Decoration of premises in the old days in Russia. The inner world of the Russian hut

Fine art lesson on the theme "Decoration of the Russian hut".ViiClass.

The topic is designed for two lessons

Tutorial used"Decorative and applied art in human life." ,; Moscow "Education" 2003.

Activity type: Binary lesson (double lesson).

Lesson type: Learning new material.

Model used: Model 1.

The purpose of the lesson: To acquaint students with the interior of the Russian hut.

Lesson Objectives:

1. To form in students a figurative idea of the organization and wise arrangement of the internal space of the hut.

2. To give an idea of the life of Russian peasants of the 17th-18th centuries.

3. With the help of pictures, consolidate the knowledge gained.

4. To foster interest in the life of the peasants, the traditions of our people.

Providing a lesson:

For teacher ... 1) Reproductions of samples of objects of folk life.

2) Exhibition of literature: "Russian hut"; "Folk art"; Grade 8 textbook; magazine "Folk Art" (1990, No. 2).

3) Demo PC.

For students. Albums. Pencils, eraser, paints (watercolors, gouache). A workbook on fine arts.

Lesson plan:

Org. part - 1-2 minutes. Inform the goals and objectives of the new material - 1-2 minutes. The story of the teacher "Life of the peasants". Practical work... Drawing the interior of the hut. The result of 1 lesson. Work in color. The result of 2 lesson

I. Organizational moment

Establish proper classroom discipline. Mark absent. Inform the goals and objectives of the new material.

II. The teacher's story "Life of the peasants"

Rice. 1.Interior view of the hut.

Since ancient times, we have read and watched Russians folk tales... And often the action in them took place inside wooden hut... Now they are trying to revive the traditions of the past. After all, without studying the past, we will not be able to assess the present and future of our people.

Let's go up to the red carved porch. It seems to invite you to enter the house. Usually, on the porch, the owners of the house greet their dear guests with bread and salt, thus expressing hospitality and a wish for well-being. Passing through the canopy, you find yourself in the world of home life.

The air in the hut is special, spicy, filled with aromas of dry herbs, smoke, and sour dough.

Everything in the hut, except for the stove, is wooden: the ceiling, smoothly hewn walls, benches attached to them, polavoshnik shelves stretching along the walls, below the ceiling, shelves, a dining table, tables (stools for guests), simple household utensils. There was a cradle for the baby. We washed ourselves from the tub.

rice. 2.

The interior of the hut is divided into zones:

At the entrance to the hut, on the left is located Russian stove.

rice. 3. Russian stove

What role did the oven play in the life of the peasant hut?

The stove was the basis of life, a family hearth. The stove gave warmth, they cooked food and baked bread in it, washed children in the stove, and got rid of ailments. And how many fairy tales are told to children on the stove. No wonder it says: "The beauty oven - miracles in the house."

See how importantly the white bulk of the stove lay in the hut. In front of the mouth of the furnace, a pole is well arranged - a wide thick board on which pots and cast iron are placed.

Nearby, in the corner, there are grabs and a wooden shovel for removing bread from the oven. Standing next to it on the floor wooden tub with water. Next to the stove, between the wall and the stove, there was a door to the golbets. It was believed that a brownie, the patron saint of the family, lived behind the stove, above the golbets.

The space near the stove served as the female half.

fig. 4. Red corner

In the front right corner, the lightest, between the windows was located red corner, red bench, red windows. It was a landmark to the east, which combined the peasants' idea of paradise, blissful happiness, life-giving light and hope; they turned to the east with prayers and conspiracies. It was the most honorable place - the spiritual center of the house... In the corner, on a special shelf, there were icons in frames polished to a shine, decorated with embroidered towels and bunches of herbs. There was a table under the icons.

In this part of the hut, important events took place in the life of a peasant family. The most dear guests were seated in the red corner.

· From the doors, along the stove, a wide bench was arranged. On which sat, who entered the neighbors. Men usually did chores on it - they wove sandals, etc. On it the old master of the house slept.

· Above the entrance, into the half-rooms under the ceiling, near the stove were strengthened wooden planks... Children slept on the beds.

· A significant place in the hut occupied wooden loom- cross, on it women weaved woolen and canvas fabrics, rugs (paths).

Near the doors, opposite the stove stood wooden bed, on which the owners of the house slept.

fig. 5.

For a newborn, an elegant hut was hung from the ceiling cradle... It was usually made of wood or wicker. Swaying gently, she lulled the baby to the song of the peasant woman. When dusk descended, they burned a torch. For this served forged light.

rice. 6.

In many northern villages of the Urals, houses with painted interiors have been preserved. See what outlandish bushes have blossomed.

III. Practical work.

Students are invited to make a pencil sketch of the interior of the Russian hut.

Considered different kinds interior of the hut:

Explanation of building the interior of a hut using the example of different options.

Vi. Repetition with the students of the material covered.

Thus, we have come to the next section of our topic "Decoration of the Russian hut". Now everyone is trying to revive the traditions of the cultural and spiritual life of the Russian people, but for this you need to understand and study everything. And the first question to the class:

1. What is the appearance of the hut?

2. What is the main material used in the construction of the hut?

3. What natural materials were used in the manufacture of dishes and household items?

4. What zones was the interior of the hut divided into?

5. What rules did you apply when building the interior of the hut?

6. What riddles and sayings do you know on the topic "Russian hut?"

("Two brothers are looking, but they will not come together" (floor and ceiling)

"One hundred parts, one hundred beds, each guest has his own bed" (logs in the wall of the hut)), etc. d ..

Vii. Continuation of the practical part - drawing the interior in color.

All shades of brown, ocher, not bright yellow are used for coloring. Stages of drawing in color:

1. Paint the walls in different shades Brown color.

2. Paint the floor and ceiling with a different shade of ocher.

3. Glass in the window - gray.

4. Furniture - the next shade of brown.

6. The stove can be painted with light gray, light - light brown.

VIII. Exhibition of children's works. Analysis.

Students post their work in a designated area. Students themselves are encouraged to analyze their work. Using leading questions:

What did you want to show in your work? By what means artistic expression did you use? How are the presented works similar, how are they different? Have you applied the laws of perspective in your work? What are your impressions of this work?

Teacher assessment... I liked the way you worked, I liked your work on the construction, on the coloristic solution, on the ability to correctly convey the life of the Russian peasants.

IX. Completion of the lesson and homework.

At the end of the lesson, the students are informed that we will continue our work on acquaintance with the traditions of the Russian people in the next lesson.

At the end of the lesson, folk music sounds.

Students get up, put their workplaces in order.

let `s talk about old Russian hut, or let's take it even a little wider - the Russian house. Its appearance and internal organization- the result of the influence of many factors, from natural to social and cultural. Peasant society has always been extremely stable in its traditional way of life and ideas about the structure of the world. Even being dependent on the influence of the authorities (church, Peter's reforms), Russian folk culture continued its development, the crown of which must be recognized the formation of a peasant estate, in particular a house-yard with a residential old Russian hut.

For many, the Russian house remains either some kind of allegory of Christian Russia, or a hut in three windows with carved platbands... Museum exhibits wooden architecture for some reason do not change this stable opinion. Maybe because no one clearly and did not explain - what is, in fact, old russian hut- literally?

Russian hut from the inside

A stranger first masters the dwelling from the outside, then goes inside. Yours is born inside. Then, gradually expanding his world, he brings it to the size of ours. The exterior for him comes later, the interior comes first.

Unfortunately, you and I are strangers there.

So outside, old russian hut it is high, large, its windows are small, but located high, the walls represent a mighty log massif, not dissected horizontally by a plinth and cornices, and by shovels and columns vertically. The roof grows out of the wall with a tong, it is immediately clear that there are no usual rafters behind the "pediment". The ridge is a powerful log with a characteristic sculptural extension. Details are few, large, there is no cladding, overlays. In some places, separate ends of logs of an unclear purpose may protrude from the walls. Friendly old Russian hut you can not call it, rather, silent, secretive.

