How to draw the decoration of a Russian hut. Old Russian hut

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The hut in the form of a cage wooden frame of various configurations is a traditional Russian dwelling for the countryside. The traditions of the hut date back to dugouts and houses with earthen walls, from which gradually began to rise purely wooden log cabins without external insulation.

The Russian village hut was usually not only a house for people to live, but a whole complex of buildings that included everything necessary for the autonomous life of a large Russian family: these are living quarters, storage rooms, rooms for livestock and poultry, rooms for food supplies (haylofts), workshops, which were integrated into one fenced and well protected from the weather and strangers peasant yard. Sometimes part of the premises was integrated under a single roof with the house or was part of the covered courtyard. Only baths, revered as the habitat of evil spirits (and sources of fires) were built separately from the peasant estate.

For a long time in Russia, huts were built exclusively with the help of an ax. Devices such as saws and drills appeared only in the 19th century, which to some extent reduced the durability of Russian wooden huts, since saws and drills, unlike an ax, left the structure of the tree “open” to the penetration of moisture and microorganisms. The ax "sealed" the tree, crushing its structure. Metal was practically not used in the construction of huts, as it was quite expensive due to its artisanal mining (bog metal) and production.

Since the fifteenth century, the Russian stove has become the central element of the interior of the hut, which could occupy up to one quarter of the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe residential part of the hut. Genetically, the Russian oven goes back to the Byzantine bread oven, which was enclosed in a box and covered with sand to keep warm longer.

The design of the hut, verified over the centuries of Russian life, did not undergo major changes from the Middle Ages until the 20th century. To this day, wooden buildings are preserved, which are 100-200-300 years old. Basic Damage wooden housing construction Russia was caused not by nature, but by the human factor: fires, wars, revolutions, regular property limits and "modern" reconstruction and repair of Russian huts. Therefore, every day there is less and less around the unique wooden buildings that adorn the Russian Land, having their own soul and unique originality.

Part of the hut from the mouth to the opposite wall, the space in which all women's work related to cooking was performed, was called oven corner. Here, near the window, against the mouth of the furnace, in each house there were hand millstones, so the corner is also called millstone.

In the oven corner there was a ship's shop or a counter with shelves inside, which was used as kitchen table. On the walls were observers - shelves for tableware, cabinets. Above, at the level of the benches, there was a stove beam, on which kitchen utensils were placed and various household items were stacked.

The stove corner was considered a dirty place, unlike the rest of the clean space of the hut. Therefore, the peasants have always sought to separate it from the rest of the room with a curtain of colorful chintz, colored homespun cloth or a wooden bulkhead. The stove corner, closed with a wooden partition, formed a small room, which had the name "closet" or "prilub".

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 placed by the stove for women, where they feasted separately from the men who sat at the table in the red corner. Men, even of their own families, could not enter the women's quarters without special need. The appearance of an outsider there was generally considered unacceptable.

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

The main decoration of the red corner is goddess with icons and a lamp, so it is also called "holy". As a rule, everywhere in Russia in the red corner, in addition to the goddess, there is table. All significant events family life marked in red. Here, both everyday meals and festive feasts were held at the table, the action of many calendar rituals took place. During harvesting, the first and last spikelets were placed in the red corner. The preservation of the first and last ears of the harvest, endowed, according to folk legends, with magical powers, promised well-being to the family, home, and entire economy. In the red corner, daily prayers were performed, from which any important business began. It is the most honored 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 smartly decorated. The very name "red" means "beautiful", "good", "light". It was cleaned 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 objects were stored. It was a common custom among Russians when laying a house to put money under the lower crown in all corners, and a larger coin was placed under the red corner.

Some authors associate the religious understanding of the red corner exclusively with Christianity. According to them, the only sacred center of the house in pagan times was the oven. God's corner and oven are even interpreted by them as Christian and pagan centers.

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

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

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

The ceilings on the mat were always laid parallel to the floorboards. From above, sawdust and fallen leaves were thrown on the ceiling. It was impossible only to pour earth on the ceiling - such a house was associated with a coffin. A ceiling appeared in city houses already in the 13th-15th centuries, and in rural houses - at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. But even until the middle of the 19th century, when burning “on the black”, in many places they preferred not to arrange a ceiling.

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

The windows in the peasant huts did not open. The room was ventilated through a chimney or a door. Only occasionally a small part of the frame could rise up or move to the side. Folding frames that opened outward appeared in peasant huts only at the very beginning of the 20th century. But even in the 40-50s of the XX century, many huts were built with non-opening windows. Winter, second frames were also not made. And in the cold, the windows were simply filled up from the outside to the top with straw, or covered with straw mats. But big windows the huts always had shutters. In the old days they were made single-leaf.

