The interior decoration of the Russian hut is an integral part of the history and culture of Russia. It was she, the old hut, that became the main part of folklore and even the heroine of many fairy tales and legends. Recall at least the hut on chicken legs - the fabulous home of Baba Yaga, a terrible sorceress who scares young children. She is often circled around the finger by the main fairy-tale characters.

So, Ivan Tsarevich turns to her for help in order to save his beloved from the terrible fate, and not without cunning receives the gifts of the old sorceress. Grandmother-Yozhka is a negative character who helps Koshchei the Immortal, the Serpent Gorynych and the Cat Bayun in the creation of atrocities. But at the same time, this "heroine" is quite cheerful, funny and satirical.

About origins

The word "hut" in Russia had many interpretations depending on the place of residence of people, and therefore was called differently. There are such synonyms as: yzba, istba, izba, fire and source. These words are often used in Russian chronicles, which, again, speaks of the inseparability and connection of housing with human life. Such a phrase has a direct connection with such Russian verbs as "drown" or "stoke". This building had, first of all, a functional load, since it was designed to warm in cold weather and shelter from natural conditions.

What was the hut in general

It is difficult to imagine the interior of a Russian hut without a stove, since it was she who was the center of the room and her favorite part. It is known that many East Slavic peoples, Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, retained the term "stoker". Well, as mentioned earlier, it denoted a heated building. These were pantries for storing stocks of vegetables, and living quarters of various sizes.

To know how to draw the decoration of a Russian hut, you need to understand what it meant to a person. A significant event was the construction of a house for a peasant. It was not enough to solve a practical problem and secure a roof over your head. First of all, the house was a full-fledged living space for the whole family. The decoration of the hut had to be, as far as possible, filled with all the necessary blessings of life, provide the residents with warmth, give them love and a sense of peace. Such housing can be built only according to the ancient precepts of the ancestors, and the peasants have always observed the traditions very carefully.

About traditions

During the construction of the house, particular importance was given to the choice of location, so that the building would subsequently be light, dry and high. Ritual value was no less important.

A happy place is one that has passed the strict test of time and was inhabited earlier: it became prosperous for the former owners who lived here. Territories near burial places, baths that were built there earlier, as well as near the road were considered unsuccessful. It was believed that the devil himself walks along this path and can look into the dwelling.

About building material

The materials for the construction of the hut were chosen very carefully. The Russians used pine or larch logs for the construction. These trees have long and even trunks, lie evenly and tightly adjoin each other. They keep the internal heat well and do not rot for a long time. The choice of logs in the forest was a rather difficult task; for centuries, a set of rules, an algorithm for selecting a log, were passed from fathers to children. Otherwise, if you choose the wrong, unusable material, the house will bring trouble and misfortune.

Even the interior decoration of the peasant's hut could not be cut down sacred trees. They could bring serious illnesses into the house. There was a belief that said that such special breeds should only live in the forest and die a natural death. If the ban is violated, they will bring death and grief to the house.

Dry wood was also unsuitable for construction. The place where the trees grew was also important. The tree that grew at the crossroads of forest roads is "violent" and can bring great misfortune to the house - destroy the log house and thereby kill the owners of the house.

Rites

The process of building a house was not complete without rituals among the Slavs. At the beginning of construction, a sacrifice was made. In this case, a chicken or a ram was considered a victim. Such a process was carried out when laying the first crown of the hut. Money, wool and grain were placed under the logs as symbols of wealth, prosperity, love, family warmth. Also, incense was placed there as a sign of the holiness of the house, as well as a kind of amulet against evil spirits. At the end of the work (construction), all participants in the process sat down at the table and treated themselves to delicious dishes.

The sacrifices were carried out for a reason. The sacrifice was to create a fortress for the house and protect it from adversity. Sometimes a person was brought as a gift to the gods, but this is in rare cases in order to protect the entire tribe from enemies. Most often, cattle were betrayed to suffering: a bull or a horse. During archaeological excavations on old houses, it was their skeletons, as well as horse skulls, that were found.

For the ceremony, a special hole was made, the remains had to be placed there. She was under the red corner, where the icons and other amulets were located. There were other favorite animals for building sacrifice. Such a favorite for the Slavs was a rooster or chicken. This is evidenced by the tradition of placing weathercocks in the form of cockerels, as well as the image or statuette of this animal on the roof of the house.