On the side of the hut there is a porch, sometimes high, pillar, sometimes low, indistinct. However, it is precisely this - and there is the first Blood, under which the comer enters. And since this is the first roof, then, therefore, both the second roof (canopy) and the third roof (the hut itself) only develop the idea of a porch - a covered paved elevation that projected the Earth and Heaven onto itself. The porch of the hut originates in the first sanctuary - a pedestal under the crown of the sacred tree and evolves up to the royal canopy in the Assumption Cathedral. The porch at the house is the beginning of a new world, zero counting of all its paths.

A low wide door in a powerful sloping frame leads from the porch into the vestibule. Its inner contours are slightly rounded, which serves as the main obstacle for unwanted spirits and unclean people in their thoughts. The roundness of the doorway is akin to the roundness of the sun and moon. There is no lock, a latch that opens both from the inside and from the outside - from the wind and livestock.

The canopy, called the bridge in the North, develops the idea of the porch. Often they do not have a ceiling, as there was no hut before - only the roof separates them from the sky, only it overshadows them.

The canopy is of heavenly origin. The bridge is earthly. Again, as in the porch, Heaven meets Earth, and those who cut down old Russian hut with a passage, and those who live in it are a large family, now represented among the living a link of the clan.

The porch is open on three sides, the porch is closed on four, there is little light in them from the trailing (covered with boards) windows.

The passage from the vestibule to the hut is no less responsible than from the porch to the vestibule. One can feel how the atmosphere is being pumped up ...

The inner world of the Russian hut

We open the door, bending down, we enter. Above us low ceiling, although this is not a ceiling, but a floor, there is a flooring at the level of the stove bench - for sleeping. We are in a full kuta. And we can turn to the hostess of the hut with a good wish.

Polatny kut is a vestibule inside the Russian hut. Any kind person can enter there without asking, without knocking on the door. The floorboards rest on the wall directly above the door with one edge, and on the floorboard with the other. By his will, the guest does not go for this plank. Only the hostess can invite him to enter the next kut - the red corner, to family and ancestral shrines, to sit down at the table.

The refectory, consecrated with shrines, is what the red corner is.

This is how the guest masters the whole half of the hut; however, he will never go into the second, distant half (behind the cake bar), his mistress will not invite him there, because the second half is the main sacred part of the Russian hut - the woman's and stove kuta. These two kutas are analogous to the altar of the temple, but in fact this is the altar with the stove-throne and ritual objects: a bread shovel, a broomstick, grips, a sourdough. There, the fruits of the earth, sky and peasant labor are transformed into food of a spiritual and material nature. Because never for a person of Tradition, food has not been the number of calories and a set of consistencies and tastes.

The male part of the family is not allowed into the babi kut, here the hostess, the big woman, is in charge, gradually teaching the future hostesses the sacred rite ...

Muzhiks work most of the time in the field, in the meadow, in the forest, on the water, in the latrine trades. In the house, the place of the owner is immediately at the entrance on the conic bench, in the ward kut, or behind the end of the table farthest from the woman's kut. It is closer to the small shrines of the red corner, farther from the center of the Russian hut.

The hostess's place is in the red corner - behind the end of the table from the side of the woman's kut and the oven - it is she who is the priestess of the home temple, she communicates with the oven and the fire of the oven, she starts the dough and puts the dough in the oven, she takes it out transformed into bread. It is she who, along the semantic vertical of the stove column, descends through the golbets (special wooden extension to the stove) into the subfloor, which is also called golbets. There, in the golbets, in the basement family sanctuary, the habitat of the guardian spirits, they keep supplies. It is not so hot in summer, not so cold in winter. Golbets is akin to a cave - the womb of the Mother Earth, from which they leave, and into which decaying remains return.

The hostess runs, dances around everyone in the house, she is in constant communication with the inner (hut) Earth (half-bridge of the hut, underground-golbets), with the inner sky (beam-mat, ceiling), with the World Tree (stove pillar) connecting them , with the spirits of the dead (the same stove pillar and golbets) and, of course, with the current living representatives of their peasant family tree. It is her unconditional leadership in the house (both spiritual and material) that does not leave empty time for the peasant in the Russian hut, sends him out of the home church, to the periphery of the space illuminated by the temple, to male spheres and affairs. If the mistress (the axis of the family) is smart and strong, the family wheel turns with the desired constancy.

The device of the Russian hut

Situation old Russian hut full of clear, uncomplicated and strict meanings. There are wide and low benches along the walls, five or six windows are not high above the floor and rhythmically illuminate, not flood with light. Directly above the windows, there is a solid raven shelf. Above, there are five or seven uncropped, smoked wreaths of a log house, - here smoke flows during the heating of a black stove. To remove it, there is a chimney above the door leading to the entrance, and a wooden exhaust pipe is attached in the entrance, which carries out the already cooled smoke outside the house. Hot smoke warms up and antiseptic the living space economically. Thanks to him, there were no such severe pandemics in Russia as in Western Europe.

The ceiling is made of thick and wide blocks (half-timbers), the same is the half-bridge. Under the ceiling there is a mighty beam-matrix (sometimes two or three).

The Russian hut is divided into kutas by two Vorontsov beams (full and pastry), laid perpendicularly on the upper cut of the stove pillar. A pastry bar stretches to the front wall of the hut and separates the female part of the hut (near the stove) from the rest of the space. It is often used to store baked bread.

There is an opinion that the stove pillar should not break off at the level of the Vorontsov, it should rise higher, under the very mat; in this case, the cosmogony of the hut would be complete. In the depths of the northern lands, something similar was discovered, only, perhaps, even more significant, statistically reliably duplicated more than once.

In the immediate vicinity of the stove pillar, between the cake bar and the mat, the researchers came across (for some reason no one had met before) a carved element of a sufficiently clear and even symbolic meaning.

The threefold nature of such images is interpreted by one of the modern authors as follows: the upper hemisphere is the highest spiritual space (the bowl of "heavenly waters"), the receptacle for bagodati; lower - the heavenly vault covering the Earth - our visible world; the middle link is a knot, a ventel, the location of the gods who control the flow of grace into our lower world.

In addition, it is easy to imagine him as the upper (inverted) and lower Bereginya, Baba, the Goddess with raised hands. In the middle link, the usual horse heads are read - a symbol of solar movement in a circle.

The carved element stands on the cake block and exactly supports the mat.

Thus, in the upper level of the hut space, in the center old Russian hut, in the most significant, striking place, past which not a single glance will pass, the missing link is personally embodied - the connection of the World Tree (stove column) and the celestial sphere (matrix), and the connection in the form of a complex deeply symbolic sculptural-carved element. It should be noted that it is located at once on two internal borders of the hut - between the inhabited relatively light bottom and the black "heavenly" top, as well as between the common family half of the hut and the sacred altar forbidden for men - the woman's and stove kuts.

It is thanks to this hidden and very timely found element that a number of complementary architectural and symbolic images of traditional peasant cultural objects and structures can be built.

In their symbolic essence, all these objects are one and the same. However, it is old russian hut- the most complete, most developed, most profound architectural phenomenon. And now, when it seems that she is completely forgotten and safely buried, her time has come again. The Time of the Russian House is coming - literally.

Kurnaya hut

It should be noted that the highest example of material folk culture is recognized by researchers as the smoked (black, ore) Russian hut, in which the smoke, when the furnace was fired, entered directly into the upper part of the internal volume. The high trapezoidal ceiling made it possible to stay in the hut during the firebox. The smoke came out of the mouth of the stove directly into the room, spread along the ceiling, and then dropped to the level of the Vorontsov shelves and pulled out through a trailing window cut in the wall, connected to a wooden chimney.

