coins into the water poured by the midwife, and the midwife washed her face, chest and hands. In the wedding ceremony, the dish was used for public display of ritual objects and the presentation of gifts. The dish was also used in some rituals of the annual cycle. The dish was also an attribute of the girls’ Christmas fortune-telling, called “podblyudnye”. In the Russian village there was a ban on its use on some days of the folk calendar. A bowl was used for drinking and eating. A wooden bowl is a hemispherical vessel on a small tray, sometimes with handles or rings instead of handles, and without a lid. Often an inscription was made along the edge of the bowl. Either along the crown or along the entire surface, the bowl was decorated with paintings, including floral and zoomorphic ornaments (bowls with Severodvinsk painting are widely known). Bowls of various sizes were made, depending on their use. Large bowls, weighing up to 800 g or more, were used along with scrapers, brothers and ladles during holidays and eves for drinking beer and mash, when many guests gathered. In monasteries, large bowls were used to serve kvass to the table. Small bowls, hollowed out of clay, were used in peasant life during lunch - for serving cabbage soup, stew, fish soup, etc. During lunch, food was served on the table in a common bowl; separate dishes were used only during holidays. They began to eat at a sign from the owner; they did not talk while eating. Guests who entered the house were treated to the same thing that they ate themselves, and from the same dishes.

The cup was used in various rituals, especially in life cycle rituals. It was also used in calendar rituals. Signs and beliefs were associated with the cup: at the end of the festive dinner, it was customary to drink the cup to the bottom for the health of the host and hostess; those who did not do this were considered an enemy. Draining the cup, they wished the owner: “Good luck, victory, health, and that there would be no more blood left in his enemies than in this cup.” The cup is also mentioned in conspiracies. A mug was used to drink various drinks.

A mug is a cylindrical container of varying volume with a handle. Clay and wood mugs were decorated with paintings, and wooden mugs were decorated with carvings; the surface of some mugs was covered with birch bark weaving. They were used in everyday and festive life, and they were also the subject of ritual actions. A glass was used to drink intoxicating drinks. It is a small round vessel with a leg and a flat bottom, sometimes there could be a handle and a lid. The glasses were usually painted or decorated with carvings. This vessel was used as an individual vessel for drinking mash, beer, intoxicated mead, and later wine and vodka on holidays, since drinking was allowed only on holidays and such drinks were a festive treat for guests. It was accepted to drink for the health of other people, and not for oneself. When offering a glass of wine to a guest, the host expected a glass of wine in return. The glass was most often used in wedding ceremonies. The priest offered a glass of wine to the newlyweds after the wedding. They took turns taking three sips from this glass. Having finished the wine, the husband threw the glass under his feet and trampled it at the same time as his wife, saying: “Let those who begin to sow discord and dislike among us be trampled under our feet.” It was believed that whichever spouse stepped on it first would dominate the family. The owner presented the first glass of vodka at the wedding feast to the sorcerer, who was invited to the wedding as an honored guest in order to save the newlyweds from damage. The sorcerer asked for the second glass himself and only after that began to protect the newlyweds from evil forces.

A poker, a grip, a frying pan, a bread shovel, a broom - these are objects associated with the hearth and oven.

Poker- This is a short, thick iron rod with a curved end, which was used to stir coals in the stove and rake up the heat. Pots and cast iron pots were moved in the oven with the help of a grip; they could also be removed or installed in the oven. It consists of a metal bow mounted on a long wooden handle. Before planting the bread in the oven, coal and ash were cleared from under the oven by sweeping it with a broom. A broomstick is a long wooden handle, to the end of which pine, juniper branches, straw, a washcloth or a rag were tied. Using a bread shovel, they put bread and pies into the oven, and also took them out of there. All these utensils participated in certain ritual actions. Thus, the Russian hut, with its special, well-organized space, fixed decoration, movable furniture, decoration and utensils, was a single whole, constituting the whole world.

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