One can cite as an example the immortal classic work of N.V. Gogol "Viy". All evil spirits disappeared after the cock crow. Therefore, the "screamer" is called upon to protect the dwelling from evil spirits. Photos, the decoration of the Russian hut, which is shown in all its glory, are presented in this article.

Roof device diagram

The roof was also made according to a special scheme:

• gutter;
• chill;
• stamic;
• slightly;
• flint;
• princely sleg (knes);
• general slug;
• male;
• fall;
• prichelina;
• chicken;
• pass;
• oppression.

General view of the hut

The decoration of the Russian hut outside, such as our great-grandfathers imagined and built, was special. According to the old traditions, the huts were built for thousands of years. The Russian decoration of the hut depended on where the person lived and to which tribe he belonged, since each tribe had its own traditions and laws by which they could be distinguished.

And even now it is impossible not to distinguish the huts on the European territory of Russia. After all, log houses predominated in the north, since there were plenty of forests there. In the south, there were huge reserves of clay, so mud huts were built from it. The interior decoration of the Russian hut was also designed in the same way. Photos are a good example of this.

According to ethnographers, not a single folk thought was created immediately in its original form, such as we can observe now. History, culture, and with them the thought of people, is changing and developing, bringing harmony, beauty and the great power of love to everything that has been created. This also applies to the dwelling, which was formed and became more and more functional and comfortable. These statements are proved by the mass of archaeological excavations carried out.

The Russian decoration of the hut largely depended on the climatic conditions in which people lived, and on the available building material. So, in the north there was moist soil and dense forests full of logs suitable for the construction of dwellings, while in the south other products predominated and were actively used. Based on this, a semi-dugout was common in the southern regions. This doom was with a recess of one and a half meters into the ground, respectively, had a bulk floor. This type of dwelling in Russia existed until the 14th-15th centuries.

After this time period, they began to build ground buildings with a wooden floor, as they learned how to process logs and make boards from them. They also made houses raised above the ground. They were more multifunctional, as they had 2 floors and provided opportunities for a comfortable life, storage of vegetables, hay and housing for livestock in one house.

In the north, with an abundance of dense forests and a fairly damp cold climate, semi-dugouts quickly turned into ground houses, faster than in the south. The Slavs and their ancestors occupied a fairly large territory and differed from each other in centuries-old traditions, including in the construction of housing. But each tribe in the best way adapted to the surrounding conditions, so it cannot be said that some huts were worse. Everything had its place. Now you can understand how to draw the decoration of a Russian hut.

More about construction

Below is a photo. The decoration of the Russian hut on it is demonstrated the most typical for Ladoga, corresponding to the time period of the 9th-11th centuries. The base of the house was square, that is, the width was equal to the length, which reached 5 meters.

The construction of a log hut required a careful and thorough approach, since the crowns had to match, and the logs had to fit snugly against each other, otherwise all the work was in vain.

The bars had to fit as tightly as possible in order to protect the inhabitants from cold winds and drafts. Therefore, recesses were made in the log house through one log. Another beam was placed in this hole with a convex edge. The grooves between them were insulated with swamp moss, which carried not only thermal insulation value, but also antibacterial. From above this building was smeared with clay.

About the nuances of construction

The interior decoration of the Russian hut sometimes assumed that it was poured with water and rammed, which made it hard and smooth. During cleaning, a layer of dirt was simply swept away with a broom. But most often, the interior decoration of a peasant hut assumed a wooden floor and raised above the ground to a height of one and a half meters. This was done in order to build an underground. A hatch led from it to a living room with a stove. All vegetable stocks were kept underground.

The Russian decoration of the hut of wealthy people assumed another superstructure on top. From the outside, this house looked like a three-story house.

About outbuildings

The interior of the Russian hut also had several nuances. Russian people often attached a hallway with large wide windows to their dwelling. It was called Seni. So, at the entrance to the house, it was necessary to first go into the hallway, and then enter the upper room. This hallway was 2 meters wide. Sometimes the vestibule was connected to a cattle shed, therefore, accordingly, they were made larger.

In addition, this extension had a lot of other purposes. Goods were kept there and something needed was made in bad weather, since the peasant never sat idle. In the summer, you can also put guests to bed after a noisy holiday. Scientists-archaeologists gave the name “two-chamber” to such a dwelling, since it consisted of 2 rooms.