There are several reasons for the long existence of the ore huts, and above all, the climatic conditions - the high humidity of the area. Open fire and smoke from the stove impregnated and dried the walls of the log house, thus, a kind of wood preservation took place, so the age of black huts is longer. The poultry stove warmed the room well and did not require a lot of firewood. It was also convenient for housekeeping. The smoke was drying out clothes, shoes and fishing nets.

The transition to white stoves brought after it an irreparable loss in the arrangement of the entire complex of significant elements of the Russian hut: the ceiling dropped, the windows rose, the Vorontsi, the stove column, and the golbets began to disappear. A single zoned volume of the hut began to split into functional volumes-rooms. Distorted beyond recognition all internal proportions, appearance and gradually old russian hut ceased to exist, turning into a rural house with an interior close to a city apartment. The entire "perturbation", in fact - degradation, took place over a hundred years, starting in the 19th century and ending by the middle of the 20th century. The last chicken huts, according to our information, were converted into white ones after the Great Patriotic War, in the 1950s.

But what about now? A return to truly chicken huts is possible only as a result of a global or national catastrophe. However, it is possible to return the entire figurative-symbolic structure of the hut, to saturate it in a Russian country house - even in conditions of technical progress and the ever-increasing well-being of "Russians" ...

To do this, in fact, you just need to start waking up from sleep. A dream inspired by the elite of our people just when the people themselves were creating the masterpieces of their culture.

Based on the materials of the magazine "Roddozhie No. 7

The part of the hut from the mouth to the opposite wall, the space in which all women's work related to cooking was done, was called the stove corner. Here, near the window, opposite the mouth of the furnace, in every house there were hand millstones, therefore the corner is also called a millstone. In the stove corner there was a ship's bench or counter with shelves inside, which was used as kitchen table... There were observers on the walls - shelves for tableware, cupboards. Above, at the level of polavochnikov, there was a stove bar, on which kitchen utensils were placed and various household utensils were laid.

The stove corner was considered a dirty place, unlike the rest of the clean space of the hut. Therefore, the peasants always tried to separate it from the rest of the room with a curtain made of variegated chintz, colored homespun or a wooden bulkhead. The stove corner, closed by a plank partition, formed a small room called "closet" or "lodge". It was an exclusively female space in the hut: here women cooked food, rested after work. During the holidays, when many guests came to the house, a second table was set up near the stove for women, where they feasted separately from the men sitting at the table in the red corner. Men even of their own family could not enter the female half without special need. The appearance of a stranger there was generally considered unacceptable.

The traditional immovable atmosphere of the dwelling was kept for the longest time near 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, in Siberia, the red corner was a space between the side and front walls in the depths of the hut, bounded by an angle that is located diagonally from the stove. In the southern Russian regions of European Russia, the red corner is the space enclosed between a wall with a door in the canopy and a side wall. The stove was in the back of the hut, diagonally from the red corner. In a traditional dwelling almost throughout the territory of Russia, with the exception of the southern Russian provinces, the red corner is well lit, since both of its walls had windows. The main decoration of the red corner is a shrine with icons and an icon lamp, therefore it is also called a "saint".

As a rule, everywhere in Russia, in addition to the goddess, there is a table in the red corner, only in a number of places in the Pskov and Velikie Luki provinces. it is placed in the wall between the windows - opposite the corner of the stove. In the red corner, next to the table, there are two benches, and on top, above the goddess, there are two shelves of a half-shop; hence the West-South Russian name for the corner "day" (the place where the elements of the decoration of the dwelling meet, connect). All significant events family life marked in the red corner. Here, at the table, both everyday meals and holiday feasts, the action of many calendar rites took place. In the wedding ceremony, the matchmaking of the bride, her ransom from her bridesmaids and her brother were performed 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 also led her to the red corner.

During harvest, the first and last were set in the red corner. Preservation of the first and last ears of the harvest, endowed, according to folk legends, magic power, promised prosperity to the family, home, and the entire household. In the red corner, daily prayers were performed, from which any important business began. It is the most honorable place in the house. According to traditional etiquette, a person who came to the hut could go there only at the special invitation of the owners. They tried to keep the red corner clean and elegantly decorated. The very name "red" means "beautiful", "good", "light". He was removed with embroidered towels, popular prints, postcards. The most beautiful household utensils were placed on the shelves near the red corner, the most valuable papers and items were kept. Everywhere among Russians, the custom was widespread when laying a house to put money under 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 oven. They even interpret God's corner and stove as Christian and pagan centers. These scholars see in their mutual disposition a kind of illustration of the Russian dual faith, they simply replaced the more ancient ones in God's corner - pagan ones, and at first undoubtedly coexisted with them there. "The Empress Stove, in whose presence they did not dare 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 that the stove was placed in the northern corner as an insurmountable obstacle to the forces of death and evil trying to break into the dwelling. The relatively small space of the hut, about 20-25 square meters, was organized in such a way that a rather large family of seven or eight people was accommodated with more or less convenience. This was achieved due to the fact that each family member knew his place in the common space.

Men usually worked, rested during the day in the male half of the hut, which included a front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. During the day, women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove. Sleeping places have also been allocated. Old people slept on the floor near doors, on the stove or on the stove, on the golbets; children and single youth - under the shelves or on the shelves. Adult married couples spent the night in cages, hallways in warm weather, in cold weather - on a bench under the floor 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 the 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 the older brother. Children under marriageable age were seated on a bench running from the front corner along the facade. The women ate while sitting on side benches or stools. It was not supposed to break the once established order in the house unless absolutely necessary. The person who violated them could be severely punished. On weekdays, the hut looked rather modest. There was nothing superfluous in it: the table stood without a tablecloth, the walls were without decorations. Everyday utensils were arranged in the stove corner and on the shelves.

On a festive day, the hut was transformed: the table was moved to the middle, covered with a tablecloth, festive utensils, which had previously been stored in crates, were put on the shelves. The interior of the room differed from the interior of the hut by the presence of a Dutch woman instead of a Russian stove, or by the absence of a stove at all. The rest of the mansion attire, with the exception of the beds and the sleeping platform, repeated the motionless attire of the hut. The peculiarity of the room was that it was always ready to receive guests. Benches were made under the windows of the hut, which did not belong to furniture, but formed part of the extension of the building and were fixed to the walls motionlessly: the board was cut into the wall of the hut with one end, and props were made on the other: legs, grandmothers, and subframes. In old huts, benches were decorated with a "edge" - a board nailed to the edge of the bench, hanging from it like a frill. Such shops were called "pubescent" or "with a canopy", "with a gazebo".

In a traditional Russian dwelling, shops ran round the walls, 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 association of a man or woman's activities with a certain place in the house (men's, women's shops). Various items were stored under the benches, which, if necessary, were easy to get - axes, tools, shoes, etc. In traditional rituals and in the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the shop acts as a place where not everyone is allowed to sit. So when entering a house, especially for strangers, it was customary to stand at the threshold until the owners invited them to go and sit down. The same applies to matchmakers: they went to the table and sat on the bench only by invitation.

In the funeral rituals, the deceased was placed on a bench, but not on any one, but on a bench located along the floorboards. Long bench - a bench that differed from others in its length. Depending on the local tradition of distributing objects in the space of the house, the long shop could have a different place in the hut. In the Northern Russian and Central Russian provinces, in the Volga region, it stretched from the bunk to the red corner, along the side wall of the house. In the South Great Russian provinces, it went from the red corner along the wall of the facade. From the point of view of the spatial division of the house, a long shop, like a stove corner, was traditionally considered a women's place, where at the appropriate time they were engaged in certain women's work, such as spinning, knitting, embroidery, and 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.

Short Shop - A shop that runs along the front wall of the house that faces the street. During the family meal, men were sitting on it. The shop, located near the stove, was called kutnaya. Buckets of water, pots, cast iron were placed on it, freshly baked bread was laid.