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

However, the windows, with their "blindness", gave little light. And therefore, even on the sunniest day, it was necessary to illuminate the hut artificially. The oldest device for lighting is considered stove- a small recess, a niche in the very corner of the stove (10 X 10 X 15 cm). A hole was made in the upper part of the niche, connected to the stove chimney. A burning splinter or pitch (small resinous chips, logs) was placed in the stove. Well-dried splinter and resin gave a bright and even light. By the light of the fireside one could embroider, knit and even read while sitting at the table in the red corner. A kid was put in charge of the stove, who changed the splinter and added resin. And only much later, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, a small brick stove, attached to the main one and connected to its chimney, began to be called a small stove. On such a stove (fireplace) food was cooked in the hot season or it was additionally heated in the cold.

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

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

The relatively small space of the hut, about 20-25 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 on the men's half of the hut, which included a front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. Women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove during the day.

Each family member knew his place at the table. The owner of the house sat under the images during a family meal. His eldest son was located right hand from the father, the second son - on the left, the third - next to the older brother. Children under marriageable age were seated on a bench running from the front corner along the facade. Women ate while sitting on side benches or stools. Violating the once established order in the house was not supposed to be 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 placed in the oven corner and on the shelves. On a holiday, 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.

Huts were made under the windows shops, which did not belong to the furniture, but formed part of the extension of the building and were attached to the walls motionlessly: the board was cut into the wall of the hut at one end, and supports were made on the other: legs, grandmothers, podlavniki. In old huts, benches were decorated with "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 valance". In a traditional Russian dwelling, benches ran along the walls in a circle, starting from the entrance, and served for sitting, sleeping, and storing various household items. Each shop in the hut had its own name, associated either with the landmarks of the internal space, or with the ideas that have developed in traditional culture about the confinement of the activities of a man or woman to a specific 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 entering the house, especially strangers, it was customary to stand at the threshold until the owners invited them to come and sit down. The same applies to matchmakers: they went to the table and sat on the bench only by invitation. In funeral rituals, the deceased was placed on a bench, but not on any, but on one located along the floorboards. A long shop is a shop that differs from others in its length. Depending on the local tradition of distributing objects in the space of the house, a long shop could have a different place in the hut. In the North Russian and Central Russian provinces, in the Volga region, it stretched from the conic to the red corner, along the side wall of the house. In the southern Great Russian provinces, it 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, sewing. On a long bench, always located along the floorboards, they laid the dead. 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 a house facing the street. During a family meal, men sat on it.

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

A necessary element of the decoration of the dwelling was a table serving for a daily and festive meal. The table was one of the most ancient types of mobile furniture, although the earliest tables were adobe and motionless. Such a table with adobe benches near it was found in the Pronsk dwellings of the 11th-13th centuries (Ryazan province) and in the Kiev dugout of the 12th century. Four legs of a table from a dugout are racks dug into the ground. In a traditional Russian dwelling, a movable table has always had permanent place, he stood in the most honorable place - in the red corner, in which the icons were located. In northern Russian houses, the table was always located along the floorboards, that is, with the narrower side 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 counter under the icons. This was done in order to have more space in the hut.
In the forest belt of Russia, carpentry tables had a peculiar shape: a massive underframe, that is, a frame connecting the legs of the table, was climbed with boards, the legs were made short and thick, a large tabletop was always made removable and protruded beyond the underframe in order to make it more comfortable to sit. In the underframe, a cabinet with double doors was made for tableware, bread needed for the day. In traditional culture, in ritual practice, in the field 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 advancement from there can only be associated with a ritual or crisis situation. The exclusive role of the table was expressed in almost all rituals, one of the elements of which was a meal. With particular brightness, it manifested itself 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. In the usual, non-table time, only bread, usually wrapped in a tablecloth, and a salt shaker with salt could be on the table.

In the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, the table has always been a place where people united: the person who was invited to dine at the master's table was perceived as "one of his own".
The table was covered with a tablecloth. IN peasant hut tablecloths were made from homespun fabric, both plain weave and made using the technique of warp and multi-shaft weaving. Tablecloths used daily were sewn from two patchwork panels, usually with a cellular pattern (the most diverse colors) or simply coarse canvas. Such a tablecloth was used to set the table during dinner, and after eating, they either removed it or covered the bread left on the table with it. Festive tablecloths were distinguished by the best quality of the linen, such additional details as a lace seam between two panels, tassels, lace or fringe around the perimeter, as well as a pattern on the fabric. In Russian everyday life, the following types of benches were distinguished: bench, portable and attached. Bench bench - a bench with a reversible back ("swing") was used for sitting and sleeping. If it was necessary to arrange a sleeping place, the backrest along the top, along the circular grooves made in the upper parts of the side stops of the bench, were thrown over 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 "line". The back of the bench was often decorated with through carvings, which significantly reduced its weight. This type of bench was used mainly in urban and monastic life.

Portable bench- a bench with four legs or two blank boards, as needed, 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 Russian furniture.
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 of whole piece wood in such a way that two tree roots, chopped off at a certain length, served as legs. The dishes were placed in sets: these were pillars with numerous shelves between them. On the lower shelves, wider, massive dishes were stored, on the upper shelves, narrower, small dishes were placed.