The interior decoration of a peasant hut could not do without a cage. Since the beginning of the 10th century, this room has served as an additional bedroom, which was used only in summer because it was not heated. Food could be stored there all year round. And in winter - even perishable dishes, because it is always cold there.

How the carpet was built

The roof in the hut was made according to several techniques: it could be wooden, shingled, hewn or from shingles. With the development of history, and with it the skills of the people, in the time period of the 16-17th centuries, the Slavs developed a unique concept of covering the roof with birch bark, which protected from leakage. It also carried an aesthetic purpose, as it betrayed the diversity of the building. A little earth and turf was laid on the roof. This was the old "smart technology" to protect the house from fire.

Dugouts and semi-dugouts, as a rule, did not have windows. Because of this, the interior of the Russian hut looked, of course, not the way we used to imagine. There were small window openings covered with the stomachs of cattle. However, later, when the hut "grew" above the ground, they began to make large glazed windows that not only let in light, but also made it possible to see what was happening on the street. The external decoration of the Russian hut assumed glazed ones, which at the beginning (10th century) were only for wealthy owners.

The toilet in Russia was called "back" and was located, as a rule, in the hallway. It was a hole in the floor, which "looked" down towards the ground level, where cattle were usually kept. He appeared in the huts since the 16th century.

About building windows

The Russian decoration of the hut at a later time was not presented without windows. Usually the window opening consisted of 2 adjacent logs, which were cut in half. A rectangular frame was inserted there, having a valve that "went" in a horizontal direction.

The interior space of the hut

The interior of the Russian hut consisted of one to three living quarters. The entrance to the house began from the canopy. The room intended for habitation was always very warm and heated by a stove. The interior of the hut (photo) perfectly illustrates the life of commoners of those times.

As for wealthy peasants and people with a high rank, in their dwelling there was a place and an additional room, which was called the upper room. The hosts received guests in it, and it was also very warm, bright and spacious. Heated with a Dutch oven.

The interior of the Russian hut could not be imagined without an oven, which occupied most of the room, which was located at the entrance. However, in the southern part of the country, it was located in a far corner.

The interior decoration of the Russian hut was distinguished by a special, but at the same time quite simple, placement of objects. The dining table usually stood in a corner, diagonally across from the stove. Directly above it was a "red corner" with icons and other amulets. There were benches along the walls, above them there were shelves built into the walls. Such interior decoration of the Russian hut (photo) was found almost everywhere.

The oven had a multifunctional load, since it brought not only warmth and delicious food, but also had a sleeping place.

The interior of the Russian hut also demonstrates that there was much in common with the traditions of the East Slavic peoples, but there were also differences. In the north of Russia, people built stone ovens. They got their name because they were built of stone without the use of any bonding solution.

In the areas of Staraya Ladoga, the base of the stone firebox was one and a half meters in diameter. The decoration of a peasant hut in the Izborsk region assumed a stove made of clay, but on a stone base. In length and width, it reached up to 1 meter, as well as in height.

In the southern regions of the East Slavic countries, the oven was built larger and wider, its stone foundation was laid with an approximate calculation of one and a half meters in length and 2 in width. In height, such furnaces reached 1.2 meters.

Types of residential buildings in the Russian North

“In the 17th-19th centuries, a high building culture, technical and artistic methods of wood processing were formed in the Russian North. Building traditions in peasant housing construction reached their dawn by the middle of the 19th century. It was by this time that a type of northern house with a characteristic architectural, structural and planning solution, and decorative decoration had developed. Folk craftsmen subtly took into account and reflected in the architecture of the dwelling the features of the natural environment and the layout of the northern villages. With the commonality of typical architectural and compositional techniques, each hut bore the stamp of individuality and reflected the inner world of its owner. 2

The simplest type of peasant housing is a hut, consisting of an insulated cage (actually a hut) and small canopies that protect the entrance from bad weather. Such buildings are characteristic of the poorest part of the Russian peasantry. Often such buildings did without a yard, since there was no horse and cattle in such a farm. The owners of such housing were mainly engaged in seasonal work or worked for more prosperous peasants.