The threshold shop ran along the wall where the door is located. It was used by women instead of a kitchen table and differed from other shops in the house by the absence of a border around the edge.

Ship bench - 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 that of other benches in the house. The front bench has swing or sliding doors or is closed with a curtain. Inside there are shelves for dishes, buckets, iron pots, and pots. The men's shop was called Konik. It was short and wide. In most of the territory of Russia, it was in the form of a box with a hinged flat lid or a box with sliding doors. The konik got its name, probably, thanks to the horse head carved out of wood, which adorned its side. Konik was located in a residential part of a peasant house, near the door. It was considered a "men's" shop, as it was workplace men. Here they were engaged in small craft: weaving sandals, baskets, repairing harnesses, knitting fishing nets, etc.

Under the bunk there were also the tools necessary for this work. A place on a bench was considered more prestigious than on a bench; the guest could judge the attitude of the owners towards him, depending on where he was seated - on a bench or on a bench. A necessary element of home decoration was a table serving for daily and festive meals. The table was one of the most ancient types of movable furniture, although the earliest tables were adobe and fixed. Such a table with adobe benches near it were found in the Pronsk dwellings of the 11th-13th centuries (Ryazan province) and in the Kiev dugout of the 12th century. The four legs of the table from the dugout in Kiev are racks dug into the ground.

In a traditional Russian dwelling, the 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 North Russian houses, the table was always located along the floorboards, that is, with the narrower side to front wall huts. In some places, for example, in the Upper Volga region, the table was set only for the duration of the meal, after eating it was placed sideways on the shelf under the icons. This was done so that there was more space in the hut. In the forest zone of Russia, carpentry tables had a peculiar shape: a massive underframe, that is, the frame connecting the table legs, was taken by boards, the legs were made short and thick, the large tabletop was always removable and protruded behind the underframe in order to make it more comfortable to sit. A cabinet with double doors for dining utensils and bread needed for the day was made in the underframe.

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 it 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 the meal. It manifested itself with particular vividness in the wedding ceremony, in which almost every stage ended with a feast. The table was interpreted in the popular mind as "God's palm" giving daily bread, therefore, knocking on the table at which they eat was considered a sin. At normal, non-table time, 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 people unite: the 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 a peasant hut, tablecloths were made from homespun fabric, both simple plain weave, and made using the technique of abusive and multi-thread weaving. Tablecloths used every day were sewn from two motley panels, usually with a checkered pattern (the most varied colors) or just a rough canvas. Such a tablecloth was used to cover the table during dinner, and after a meal, either they removed or covered the bread left on the table with it. Festive tablecloths were distinguished by the best quality of the fabric, such additional details as lace stitching between two panels, tassels, lace or fringe around the perimeter, as well as a pattern on the fabric.

The word "hut" (as well as its synonyms "yzba", "istba", "izba", "source", "source") has been used in Russian chronicles since the most ancient times. The connection of this term with the verbs "drown", "drown" is obvious. Indeed, it always denotes a heated building (as opposed to, for example, a stand).

In addition, all three East Slavic peoples- Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians - the term "stove" was retained and again meant a heated building, whether it was a pantry for winter storage vegetables (Belarus, Pskov, Northern Ukraine) or a tiny residential hut (Novgorod, Vologda regions), but certainly with a stove.

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

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

Special requirements were also imposed 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 adjoining each other, well retained internal heat, and did not rot for a long time. However, the choice of trees in the forest was regulated by many rules, the violation of which could lead to the transformation of a built house from a house for people into a house against people, bringing misfortune. So, for a felling it was impossible to take "sacred" trees - they can bring death to the house. The ban extended to all old trees. According to legend, they must die in the forest by their own death. It was impossible to use dry trees that were considered dead - from them the household will have "dry". A big misfortune will happen if a "wild" tree falls into the frame, that is, a tree that has grown at a crossroads or on the site of former forest roads. Such a tree can destroy a log house 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 rite of sacrifice of 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 sanctity of the house, was laid under the logs of the first crown, the window cushion, the mat. The end of construction was celebrated with a rich treat for all those who participated in the work.

The Slavs, like other peoples, "unrolled" the building under construction from the body of a creature sacrificed to the Gods. According to the ancients, without such a "sample" the logs could never have formed into an orderly structure. The "construction sacrifice" seemed to convey its shape to the hut, helped to create something intelligently organized out of the primitive 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 to defend against enemies, when it came to the life or death of the entire tribe. In ordinary 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 animals were found. Horse skulls are especially often found. So "skates" on the roofs of Russian huts are by no means "for beauty." In the old days, a tail from a bast was also attached to the back of the ridge, after which the hut was already completely like a horse. The house itself was represented by a "body", the four corners - by four "legs". Scientists write that instead of a wooden ridge, a real horse skull was once strengthened. Buried skulls are also found under huts of the 10th century, and under those built five centuries after baptism - in the 14th-15th centuries. For half a millennium, they have only been put in a shallower hole. As a rule, this hole was located at the holy (red) angle - just under the icons! - either under the threshold, so that evil could not enter the house.

Another favorite sacrificial animal when laying a house was a rooster (chicken). Suffice it to recall the "cockerels" as decoration of roofs, as well as the widespread belief that evil spirits should disappear when the rooster crows. Placed in the base of the hut and the skull of a bull. And still ancient faith that the house is being built "on someone's head" was ineradicable. For this reason, they tried to leave at least something, even the edge of the roof, unfinished, deceiving fate.

Roofing scheme:
1 - gutter,
2 - stupid,
3 - stamik,
4 - slag,
5 - flint,
6 - princely slega ("knes"),
7 - indiscriminate slag,
8 - male,
9 - fell,
10 - mooring,
11 - chicken
12 - pass,
13 - bull,
14 - oppression.

General view of the hut

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

This, first of all, depended on where he lived, to which tribe he belonged. After all, even now, having visited the villages in the north and south of European Russia, one cannot fail to notice the difference in the type of dwellings: in the north it is a wooden chopped hut, in the south it is a hut-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 the home. Historians write that the difference between the two main types traditional home can be traced during excavations of settlements in which people lived even before our era.

Tradition was largely determined by climatic conditions and the availability of suitable building materials. In the north, at all times, moist soil prevailed and there was a lot of timber, in the south, in the forest-steppe zone, the soil was drier, but there was not always enough forest, so they had to turn to other building materials. Therefore, in the south, until very late time (up to the XIV-XV centuries), a massive folk dwelling was a 0.5-1 m half-dugout, dug into the ground. And in the rainy north, on the contrary, a ground house with a floor, often even somewhat raised above the ground, appeared very early.

Scientists write that the ancient Slavic semi-dugout "got out" from under the earth into the light of God for many centuries, gradually turning into a ground hut of the Slavic south.

In the north, with its damp climate and abundance of first-class forest, the semi-underground dwelling turned into an 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 with good reason believe that log huts were erected here in the II 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-house log dwelling had already developed here, while semi-dugouts prevailed for a long time in the south. Well, each dwelling was best suited for its territory.

For example, this is how the "average" residential hut of the 9th-11th centuries from the city of Ladoga (now Staraya Ladoga on the Volkhov River) looked like. Usually it was a square in plan (that is, when viewed from above) building with a side of 4-5 m.Sometimes a 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, dismantled, transported to the construction site and folded already "clean". Scientists were told about this by notches - "numbers", in order, applied to the logs, starting from the bottom.

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

In order for the logs to adhere more tightly to each other, a longitudinal depression was made in one of them, into which the convex side of the other entered. The ancient craftsmen made a depression in the lower log and made sure that the logs turned up on the side that looked to the north of the living tree. On this side, the annual layers are denser and finer. And the grooves between the logs were caulked with marsh moss, which, by the way, has the ability to kill bacteria, and often coated with clay. But the custom to sheathe a log house with planks is historically relatively new for Russia. For the first time, it was captured on miniatures of a 16th century manuscript.