A dishware was used to store separately used dishes: a wooden shelf or an open shelf cabinet. The vessel could have the form of a closed frame or be open at the top, often its side walls were decorated with carvings or had figured shapes (for example, oval). Above one or two shelves of the dishware, a rail could be nailed on the outside for stability of the dishes and for placing plates on edge. As a rule, the crockery was above the ship's shop, at the hand of the hostess. It has long been a necessary detail in the fixed decoration of the hut.
The red corner was also decorated with a nakutnik, a rectangular panel of fabric sewn from two pieces of white thin canvas or chintz. The size of the buff can be different, usually 70 cm long, 150 cm wide. White collars were decorated along the lower edge with embroidery, woven patterns, ribbons, and lace. The nakutnik was attached to the corner under the icons. At the same time, the gods or icons were girded on top by a god. 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 decorated, as a rule, at the ends. The towel cloth was rarely ornamented. The nature and quantity of decorations, their location, color, material - all this was determined by local tradition, as well as the purpose of the towel. In addition, towels were hung out during weddings, at a christening dinner, on the day of a meal on the occasion of the return of a son from military service or the arrival of long-awaited relatives. Towels were hung on the walls that made up the red corner of the hut, and in the reddest corner. They were put on wooden nails - "hooks", "matches" driven into the walls. Traditionally, towels were a necessary part of a girl's dowry. It was customary to show them to the husband's relatives on the second day of the wedding feast. The young woman hung towels in the hut on top of her mother-in-law's towels so that everyone could admire her work. The number of towels, the quality of the linen, the skill of embroidery - all this made it possible to appreciate the diligence, accuracy, and taste of a young woman. The towel generally played a big role in the ritual life of the Russian village. It was an important attribute of wedding, native, funeral and memorial rituals. Very often it acted as an object of reverence, 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 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: they tied the hands of the bride and groom "for all eternity, for years to come." A towel was presented to a midwife who took birth, godfather and godfather, who baptized the baby. The towel was present in the ritual "babina porridge", which took place after the birth of a child.
However, the towel played a special role in the funeral and memorial rituals. According to legend, in a towel hung on the window on the day of death of a person, his soul was for forty days. The slightest movement of the fabric was seen as a sign of her presence in the house. In the fortieth, the towel was shaken outside the outskirts of the village, thereby sending the soul from "our world" to the "other world." All these actions with a towel were widespread in the Russian village. They were based on the ancient mythological ideas of the Slavs. The towel acted in them as a talisman, a sign of belonging to a certain family and tribal group, it was interpreted as an object that embodied the souls of the ancestors of the "parents" who carefully observed the life of the living. Such symbolism of the towel excluded its use for wiping hands, face, floor. For this purpose, they used a hand-rubber, utirka, utiralnik, etc.

Utensil

Utensils are dishes for preparing, preparing and storing food, serving it to the table; various containers for storing household items, clothes; items for personal hygiene and home hygiene; objects for kindling a fire, for cosmetic accessories. In the Russian village, mainly wooden pottery utensils were used. Metal, glass, porcelain was less common. According to the manufacturing technique, wooden utensils could be hollowed out, bolted, cooperage, carpentry, turning. In great use were also utensils made of birch bark, woven from twigs, straw, pine roots. Some of the wooden items needed in the household were made by the male half of the family. Most of the items were purchased at fairs, auctions, especially cooperage and turning utensils, the manufacture of which required special knowledge and tools. Pottery was used mainly for cooking in an oven and serving it on the table, sometimes for pickling, pickling vegetables. Metal utensils of the traditional type were mainly copper, pewter or silver. Her presence in the house was a clear evidence of the prosperity of the family, its frugality, respect for family traditions. Such utensils were sold only at the most critical moments in the life of the family. The utensils that filled the house were made, purchased, and kept by Russian peasants, naturally, based on its purely practical use. However, in some, from the point of view of the peasant important points life, almost every one 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 industriousness of the bride. A spoon turned with the notch of the scoop up meant that it would be used at a funeral meal. An extra spoon that ended up on the table foreshadowed the arrival of guests, etc. Some items of utensils had a very high semiotic status, others had a lower one. Bodnya, an item of household utensils, was a wooden container for storing clothes and small household items. In the Russian countryside, two types of day-to-day days were known. The first type was a long hollowed-out wooden block, the side walls of which were made of solid boards. A hole with a lid on leather hinges was located at the top of the deck. Bodnya of the second type is a dugout or cooperage tub with a lid, 60-100 cm high, with a bottom diameter of 54-80 cm. Bodnyas were usually locked and stored in crates. From the second half of the XIX century. began to be replaced by chests.