An example of such a hut is the hut of the beginning of the 19th century. hereditary peasant timber rafting along the Sukhona, owned by E.A. Ershova in the village of Yastreblevo, Velikoustyugsky District, Arkhangelsk Region.

House of E.A. Ershova in the village of Yastreblyovo. Veliky Ustyug region. Vologodskaya Oblast

A square hut on a low basement is cut down from logs 25-30 cm thick. From the inside, the logs are smoothly hewn to the height of human growth. The ceiling is a log rolling, smeared with clay and covered with earth on top. The floor is made of chipped plates, carefully fitted to each other. A large adobe stove on a wooden platform (furnace) is placed in the corner near the front door, the mouth of the stove faces the front windows. Near the stove there is a "golbets" - a plank box that covers the stairs to the underground. From the stove to the walls there are shelves made of beams (voronets). Beds are laid between the stove and the side wall, benches stretch along the walls. In the front corner there is a dining table and a shrine. Opposite the mouth of the stove in the "baby kuta" a table-locker is attached to the wall for cooking and storing dishes.

An example of the further development of a peasant hut can serve as a house from the Vologdaarea built in the 60s of the XIX century.

House of A.I. Sokolova in the village of Skrebino. Charozersky district. Vologodskaya Oblast

The house belonged to the family of a middle peasant, who was engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. The courtyard part of the house has been significantly enlarged, where stables, sheds and stalls for horses, cows and small livestock are arranged.

The house itself belongs to the simplest type of four-walled huts, but unlike the house in the village of Yastreblevo, it has an increased number and size of windows. The space near the stove is fenced off with a wooden partition; artistic processing of the details of the interior is applied in the interior.

The yard adjoining the vestibule is located on the same line with the hut and is under the same roof. In the lower part of the yard there are rooms for pets, in the upper part there is a winter supply of fodder for livestock.

Such a complex of house and yard allowed the peasant to carry out household work in inclement weather without going outside.

The most ancient building (1812) in the Novgorod region is the house of P.I. Lepin in the village of Sytinka, Valdai region.

The house of P.I. Lepin in the village of Sytinka. Valdai region. Novgorod region

The log cabin of the house consists of two parts of the same height: the upper hut and the lower hut, in which bread, vegetables, and property were stored. Each room had its own entrance. From the hut the doors led to the vestibule, connected by an internal staircase with a small porch. From Podzybica, the entrance was located directly onto the street in the center of the main façade.

The division of the house into two floors was emphasized by a small canopy - a cover. This is a peculiar element in the Novgorod residential wooden architecture. The cover covered the lower part of the log house from rain, leaving dry the platform in front of the entrance to the podzybitsa and firewood for kindling the stove, and here they put a bench for the owners to rest. The cover consisted of a wooden canopy supported by a bracket or vertical posts. He could encircle the hut from three sides, only along the facade, or cover the area from the door of the hut to the podzybitsa.

The cover received the most developed form when supported by pillars, which made it possible to increase the roof extension, arrange a gallery with a parapet and decorate the supporting pillars with carvings, which enriched the compositional appearance of the buildings.

Similar galleries are traced by archaeologists in Novgorod in the layers of the 13th century.

A feature of the huts of the Voldai region is the large number of windows and the size of the window openings. The height of the window reached 1.15 m with a width of 76-80 cm, which significantly exceeded the size of windows in other regions of Russia. This is due to the proximity of Novgorod, where glass first came into use and the need to increase natural lighting due to the prevailing cloudy weather here.

An example of a more complex, three-part layout of the hut is the house of N.I. Bibin in the village of Selo, Kargopolsky district, Arkhangelsk region. Here, behind the entrance hall, an additional room appears - the upper room.

House N.I. Bibin in the village of Selo. Kargapol region. Arhangelsk region

The house, built in 1860, consists of a hut, a vestibule and a room, placed on a high basement. A large two-story courtyard covers the living quarters on two sides. The first floor is used for keeping livestock, the second for storing hay, where a log platform led - "vozvoz".

The upper room adjoining the passage was intended for housing in the summer. The basement had its own entrance, but not from the street, as in the Novgorod region, but from under the shade. The hut was divided into two halves by massive, interconnected cabinets. In one half there was a Russian stove, a ladle (a table for cooking) and all the household equipment was concentrated - this was the half of the hostess. In the second half there was a table for food, benches, a bed, it was a clean half of the hut. Here they ate, did household chores: weaving, spinning, repairing harness, receiving guests.