The floor in the hut was sometimes made earthen, but more often - wooden, raised above the ground on beams-logs, cut into the lower crown. In this case, a hole was arranged in the floor into a shallow underground cellar.

Wealthy people usually built their houses in two dwellings, often with a superstructure at the top, which gave the house a three-tiered appearance from the outside.

A kind of entrance hall was often attached to the hut - a canopy about 2 m wide. Sometimes, however, the canopy was significantly expanded and a stable for cattle was arranged in them. We used the canopy in a different way. In the vast, tidy hallway, 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, since the 10th century, unheated annexes to the huts - cages - have spread. They communicated again through the passage. The crate served as a summer bedroom, a year-round storage room, and in winter - a kind of "refrigerator".

The ordinary roof of Russian houses was made of wood, planks, shingles or shingles. In the XVI and XVII centuries it was customary to cover the roof with birch bark from dampness; this gave her a variegation; and sometimes earth and sod were placed on the roof to protect it from fire. The roofs were pitched on two sides with gables on the other two sides. Sometimes all the departments of the house, that is, the basement, the middle tier and the attic, were under one slope, but more often the attic, while others had their own special roofs. Wealthy people had intricate roofs, for example, barrels in the form of barrels, and Japanese in the form of a cloak. On the outskirts, the roof was bordered with slotted ridges, scars, policemen, or handrails with chiseled balusters. Sometimes, along the entire outskirts, teremki 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 on each side there were only a couple or three of them, and windows were inserted in the middle of them.

If the semi-dugouts, filled with soil along the roof, were, as a rule, devoid of windows, then in the Ladoga huts there are already windows. True, they are still very far from modern ones, with bindings, vents and clear glass. Window glass appeared in Russia in the X-XI 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 and sliding) were arranged for the passage of smoke.

Two adjacent logs were cut to the middle, and a rectangular frame with a wooden shutter that went horizontally was inserted into the hole. You could look out of such a window - but that's all. They were called so - "enlighteners" ... If necessary, they pulled the skin on them; in general, these openings in the huts of the poor were small, to keep warm, 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.

Not a small controversy among scientists was caused by the additional crown of logs, encircling the Ladoga huts at some distance from the main one. Let's not forget that from ancient houses to our times, it is well preserved if one or two lower crowns and the disordered fragments of a collapsed roof and floorboards: figure it out, archaeologist, where is that. Therefore, at times a variety of assumptions are made about the constructive purpose of the found parts. What purpose this additional outer crown served - a unified point of view has not yet been worked out. Some researchers believe that he bordered the embankment (a low insulating embankment along external walls hut), preventing it from creeping. Other scientists think that the ancient huts were not encircled by heaps - the wall was like a two-layer one, a kind of gallery surrounded the residential blockhouse, which served both as a heat insulator and a utility pantry. Judging by archaeological data, a toilet was often located at the very rear, dead-end end of the gallery. Understandably, the desire of our ancestors, who lived in a harsh climate with frosty winters, to use the warmth of the hut to heat the lavatory and at the same time to prevent a bad smell in the home. The toilet in Russia was called "back". This word first occurs in documents from the beginning of the 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 at that long time, folk talent developed a type of dwelling that very successfully met local conditions, and life, almost until recently, did not give people a reason to move away from the familiar, convenient and traditionally sanctified samples.

The inner space of the hut

In the peasant houses, as a rule, there were one or two, less often three dwellings, connected by a passage. The most typical house for Russia was a house consisting of a warm, stove-heated room and a vestibule. They were used for household 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 itself heated by a Russian stove, there was another, summer, ceremonial room - an upper room, which was also used in large families 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 items included in it. The main space of the hut was occupied by an oven, which in most of the territory of Russia was located at the entrance, to the right or left of the doors.

Only in the southern, central black earth zone of European Russia was the furnace located in the corner farthest from the entrance. The table was always in the corner, diagonally from the stove. Above him was a shrine with icons. Stationary benches ran along the walls, shelves cut into the walls above them. In the back of the hut, from the stove to the side wall, a wooden flooring was arranged under the ceiling. In the southern Russian regions, behind the side wall of the stove, there could be a wooden flooring for sleeping - a floor, a bridge. All this motionless furnishings of the hut were built together with the house and was called a mansion outfit.

The stove played a major role in the interior space of the Russian dwelling throughout all stages of its existence. No wonder the room where the Russian stove stood was called "a hut, a furnace". The Russian stove belongs to the type of ovens in which the fire is kindled inside the stove, and not on an open area on top. The smoke comes out through the mouth - the hole in which the fuel is put, 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, comfortable for lying. The furnace furnace is comparatively large sizes: 1.2-1.4 m high, up to 1.5 m wide, with a vaulted ceiling and a flat bottom - a hearth. Estuary, usually rectangular or with a semicircular upper part, closed with a flap cut out in the shape of the mouth with an iron shield 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 grab. Russian stoves always stood on a guardhouse, which was a frame of three or four crowns of round logs or blocks, a log roll was made on top of it, which was smeared with a thick layer of clay, this served as the bottom of the stove. Russian stoves had one or four stove columns. The stoves differed in the design of the chimney. The oldest type of Russian oven was a stove without a chimney, called a poultry or black oven. The smoke came out through the mouth and during the heating it hung from the ceiling in a thick layer, which caused the upper crowns of the logs in the hut to be covered with black resinous soot. To settle the soot, polavochniki served - shelves located along the perimeter of the hut above the windows, they separated the sooty top from the clean bottom. To get smoke out of the room, they opened a door and a small hole in the ceiling or in the back wall of the hut - a chimney. After the firebox, this hole was closed with a wooden shield in the southern lips. the hole was plugged with rags.

Another type of Russian stove - semi-white or semi-chicken - is transitional form from a black oven to a white oven with a chimney. Semi-white stoves do not have a brick chimney, but a branch pipe is arranged above the pole, and a small round hole is made above it in the ceiling, which opens into wooden pipe... During the furnace, an iron round pipe is inserted between the branch pipe and the hole in the ceiling, somewhat wider than the samovar pipe. After heating the furnace, the pipe is removed and the hole is closed.

The white Russian stove assumes a chimney for smoke outlet. A branch pipe is laid above the brick sixth, collecting the smoke that comes out of the mouth of the furnace. From the branch pipe, the smoke enters the buried bricks laid horizontally in the attic, and from there into the vertical chimney.

In the old days, stoves were often made of clay, in the thickness of which stones were often added, which allowed the stove to heat up more and keep it warm longer. In the northern Russian provinces, cobblestones were driven into the 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 doors. The mouth of the furnace, depending on the terrain, could be turned to the front facade wall of the house or to the side one. In the southern Russian provinces, the stove was usually located in the far right or left corner of the hut with the mouth turned to the side wall or front door... There are many ideas, beliefs, rituals, and magic tricks associated with the stove. In the traditional mind, the stove was an integral part of the home; if the house did not have a stove, it was considered uninhabited. According to popular belief, a brownie, patron saint, lives under the stove or behind it. hearth, kind and helpful in some situations, wayward and even dangerous in others. In the system of behavior, where such an opposition as "ours" and "strangers" is essential, the attitude of the hosts towards a guest or a stranger changed if he happened to sit on their stove; both the person who dined with the host'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 took place 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 done, was called the stove corner. Here, near the window, opposite the mouth of the furnace, in every house there were hand millstones, therefore the corner is also called a millstone. In the stove corner there was a ship's bench or counter with shelves inside, which was used as a kitchen table. There were observers on the walls - shelves for tableware, cupboards. Above, at the level of polavochnikov, there was a stove bar, on which kitchen utensils were placed and various household utensils were laid.