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

For the storage of pickles, fermentations, urinations, kvass, water, for storage of flour, cereals, tubs were used. As a rule, the tubs were cooperage work, i.e. were made from 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 staves. A necessary accessory of the tub was a circle and a lid. The products placed in the tub were pressed in a circle, oppression was laid on top. This was done so that pickles and urinations were always in brine and did not float to the surface. The lid kept the food free from dust. The mug and lid had small handles. A bast basket was an open cylindrical container made of bast, the bottom was flat, made of wooden boards or bark. Made with or without a spoon. The dimensions of the basket were determined by the purpose and were called accordingly: "set", "bridge", "buttock", "mushroom", etc. If the basket was intended for storing bulk products, it was closed with a flat lid that was put on top. bottom. The pots could be different sizes: from a small pot for 200-300 g of porridge to a huge pot that could hold up to 2-3 buckets of water. The shape of the pot did not change throughout its existence and was well 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 valued the pots, tried to handle them carefully. If it gave a crack, it was braided with birch bark and used to store food.

Pot- a household item, utilitarian, acquired additional ritual functions in the ritual life of the Russian people. Scientists believe that this is one of the most ritualized items of household utensils. In the beliefs of the people, the pot was interpreted as a living anthropomorphic creature that has a throat, a handle, a spout, and a shard. Pots are usually divided into pots that carry feminine, and pots with a male 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 pot. 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 mind a parallel is clearly drawn between the fate of the pot and the fate of man. The pot has found quite a wide application in funeral rituals. So, in most of the territory of European Russia, the custom was widespread to break pots when taking the dead out of the house. This custom was perceived as a statement of the departure of a person from life, home, village. In the Olonets province. this idea was expressed somewhat differently. 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 two hours after death with water taken from a new pot. After consumption, it was taken away from the house 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 while washing the deceased. If such a pot is left in the house, then the deceased will return from the other world and frighten the people living in the hut. The pot was also used as an attribute of some ritual actions at weddings. So, according to custom, "wedding men" led by a friend and matchmakers in the morning came to beat the pots to the room where the wedding night of the young people was held, while they had not yet left. Breaking 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 Russian people, the pot often acts as a talisman. In Vyatka province, for example, to protect chickens from hawks and crows, an old pot was hung upside down on the fence. This was done without fail on Maundy Thursday before sunrise, when witchcraft spells were especially strong. The pot in this case, as it were, absorbed them into itself, received additional magical power.

To serve dishes 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 everyday life, wooden dishes were mainly used. Dishes intended 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 life and in festive use. On weekdays, fish, meat, porridge, cabbage, cucumbers and other "thick" foods were served on a dish, eaten after stew or cabbage soup. IN holidays in addition to meat and fish, pancakes, pies, buns, cheesecakes, gingerbread, nuts, sweets and other sweets were served on a dish. In addition, there was a custom to offer guests a cup of wine, mead, brew, vodka or beer on a dish. The horse of a festive meal was indicated by the removal of an empty dish covered with another or with a cloth. Dishes were used during folk rituals, fortune-telling, and magical procedures. In maternity rituals, a dish of 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 her grandmother", i.e. 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 for offering gifts. The dish was also used in some rituals of the annual cycle. The dish was also an attribute Christmas divination girls who were called "observant". In the Russian village there was a ban on its use on some days of the folk calendar. A bowl was used for drinking and eating. A wooden bowl is a hemispherical vessel on a small 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 paintings, including floral and zoomorphic ornaments (bowls with Severodvinsk painting are widely known). Bowls of various sizes were made - depending on their use. Large-sized bowls, weighing up to 800 g or more, were used along with staples, brothers and ladles during holidays and eve for drinking beer and mash, when many guests gathered. In monasteries, large bowls were used to serve kvass. Small bowls, hollowed out of clay, were used in peasant life during dinner - for serving on the table, stews, fish soup, etc. During dinner, dishes were served on the table in a common bowl, separate dishes were used only during the holidays. They started to eat at the sign of the owner, they did not talk while eating. The guests who entered the house were treated to the same things that they themselves ate, and from the same dishes.

The bowl was used in various ceremonies, especially in ceremonies life cycle. It was also used in calendar rituals. Signs and beliefs were associated with the cup: at the end of the festive dinner, it was customary to drink the cup to the bottom for the health of the owner and hostess, whoever did not do this was considered an enemy. Draining the cup, they wished the owner: "Good luck, victory, health, and so that no more blood remains in his enemies than in this cup." 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 mugs were decorated with painting, and wooden mugs were carved, 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 cup was used to drink intoxicating drinks. It is a small round vessel with a leg and a flat bottom, sometimes there could be a handle and a lid. Cups were usually painted or decorated with carvings. This vessel was used as an individual dish for drinking mash, beer, intoxicated 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 other people, and not for oneself. Bringing a glass of wine to a guest, the host waited for a return glass from him. The glass was most often used in a wedding ceremony. A glass of wine was offered to the newlyweds by the priest after the wedding. They took turns drinking three sips from this cup. Having finished the wine, the husband threw the glass under his feet and trampled it at the same time as his wife, saying: “Let those who begin to sow discord and dislike among us be trampled under our feet.” It was believed that which of the spouses was the first to step on her, he would dominate the family. At the wedding feast, the host brought the first glass of vodka 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 cup and only after that he began to protect the newlyweds from evil forces.