The stove corner was considered a dirty place, unlike the rest of the clean space of the hut. Therefore, the peasants always tried to separate it from the rest of the room with a curtain made of variegated chintz, colored homespun or a wooden bulkhead. The stove corner, closed by a plank partition, formed a small room called "closet" or "lodge".
It was an exclusively female space in the hut: here women cooked food, rested after work. During the holidays, when many guests came to the house, a second table was set up near the stove for women, where they feasted separately from the men sitting at the table in the red corner. Men even of their own family could not enter the female half without special need. The appearance of a stranger there was generally considered unacceptable.

The traditional immovable furnishings of the dwelling were kept for the longest time near 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, in Siberia, the red corner was a space between the side and front walls in the depths of the hut, bounded by an angle that is located diagonally from the stove.

In the southern Russian regions of European Russia, the red corner is the space enclosed between a wall with a door in the canopy and a side wall. The stove was in the back of the hut, diagonally from the red corner. In a traditional dwelling almost throughout the territory of Russia, with the exception of the southern Russian provinces, the red corner is well lit, since both of its walls had windows. The main decoration of the red corner is a shrine with icons and an icon lamp, therefore it is also called a "saint". As a rule, everywhere in Russia, in addition to the goddess, there is a table in the red corner, only in a number of places in the Pskov and Velikie Luki provinces. it is placed in the wall between the windows - opposite the corner of the stove. In the red corner, next to the table, there are two benches, and on top, above the goddess, there are two shelves of a half-shop; hence the West-South Russian name for the corner "day" (the place where the elements of the dwelling decoration meet, join).

All significant events in family life were noted in the red corner. Here, both everyday meals and festive feasts were held at the table, many calendar rituals took place. In the wedding ceremony, the matchmaking of the bride, her ransom from her bridesmaids and her brother were performed 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 also led her to the red corner. During harvest, the first and last were set in the red corner. The preservation of the first and last ears of the harvest, endowed, according to folk legends, with magical power, promised prosperity to the family, home, and the entire economy. In the red corner, daily prayers were performed, from which any important business began. It is the most honorable place in the house. According to traditional etiquette, a person who came to the hut could go there only at the special invitation of the owners. They tried to keep the red corner clean and elegantly decorated. The very name "red" means "beautiful", "good", "light". He was removed with embroidered towels, popular prints, postcards. The most beautiful household utensils were placed on the shelves near the red corner, the most valuable papers and items were kept. Everywhere among Russians, the custom was widespread when laying a house to put money under the lower crown in all corners, and a larger coin was placed under the red corner.

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

The relatively small space of the hut, about 20-25 square meters, was organized in such a way that a rather large family of seven to eight people was accommodated in it with more or less convenience. This was achieved due to the fact that each family member knew his place in the common space. Men usually worked, rested during the day in the male half of the hut, which included a front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. During the day, women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove. Sleeping places have also been allocated. Old people slept on the floor near doors, on the stove or on the stove, on the golbets; children and single youth - under the shelves or on the shelves. In the warm season, adult married couples spent the night in cages, hallways, and in cold weather - on a bench under the beds 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 the 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 older brother. Children under marriageable age were seated on a bench running from the front corner along the facade. The women ate while sitting on side benches or stools. It was not supposed to break the once established order in the house unless absolutely necessary. The person who violated them could be severely punished.

On weekdays, the hut looked rather modest. There was nothing superfluous in it: the table stood without a tablecloth, the walls were without decorations. Everyday utensils were arranged in the stove corner and on the shelves.

On a festive day, the hut was transformed: the table was moved to the middle, covered with a tablecloth, festive utensils, which had previously been stored in crates, were put on the shelves.

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

Benches were made under the windows of the hut, which did not belong to furniture, but formed part of the extension of the building and were fixed to the walls motionlessly: the board was cut into the wall of the hut with one end, and props were made on the other: legs, grandmothers, and subframes. In old huts, benches were decorated with a "edge" - a board nailed to the edge of the bench, hanging from it like a frill. Such shops were called "pubescent" or "with a canopy", "with a gazebo". In a traditional Russian dwelling, shops ran round the walls, 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 association of a man or woman's activities with a certain place in the house (men's, women's shops). Various items were stored under the benches, which, if necessary, were easy to get - axes, tools, shoes, etc. In traditional rituals and in the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the shop acts as a place where not everyone is allowed to sit. So when entering a house, especially for strangers, it was customary to stand at the threshold until the owners invited them to go and sit down. The same applies to matchmakers: they went to the table and sat on the bench only by invitation. In the funeral rituals, the deceased was placed on a bench, but not on any bench, but on the one along the floorboards.

Long shop - a shop that differed from others in its length. Depending on the local tradition of distributing objects in the space of the house, the long shop could have a different place in the hut. In the Northern Russian and Central Russian provinces, in the Volga region, it stretched from the bunk to the red corner, along the side wall of the house. In the South Great Russian provinces, it went from the red corner along the wall of the facade. From the point of view of the spatial division of the house, a long shop, like a stove corner, was traditionally considered a women's place, where at the appropriate time they were engaged in certain women's work, such as spinning, knitting, embroidery, and 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.

Short Shop - A shop that runs along the front wall of the house that faces the street. During the family meal, men were sitting on it.

The shop, located near the stove, was called kutnaya. Buckets of water, pots, cast iron were placed on it, freshly baked bread was laid.
The threshold shop ran along the wall where the door is located. It was used by women instead of a kitchen table and differed from other shops in the house by the absence of a border around the edge.
A ship 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 that of other benches in the house. The front bench has swing or sliding doors or is closed with a curtain. Inside there are shelves for dishes, buckets, iron pots, and pots.

The men's shop was called Konik. It was short and wide. In most of the territory of Russia, it was in the form of a box with a hinged flat lid or a box with sliding doors. The konik got its name, probably, thanks to the horse head carved out of wood, which adorned its side. Konik was located in a residential part of a peasant house, near the door. It was considered a "men's" shop, as it was a men's workplace. Here they were engaged in small craft: weaving sandals, baskets, repairing harnesses, knitting fishing nets, etc. Under the bunk there were also the tools necessary for this work.

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

Furniture and decoration

A necessary element of home decoration was a table serving for daily and festive meals. The table was one of the most ancient types of movable furniture, although the earliest tables were adobe and fixed. Such a table with adobe benches near it were found in the Pronsk dwellings of the 11th-13th centuries (Ryazan province) and in the Kiev dugout of the 12th century. The four legs of the table from the dugout in Kiev are racks dug into the ground. In a traditional Russian dwelling, the 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 North Russian houses, the table was always located along the floorboards, that is, with the narrower side to the front wall of the hut. In some places, for example, in the Upper Volga region, the table was set only for the duration of the meal, after eating it was placed sideways on the shelf under the icons. This was done so that there was more space in the hut.

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

In the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the table has always been a place where people unite: the 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 a peasant hut, tablecloths were made from homespun fabric, both simple plain weave, and made using the technique of abusive and multi-thread weaving. Tablecloths used every day were sewn from two motley panels, usually with a checkered pattern (the most varied colors) or just a rough canvas. Such a tablecloth was used to cover the table during dinner, and after a meal, either they removed or covered the bread left on the table with it. Festive tablecloths were distinguished by the best quality of the fabric, 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, portable and attached. Bench - a bench with a reclining back ("overhang") served 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 limiters of the bench, was thrown to the other side of the bench, and the latter was moved to the bench, so that a kind of bed was formed, bounded in front by a "overhang". The backrest of the saddle bench was often decorated with through carvings, which significantly reduced its weight. Benches of this type were used mainly in urban and monastic life.

Portable bench - a bench with four legs or two blank boards, as needed, was attached to the table, used for sitting. If there was not enough space for sleeping, the bench could be moved and placed along the bench to increase the space for an extra bed. Portable benches were one of the oldest forms of furniture among the Russians.
Side bench - 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 roots of the tree, chopped off at a certain length.

In the old days, a bench or a bench attached to the wall served as a bed, to which another bench was attached. On these lavas, a bed was laid, which consisted of three parts: a down jacket or feather beds, a headboard and pillows. A headboard or headrest is a headrest on which a pillow was placed. It is a wooden sloping plane on small blocks, in the back there could be a solid or lattice back, in the corners - carved or chiseled posts. 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 of linen or silk fabric, and the top was covered with a blanket that went under the pillow. The beds were made more smartly on holidays or at weddings, more simply on ordinary days. In general, however, the beds were the property of only wealthy people, and even for those they were more for show in their decoration, and the owners themselves were more willing to sleep on a simple animal skin. For people of an average condition, felt was the usual bed, and the poor villagers slept on the stoves, putting their own clothes under their heads, or on bare benches.

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

For storage of separately used dishes, a dish was used: 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 curly shapes (for example, oval). A rail could be nailed above one or two shelves of the dish on the outside to stabilize the dishes and for setting the plates on the edge. As a rule, the dishware was located above the ship's shop, near the hostess's hand. It has long been a necessary detail in the immovable decoration of the hut.

The main decoration of the houses was made up of icons. The icons were placed on a shelf or open cabinet called a goddess. It was made of wood, often decorated with carvings and paintings. The Lady of God was quite often two-tier: new icons were placed in the lower tier, old, faded ones in the upper tier. It was always located in the red corner of the hut. In addition to icons, objects consecrated in the church were kept on the shrine: holy water, pussy willow, Easter egg, sometimes the Gospel. Important documents were put there: bills, IOUs, payment notebooks, memorials. There was also a wing for sweeping icons. A curtain was often hung on the goddess, covering the icons, or the goddess. This kind of shelf or cabinet was common in all Russian huts, since, in the opinion of the peasants, the icons should have stood, and not hung in the corner of the hut.

Bozhnik was a narrow, long cloth of homespun canvas, decorated along one side and at the ends with embroidery, woven ornament, ribbons, lace. The godfather was hung out 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, measuring 10-25 cm, was called a dove. It is suspended from the ceiling in front of the images on a string or rope. Golubkov was made of wood (pine, birch), sometimes painted in red, blue, white, green. The tail and wings of such doves were made of splinters 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 Christian tradition where the dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit.

The red corner was also decorated with a knuckle, a rectangular piece of fabric sewn from two pieces of white thin canvas or chintz. The size of the cuff can be different, usually 70 cm long, 150 cm wide. White knuckles were decorated along the lower edge with embroidery, woven patterns, ribbons, and lace. The nakutnik was attached to the corner under the images. At the same time, a goddess or icons were girded with a goddess on top.

The Old Believers considered it necessary to close the faces of the icons from prying eyes, so they were hung with a message. It consists of two sewn panels of white canvas, decorated with geometric or stylized floral embroidery in several rows with red cotton threads, red cotton stripes between the rows of embroidery, flounces along the bottom edge or lace. The canvas field, free from embroidery stripes, was filled with asterisks made with red threads. The message was hung in front of the icons, fixed on the wall or shrine with the help of fabric hinges. She was pulled apart only during prayer.

For the festive decoration of the hut, a towel was used - a panel of white fabric of home or less often factory production, trimmed with embroidery, woven color patterns, ribbons, stripes of colored chintz, lace, sequins, braid, braid, fringe. It was usually decorated at the ends. The cloth of the towel was rarely decorated. 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, Nativity of Christ, 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, to the cherished days - holidays celebrating important events in the village. In addition, towels were hung out 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 a long-awaited family. Towels were hung on the walls making up the red corner of the hut and in the red corner. They were put on wooden nails - "hooks", "matches", driven into the walls. According to custom, towels were a necessary part of a girl's dowry. It was customary to show them to her 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 diligence, accuracy, and taste of the young woman. The towel generally played a large role in the ritual life of the Russian countryside. It was important attribute wedding, native, funeral and memorial rituals. Very often it was 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. Thrown over her head, it was supposed to protect her from the evil eye, damage at the most crucial moment of her life. The towel was used in the ceremony of "joining the young" before the crown: the hands of the bride and groom were tied with it "for ever and ever, for long years." A towel was presented to the midwife who took delivery, the godfather and godfather who baptized the baby. The towel was present in the "baba's porridge" ritual, which took place after the birth of the child. but special role the towel played in the funeral and memorial rituals. According to the beliefs of Russian peasants, a towel hung on the window on the day of the death of a person was his soul for forty days. The slightest movement of the fabric was seen as a sign of her 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 a towel were widespread in the Russian countryside. They were based on the ancient mythological ideas of the Slavs. The towel acted in them as a talisman, a sign of belonging to a certain family and clan collective, was interpreted as an object that embodied the souls of the ancestors of "parents" who carefully watched the life of the living.

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

Many small wooden objects have disappeared without a trace over a thousand years, rotted, crumbled into dust. But not all. Something has been found by archaeologists, something may suggest the study of the cultural heritage of related and neighboring peoples. A certain light is shed also by the later samples recorded by ethnographers ... In a word, one can talk endlessly about the interior decoration of the Russian hut.

Utensil

It was difficult to imagine a peasant house without numerous utensils that had accumulated for decades, if not centuries, and literally filled the space. In the Russian countryside, utensils were called "everything movable in the house, dwelling," according to V. I. Dahl. In fact, utensils are the whole set 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, clothes; items for personal hygiene and home hygiene; items for kindling a fire, storing and consuming tobacco, and for cosmetics.

In the Russian countryside, mainly wooden pottery was used. Metal, glass, porcelain were less common. Wooden utensils according to the manufacturing technique could be hollowed out, bolted, cooper's, carpentry, turning. Utensils made of birch bark, woven from twigs, straw, pine roots were also in great use. Some of the necessary wooden items for the household were made by the efforts of the male half of the family. Most of the items were purchased at fairs, marketplaces, especially cooper and lathe utensils, the manufacture of which required special knowledge and tools.

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

The metal utensils of the traditional type were mainly copper, pewter, or silver. Her presence in the house was a vivid testimony to the prosperity of the family, its frugality, and respect for family traditions. Such utensils were sold only at the most critical moments in family life.

The utensils that filled the house were made, purchased, and stored by Russian peasants, naturally proceeding from their purely practical use. However, in separate, from the point of view of the peasant, important moments in life, almost every of its objects turned from a utilitarian thing into a symbolic one. At one of the moments of the wedding ceremony, the dowry chest turned from a container for storing clothes into a symbol of the prosperity of the family, the diligence of the bride. The spoon, turned upward with the notch of the scoop, meant that it would be used at the memorial 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 countryside, two types of bodnies were known. The first type was a long hollowed-out wooden deck, the side walls of which were made of solid planks. A hole with a lid on leather hinges was 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, with a bottom diameter of 54-80 cm. Bodnya were usually locked and kept in cages. From the second half of the XIX century. began to be replaced by chests.

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

Tubs were used to store pickles, ferments, urinates, kvass, water for future use, flour and cereals were stored. As a rule, the tubs were made by cooperage, i.e. were made of wooden planks - rivets tied with hoops. they were made in the form of a truncated cone or cylinder. they could have three legs, which were a continuation of the rivets. The necessary accessory for the tub was a circle and a lid. The products placed in the tub were pressed in a circle, the oppression was placed on top. This was done so that pickles and soaks were always in the brine, and did not float to the surface. The lid kept the food from dust. The mug and lid had small handles.

A basket was called an open cylindrical container made of bast, the bottom is flat, made of wooden planks or bark. It was done with or without a spoon handle. The dimensions of the basket were determined by the purpose and were named accordingly: "filling", "bridge", "buttocks", "mycelium", etc. If the basket was intended for storing bulk products, then it was closed with a flat lid that was put on top.