Spoons served as the only device for eating until forks appeared. Mostly they were wooden. Spoons were decorated with painting or carving. Various signs associated with spoons were observed. It was impossible to put a spoon so that it rested with a handle on the table, and with the other end on a plate, since unclean forces could penetrate into the bowl along the spoon, like over a bridge. It was not allowed to knock spoons on the table, because from this "the evil one rejoices" and "the sinister creatures come to dinner" (creatures personifying poverty and misfortune). it was considered a sin to remove spoons from the table in a prayer, on the eve of the fasts laid down by the church, so the spoons remained on the table until the morning. You can not put an extra spoon, otherwise there will be an extra mouth or evil spirits will sit 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 actions.

The traditional utensils for the Russian feast were valleys, ladles, brothers, brackets. Valleys were not considered valuable items that must be exhibited at the most the best place in the house, as, for example, was done with brother or ladles.

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

Poker- This is a short thick iron rod with a bent end, which served to stir the coals in the furnace and shovel the heat. With the help of a fork, 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 bread in the oven, under the oven they cleaned it 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, bread and pies were planted in the oven, and they were also taken out of there. All these utensils participated in certain ritual actions. Thus, the Russian hut, with its special, well-organized space, motionless attire, movable furniture, decoration and utensils, was a single whole that made up the whole world.

Housing with an elbow, and living with a fingernail

The interior of a peasant dwelling, which can be found in our time, has evolved over the centuries. Due to the limited space, the layout of the house was very rational. So, we open the door, bending down, we enter ...

The door leading to the hut was made low with a raised threshold, which contributed to greater preservation of heat in the house. In addition, the guest, entering the hut, willy-nilly had to bow to the hosts and the icons in the red corner - an obligatory attribute of a peasant hut.

Fundamental in planning the hut was the location of the furnace. The stove was playing in the house leading role, and the very name “hut” comes from the Old Russian “istba, source”, that is, to drown, to drown.

The Russian stove fed, warmed, healed, slept on it, and in some even washed. A respectful attitude towards the stove was expressed in proverbs and sayings: “Our mother bakes for us”, “It’s all red summer on the stove”, “It’s like warming up on the stove”, “Both in years and in years - one place is the stove”. In Russian riddles, one asks: “What can’t you pull out of the hut?”, “What is not visible in the hut?” - heat.

In the central regions of Russia, the stove usually stood in the right corner from the entrance. Such a hut was called "spinning". If the stove was located to the left of the entrance, then the hut was called "unspun". The fact is that opposite the stove at the long side of the house there was always the so-called "long" bench, where women spun. And depending on the location of this shop in relation to the window and its illumination, convenience for spinning, the huts were called "spinners" and "non-spinners": "Do not spin with your hand: the right hand is against the wall and not around the world."

Often, in order to preserve the shape of an adobe hut, vertical “stove pillars” were placed in its corners. One of them, which went out to the center of the hut, was always placed. Wide beams carved from oak or pine were thrown from it to the side front wall. For their permanent black color from soot, they were called Ravens. They were located at the height of human growth. “Yaga is standing, horns in his forehead” - they made a riddle about the crows. The one of the vorontsov, which is silk on the long side wall, was called the "ward beam". The second raven, which went from the stove pillar to the front facade wall, was called "closet, cake beam." It was used by the hostess as a shelf for dishes. Thus, both crows marked the boundaries of the functional zones of the hut, or corners: on one side of the entrance to the oven and cooking (baby) kuta (corners), on the other - the master's (ward) kut, and a red, or large, upper corner with icons and table. An old saying, “The hut is not red with corners, it is red with pies,” confirms the division of the hut into “corners” of different meanings.

The back corner (at the front door) has always been masculine. There was a horse here - short wide bench, cut along the back wall of the hut. Konik had the shape of a box with a hinged flat lid. From the door (so as not to blow at night), the conic was separated by a vertical board-back, which was often shaped like a horse's head. It was a man's workplace. Here they wove bast shoes, baskets, repaired horse harness, carved, etc. Under the bunk, tools were stored in a box. It was indecent for a woman to sit on a horse.

This corner was also called a flat kut, because. here, right above the door, under the ceiling, near the stove, special floorings were arranged - floors. With one edge the boards are cut into the wall, and with the other they rest on the board beam. They slept on the floors, climbing there from the stove. Flax, hemp, splinter were dried here, bedding was removed there for the day. Polati was the favorite place of the kids, because. from their height it was possible to observe everything that happens in the hut, especially during the holidays: weddings, gatherings, festivities.

Anyone could enter the foothills good person without asking. Without a knock on the door, but at his will there is no way for the guest to go for the boarded timber. Waiting for the invitation of the hosts to enter the next kut - red at low floors was extremely inconvenient.

Babi or oven corner - the realm of the female hostess "big". Here, at the very window (near the light), against the mouth of the furnace, hand millstones (two large flat stones) were always placed, so the corner was also called “millstone”. Along the wall from the oven to the front windows there was a wide ship bench, sometimes a small table was placed on which hot bread was laid out. Observers hung on the wall - shelves for dishes. On the shelves stood a variety of utensils: wooden dishes, cups and spoons, clay bowls and pots, iron pans. On the benches and the floor there are milk utensils (lids, jugs), cast iron, buckets, tubs. Sometimes there were copper and pewter utensils.