For many centuries, the main kitchen vessel in Russia was a pot - a cooking utensil in the form of an earthenware vessel with a wide open top, having a low rim, and a round body gradually tapering towards the bottom. The pots could be different sizes: from a small pot for 200-300 g of porridge to a huge pot that can hold up to 2-3 buckets of water. The shape of the pot did not change during its entire existence and was well adapted for cooking in a Russian oven. They were rarely ornamented; narrow concentric circles or a chain of shallow dimples, triangles squeezed out around the rim or on the shoulders of the vessel served as their decoration. In a peasant house there were about a dozen or more pots of various sizes. They treasured the pots, tried to handle them carefully. If it cracked, it was braided with birch bark and used to store food.

The pot is a household item, utilitarian, in the ritual life of the Russian people it acquired additional ritual functions. Scientists believe that it is one of the most ritualized household items. In the beliefs of the people, the pot was interpreted as a living anthropomorphic creature that has a throat, a handle, a nose, and a shard. It is customary to divide pots into pots that carry a feminine principle, and pots with a masculine essence embedded in them. so, in the southern provinces of European Russia, the hostess, buying a pot, tried to determine its gender and gender: is it a pot or a potty. It was believed that cooked food in a pot would be tastier than in a pot.

It is also interesting to note that in the popular consciousness a parallel is clearly drawn between the fate of the pot and the fate of a person. The pot has found itself a fairly widespread use in funeral rituals. So, in most of the territory of European Russia, the custom was widespread to break pots when taking out the dead from the house. This custom was perceived as a statement of the departure of a person from life, home, village. In the Olonets lips. this idea was expressed in a slightly different way. After the funeral, a pot filled with hot coals in the house of the deceased was placed upside down on the grave, while the coals crumbled and went out. In addition, the deceased was washed with water taken from a new pot two hours after death. After being consumed, it was carried away from home and buried in the ground or thrown into the water. It was believed that the last life force of a person is concentrated in a pot of water, which is drained during 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 ceremonial activities at weddings. So, according to custom, "wedding men", led by a friend and svashki, in the morning came to beat the pots to the room where the wedding night of the young people took place, while they had not yet left. Beating pots was perceived as a demonstration of 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 necessarily on Maundy Thursday before sunrise, when the witchcraft was especially strong. The pot in this case, as it were, absorbed them into itself, received additional magical power.

To serve food on the table, such table utensils as a dish were used. It was usually round or oval, shallow, on a low base, with wide edges. In peasant life, wooden dishes were mainly common. Dishes for the 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 use. On weekdays, the dish was served with fish, meat, porridge, cabbage, cucumbers and other "thick" dishes, eaten after stew or cabbage soup. V holidays in addition to meat and fish, pancakes, pies, buns, cheesecakes, gingerbread cookies, nuts, sweets and other sweets were served on the platter. In addition, there was a custom to offer guests a glass of wine, mead, brew, vodka or beer on a platter. horses of a festive meal was indicated by the removal of an empty dish covered with another or with a cloth.

The dishes were used during folk ritual actions, fortune-telling, and magic procedures. In maternity rituals, a dish with water was used during the rite of magical cleansing of a woman in labor and a midwife, which was performed on the third day after childbirth. The woman in labor "silvered the grandmother", that is. she 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 the general display of ritual objects and the presentation of gifts. The dish was also used in some rites of the annual cycle. For example, in the Kursk province. on the day of Basil of Caesarea, January 1 (January 14), according to custom, a fried pig was laid on the dish - a symbol of the wealth of the house, expected in the new year. The head of the family raised the dish with the pig to the icons three times, and all the rest prayed to St. Vasily about the numerous offspring of livestock. The dish was also an attribute of Christmas-time fortune-telling of the girls, who were called "under the dish". In the Russian village there was a ban on its use on some days. folk calendar... It was impossible to serve a dish with 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 the severed head of Solomey was presented to her mother Herodias on a platter. 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 pallet, sometimes with handles or rings instead of handles, without a lid. Often an inscription was made along the edge of the bowl. Either along the crown or over the entire surface, the bowl was decorated with painting, including plant and zoomorphic ornaments (bowls with Severodvinsk painting are widely known). Bowls of various sizes were made depending on their use. Bowls big size, which weighed up to 800 g or more, were used along with braces, bros and ladles during holidays and eves for drinking beer and mash, when many guests gathered. In monasteries, large bowls were used to serve kvass on the table. Small bowls, hollowed out of clay, were used in peasant life during dinner - for serving cabbage soup, stew, fish soup, etc. on the table. During lunch, food was served on the table in a common bowl, separate dishes were used only during the holidays. They began to eat at a sign from the owner; they did not talk while eating. The guests who entered the house were treated to the same 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 to the health of the owner and hostess, who did not do this was considered an enemy. Draining the bowl, they wished the owner: "Good luck, victory, health, and that there should be no more blood left in his enemies than in this bowl." The bowl is also mentioned in conspiracies.

A mug was used to drink various drinks. A mug is a cylindrical dish of various sizes with a handle. Clay and wood-carved mugs were decorated with painting, and wooden ones - with carvings, the surface of some mugs was covered with birch bark weaving. They were used in everyday and festive use, they were also the subject of ritual actions.

A glass was used to drink intoxicated drinks. It is a small circular vessel with a leg and a flat bottom, sometimes there could be a handle and a lid. Charkas were usually painted or decorated with carvings. This vessel was used as an individual dish for drinking mash, beer, hop honey, and later - wine and vodka on holidays, since drinking was allowed only on holidays and such drinks were a festive treat for guests. Drinking was taken for the health of others, not for oneself. Bringing a glass of wine to the guest, the host expected a return glass from him.

Charku was most often used in a wedding ceremony. A cup with wine was offered to the newlyweds by the priest after the wedding. They took turns taking three sips of the glass. After finishing the wine, the husband threw the glass under his feet and trampled it at the same time as his wife, saying: "Let those who will sow discord and dislike between us be trampled under our feet." It was believed that who of the spouses would step on her first would dominate the family. The owner brought 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 young from spoilage. The sorcerer himself asked for the second glass, and only after that he began to protect the newlyweds from evil forces.

Before forks appeared, the only food tool was spoons. They were mostly made of wood. The spoons were decorated with paintings or carvings. Various signs associated with spoons were observed. It was impossible to put the spoon so that it rests with the handle on the table, and with the other end on the plate, since on the spoon, as on a bridge, unclean forces can penetrate into the bowl. It was not allowed to knock on the table with spoons, because from this "the evil one rejoices" and "the evil ones" (creatures who personify poverty and misfortune) cling to dinner. it was considered a sin to remove the spoons from the table in the spell, on the eve of the church fasts, so the spoons remained on the table until morning. You cannot put an extra spoon, otherwise there will be an extra mouth or evil spirits will sit down at the table. As a gift, it was necessary to bring a spoon for housewarming, along with a loaf of bread, salt and money. The spoon was widely used in ritual activities.

The traditional utensils for the Russian feast were valleys, ladles, brothers, brackets. Endows were not considered valuable items that needed to be displayed in the best place in the house, as, for example, was done with a brother or ladles.

A poker, a grab, a frying pan, a bread shovel, a pomelo are objects associated with the hearth and the stove.

The poker is a short, thick iron rod with a curved end, which was used to stir the coals in the oven and rake the heat. With the help of a grab, pots and cast iron were moved in the oven, they could also be removed or installed in the oven. It is a metal bow mounted on a long wooden handle. Before planting the loaves in the oven under the oven, they were cleared of coal and ash, sweeping it with a broom. A pomelo is a long wooden handle, to the end of which pine, juniper branches, straw, a washcloth or a rag were tied. With the help of a bread shovel, breads and pies were planted in the oven, and they were also taken out of there. All these utensils participated in various ritual actions.

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