In the oven (kutny) corner, women prepared food and rested. Here, during big holidays, when many guests gathered, a separate table was laid for women. Men even of their own families could not go into the oven corner without special need. The appearance of an outsider there was regarded as a gross violation of established rules (traditions).

The millstone corner was considered a dirty place, unlike the rest of the clean space of the hut. Therefore, the peasants always sought to separate it from the rest of the room with a curtain of colorful chintz, colored homespun or wooden bulkheads.

The bride-to-be during the entire matchmaking had to listen to the conversation from the woman's corner. From there she went out during the show. There she was waiting for the arrival of the groom on the day of the wedding. And the exit from there to the red corner was perceived as leaving the house, farewell to him.

A daughter in a cradle - a dowry in a box.

In the woman's corner hangs on a long pole (ochepe) and a cradle. The pole, in turn, is threaded into a ring embedded in the ceiling mat. In different areas, the cradle is made in different ways. It can be entirely woven from rods, sometimes with a sidewall made of bast, with a cloth or wicker bottom. And they also call it differently: a cradle, a cradle, a carriage, a flask. A rope loop or a wooden pedal was tied to the cradle, which allowed the mother to rock the child without interrupting her work. The hanging position of the cradle is typical for the Eastern Slavs - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians. And this is connected not only with convenience, but above all with folk beliefs(the cradle standing on the floor appears much later). According to the ideas of the peasants, the separation of the child from the floor, “bottom”, contributed to the preservation of vitality in him, because the floor was perceived as the boundary between the world of people and the underground, where “evil spirits” live - brownies, dead relatives, ghosts. In order to protect the child from evil spirits, piercing objects were placed under the cradle: a knife, scissors, a broom, etc.

The front, central part of the hut was a red corner. The red corner, like the stove, was an important landmark of the interior space of the hut.
No matter how the stove was located in the hut, the red corner was always diagonally from it. The red corner was always well lit, as windows were cut through in both walls that made up this corner. He was always turned "to the sun", i.e. south or east. In the very corner, immediately under the bench, a goddess with icons and a lamp was placed, which is why the corner was also called “holy”. Holy water, consecrated willow and an Easter egg were kept on the goddess. There was certainly a feather for sweeping icons. It was believed that the icon must necessarily stand, and not hang. Here, behind the icons, the bills were folded, IOUs, paybooks, etc.

A curtain or "god" was hung on top of the goddess. This was the name of a specially woven and embroidered narrow, long towel (20-25 cm * 3-4m). It was decorated along one side and at the ends with embroidery, woven ornaments, ribbons, and lace. The gods were hung in such a way as to cover the icons from above and from the sides, leaving the faces open.

The refectory, consecrated with shrines - that's what the red corner is. As the living quarters of an Orthodox Christian is considered a symbol of an Orthodox church, so the Red Corner is considered as an analogue of the altar, the most important and honorable place in the house.

Along the walls (front and side) of the red corner there were benches. In general, shops were arranged along all the walls of the hut. They did not belong to the furniture, but were an integral part of the log house and were fixed to the walls. On one side they were cut into the wall, and on the other side they were supported by benches cut from boards. To the edge of the bench was sewn a lace, decorated with carvings. Such a shop was called pubescent, or “with a canopy”, “with a valance”. They sat on them, slept, stored things. Each shop had its own purpose and name. To the left of the door was a back bench, or threshold. They called her a horse. Behind it, along the left long side of the hut, from the conic to the red corner, there was a long bench, differing from the others in its length. Like the oven kut, this shop was traditionally considered a women's place. Here they sewed, knitted, spun, embroidered, and did needlework. Therefore, this shop was also called a woman's shop.
Along the front (front) wall, from the red corner to the stove, there was a short bench (it is also red, the front). Men sat on it during a family meal. From the front wall to the stove there was a bench. In winter, chickens were kept under this barred bench. And, finally, behind the stove, to the door, there was a kutno shop. Buckets of water were placed on it.

A table was always placed in the red corner near converging benches (long and short). The table has always been rectangular in shape with a powerful underframe. The tabletop was revered by the "God's hand" that gives bread. Therefore, knocking on the table was considered a sin. The people said: "Bread on the table, so the table is the throne, but not a piece of bread - so the table is a board."

The table was covered with a tablecloth. In a peasant hut, tablecloths were made from homespun cloth, both of simple linen weave, and made using the technique of warp and multi-shaft weaving. Tablecloths used daily were sewn from two patchwork panels, usually with a checkered pattern (the most diverse colors) or simply coarse canvas. Such a tablecloth was used to set the table during dinner, and after eating, they either removed it or covered the bread left on the table with it. Festive tablecloths were distinguished by the best quality of the linen, such additional details as a lace seam between two panels, tassels, lace or fringe around the perimeter, as well as a pattern on the fabric.

All significant family events took place in the red corner. Here the bride was redeemed, from here she was taken to the church for the wedding, in the groom's house she was immediately taken to the red corner too. During the harvest, the first and last sheaf was solemnly placed in the red corner. During the construction of the hut, if coins for happiness were placed under the corners of the first crown, then the largest one was placed under the red corner. This corner of the hut has always been especially decorated and kept clean. The very name "red" means "beautiful", "light". It is the most honored 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.

Those entering the hut, first of all, turned to the red corner and made the sign of the cross. A Russian proverb says: “The first bow is to God, the second is to the owner and the hostess, the third is to all good people.”

The place at the table in the red corner under the icons was the most honorable one: the host, or the guest of honor, sat here. "Red guest - a red place." Each member of the family knew their place at the table. The eldest son of the owner sat on the right hand of the father, the second son - on the left, the third - next to the elder brother, etc. "Every cricket know your hearth." The place of the hostess at the table at the end of the table from the side of the woman's kut and the stove - 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 kneading pot, puts the dough into the oven, takes it out turned into bread.

In addition to benches, there were mobile side benches in the hut. A place on a bench was considered more prestigious than on a bench; the guest could judge the attitude of the hosts towards him depending on that. Where they seated him - on a bench or on a bench.
The benches were usually covered with a special cloth - a bench. And in general, the whole hut is decorated with home weaving items: colorful curtains cover the beds and a stove bench, there are curtains made of homespun muslin on the windows, and multi-colored rugs on the floor. Window sills are decorated with geranium, dear to the peasant heart.

Between the wall and the back or side of the oven there was a bakery. When located behind the stove, horse harness was stored there, if on the side, then usually kitchen utensils.

On the other side of the oven, next to front door, a golbets was attached - a special wooden extension to the furnace, the stairs of which went down to the cellar (underground), where supplies were stored. Golbets also served as a place of rest, especially for the old and the young. In some places, the high golbets was replaced by a box - a "trap", 30 centimeters high from the floor, with a sliding lid, on which one could also sleep. Over time, the descent into the basement moved in front of the mouth of the furnace, and it was possible to get into it through a hole in the floor. The stove corner was considered the dwelling place of the brownie - the keeper of the hearth.

From the middle of the XIX century. In a peasant dwelling, especially among wealthy peasants, a front living room appears - an upper room. The upper room could have been a summer room; in case of all-weather use, it was heated by a Dutch stove. The upper rooms, as a rule, had a more colorful interior than the hut. In the interior of the upper rooms, chairs, beds, slides of chests were used.

The interior of a peasant house, which has been taking shape over the centuries, is the best example of a combination of convenience and beauty. There is nothing superfluous and every thing in its place, everything is at hand. The main criterion for a peasant house was convenience, so that a person could live, work and relax in it. However, in the arrangement of the hut, one cannot fail to see the need for beauty inherent in the Russian people.
The interior of the Russian hut is dominated by the horizontal rhythm of furniture (benches, shelves, shelves). It unites the interior with a single material, carpentry techniques. The natural color of the wood was preserved. The leading color scheme was golden-ocher (walls of the hut, furniture, dishes, utensils) with the introduction of white and red colors (the towels on the icons were white, the red color sparkled in small spots in clothes, towels, in plants on the windows, in the painting of household utensils) .

let `s talk about old Russian hut, or let's take even a little wider - a 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 (the church, Peter's reforms), Russian folk culture continued its development, the crown of which must be recognized as the formation of a peasant estate, in particular a house-yard with a residential old Russian hut.

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

Russian hut from the inside

A stranger masters the dwelling first from the outside, then goes inside. Your own is born inside. Then, gradually expanding his world, he brings it to the size of ours. Appearance for him - then, inside - first.

Unfortunately, you and I are strangers there.

So outside old Russian hut high, large, its windows are small, but located high, the walls represent a mighty log array, not dissected by a plinth and cornices horizontally, by shoulder blades and columns - vertically. The gable roof grows out of the wall, it is immediately clear that there are no usual rafters behind the “pediment”. A powerful log with a characteristic sculptural extension serves as a ridge. Details are few, large, there is no lining, lining. In some places, individual ends of logs of a not entirely clear purpose can protrude from the walls. friendly old Russian hut can not be called, rather, silent, secretive.

A porch is attached to the side of the hut, sometimes high, pillared, sometimes low, indistinct. However, it is precisely this - that is the first Shelter, under which the one who comes enters. And since this is the first shelter, it means that the second shelter (canopy) and the third shelter (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 a sacred tree and evolves up to the royal vestibule in the Assumption Cathedral. The porch at the house is the beginning of a new world, the zero of all its paths.

From the porch into the passage leads a low wide door in a powerful slanting frame. Its inner contours are slightly rounded, which serves as the main obstacle for unwanted spirits and people who are impure in 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 a bridge in the North, develops the idea of ​​a porch. Often there is no ceiling in them, as there was not before in the hut - only the roof separates them from the sky, only it overshadows them.

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

The porch is open on three sides, the entrance hall is closed on four, there is little light in them from the portage (veiled with boards) windows.

The transition from the vestibule to the hut is no less responsible than from the porch to the porch. You can feel the atmosphere rising...

The inner world of the Russian hut

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

Polatny kut - a vestibule inside a Russian hut. Any kind person can enter there without asking, without knocking on the door. The boards rest with one edge on the wall directly above the door, with the other - on the board beam. The guest, at his will, does not have to go for this flat bar. 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, that's what the red corner is.

So the guest masters the whole half of the hut; however, he will never go into the second, far half (behind the cake beam), his hostess will not invite him there, because the second half is the main sacred part of the Russian hut - the woman's and oven kuta. These two kutas are similar to the altar of the temple, and in fact this is the altar with the oven-throne and ritual objects: a bread shovel, broomstick, tongs, sourdough. There, the fruits of the earth, heaven and peasant labor are transformed into spiritual and material food. Because food has never been a quantity of calories and a set of textures and tastes for a person of Tradition.

The male part of the family is not allowed in the woman's kut, here the hostess, the big woman, is in charge of everything, gradually teaching the future hostesses the sacred rites ...

The peasants work most of the time in the field, in the meadow, in the forest, on the water, in lairs. In the house, the owner’s place is right at the entrance on the horse 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, further from the center of the Russian hut.

The place of the hostess 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 kneading pot and puts the dough into the oven, she takes it out turned into bread. It is she who, along the semantic vertical of the stove column, descends through the golbets (a special wooden extension to the stove) into the underground, which is also called golbets. There, in golbets, in the basement ancestral sanctuary, the habitat of guardian spirits, supplies are kept. It's not so hot in summer, not so cold in winter. Golbets is akin to a cave - the womb of the Earth-Mother, from which decaying remains come out and into which return.

The hostess runs, dances everything in the house, she is in constant communication with the inner (hut) Earth (half-bridge of the hut, underground hollow), with the inner sky (matrix beam, ceiling), with the World Tree (furnace 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 a peasant in a Russian hut, sends him outside the home temple, to the periphery of the space illuminated by the temple, to male spheres and affairs. If the hostess (the axis of the family) is smart and strong, the family wheel spins with desired constancy.

The device of the Russian hut

Situation old Russian hut full of clear, uncomplicated and strict meaning. There are wide and low benches along the walls, five or six windows are located low above the floor and rhythmically illuminate, rather than flood with light. Directly above the windows is a solid black shelf. Above - five or seven unhewn, smoked crowns of a log house - smoke goes here during the burning of a black stove. To remove it, there is a chimney above the door leading to the entrance hall, and in the entrance hall there is a wooden exhaust pipe that carries the already cooled smoke outside the house. Hot smoke economically heats and antiseptics the living space. 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-logs), 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 huts by two vorontsi bars (clothed and cake), laid perpendicular to the upper cut of the stove column. The cake beam 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 crows, it should rise higher, under the very mother; 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 beam and the mat, the researchers came across (for some reason no one had ever met before) a carved element of a fairly clear, and even symbolic meaning.

The tripartite 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 of bagodati; the lower one is the vault of heaven that covers the Earth - our visible world; the middle link is a knot, a valve, 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 Beregina, Baba, the Goddess with her hands raised. In the middle link, the usual horse heads are read - a symbol of the solar movement in a circle.

The carved element stands on the cake beam and supports the mat.

Thus, in top level hut space, in the center old Russian hut, in the most significant, impactful place, which no glance can pass by, the missing link is personally embodied - the connection of the World Tree (furnace pillar) and the celestial sphere (matrix), and the connection is in the form of a complex deeply symbolic sculptural and carved element. It should be noted that it is located at once on two internal borders of the hut - between the habitable 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 oven kuts.

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

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.

chicken hut

It should be noted that researchers recognize the smoke (black, ore) Russian hut as the highest example of material folk culture, in which smoke, when the stove 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 furnace. The smoke came out of the mouth of the furnace directly into the room, spread along the ceiling, and then descended to the level of the voron shelves and was drawn out through a portage window cut in the wall, connected to a wooden chimney.

There are several reasons for the long existence of ore huts, and above all, climatic conditions - 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 conservation of wood took place, so the age of black huts is longer. The smoke oven warmed the room well and did not require a lot of firewood. It was also convenient for housekeeping. The smoke dried clothes, shoes and fishing nets.

The transition to white stoves brought with it an irreparable loss in the arrangement of the whole complex of significant elements of the Russian hut: the ceiling went down, windows rose, voronets, stove pillar, golbets began to disappear. A single zoned volume of the hut began to be divided into functional volumes-rooms. All internal proportions were distorted beyond recognition, 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 smoky huts is possible only as a result of a worldwide or national catastrophe. However, to return the entire figurative-symbolic structure of the hut, to saturate the Russian Vacation home- it is possible in the conditions of technological progress and the ever-increasing well-being of the "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 masterpieces of their culture.

According to the materials of the magazine "Rodobozhie No. 7