Five-walled

The development of another type of peasant dwelling, the five-wall hut, was conditioned by the need to increase the number of living quarters for the peasant family. Often, from 10 to 20 people lived in one peasant yard, therefore, to expand the living space, additional premises were attached to the main log house.

In the most favorable position were the black-mowed peasants of the northern regions, who escaped serfdom, had a stronger economy and the availability of timber. That is why the Russian North was the birthplace of the most developed types of peasant houses and the place of their wide distribution.

The first five-walls date back to the second half of the 18th century. shown in the figure.

More developed five-wall hut in the northern villages

1-house. In the village of Verkhovye, Prionezhsky district, Arkhangelsk region. The residential complex consisted of a hut, two upper rooms, a vestibule with a closet and a courtyard located on the same axis under a common gable roof.

The hut was built in 1765. Two transverse walls were introduced into the structure of the log house. One of them is located in the center of the building and serves as a support for the floor and the stove. The second is significantly shifted to the side and separates from the living quarters - a back street intended for storing and grinding flour, food preparation. The method of shifting the stove from the corner to the middle part of the rear wall, which is typical for the Onega region, contributes to the allocation of the alley into a utility room, illuminated by an independent window.

2-house. From the village of Brusenets, Totemsky district, Vologda region. The hut was built in the second half of the 18th century. and represents a new type of peasant house, already completed in its formation - five-walls. Instead of one room in front of the house, two were formed - a hut and a room, isolated from each other.

Light penetrated into the hut through one oblique and two portage windows, the upper room was illuminated by one oblique window on the facade and two on the side.

The stove, unlike the Prionezhsky huts in the houses of the Northern Dvina basin, was placed in a corner, and between the stove and the door there was a golbets with a staircase to the underground.

For the structural strength of the significantly enlarged pediment, two transverse log walls were built. They form an additional room for housing in the summer - a "tower". The appearance of the tower brought to life balconies with fencing in the form of figured balusters and carved columns.

3-house. Derevtsov's house in the village of Kodima, Verkhnee-Toemsky district, Arkhangelsk region (1816). The residential part of the hut consists of two rooms located along the front facade: a black hut with a room (now a Russian stove has been installed there) and a winter hut with windows on the side facade. A large two-story courtyard adjoins the hut at the back and is under the same roof as the residential part.

The house of A.V. Popov in the village of Kuzminskoye, Tarnogsky district, Vologda region, and the house of S.A. Uvaev in the village of Mytishchi, Yuryevets district, Ivanovo region.

House-yard of A.V. Popov in the village of Kuzminskoye. Tarnogsky district.

Vologodskaya Oblast

The house was erected at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries by Kuzma Panfilovich Popov.

Popov's house is a developed residential complex, consisting of a five-walled hut, a wintering hut, three cold cages "on the povit" (the second floor of the yard) and a light room in the attic.

Pyatistenok S. A. Uvaeva in the village of Mytishchi, Yuryevets district, Ivanovo region, is distinguished by the functional expediency of the planning system, the integrity of the compositional design, and the richness of architectural forms.

The layout of the house is based on the traditional layout of residential and utility log cabins. Ahead is a hut, then utility rooms (cages, closets) and a barnyard. All buildings are interconnected by vestibules, passages, stairs and are located one after another on the same longitudinal axis and are covered with a common gable roof. From the interior decoration, one can note the separation of a part of the hut opposite the mouth of the furnace.

Uvaev's house has a rich carved decor, both inside and outside the house. The house was built and decorated by the master Emelyan Stepanov with his artel.

House-yard of S. A. Uvaev in the village of Mytishchi. Yuryevets district. Ivanovo region

The location of the five-wall long side to the street when three walls overlook the facade of the house is typical for the regions of the North and the Upper Volga region.

In the Novgorod region, five-walled huts were placed to the street with a narrow side. For example, the house of P.P. Kovalev in the village of Chistovo, Mstinsky district, Novgorod region.

House-yard of P.P. Kovalev in the village of Chistovo. Mstinsky district. Novgorod region

Twins and six-walls

In addition to the four-walled and five-walled hut, in Russian folk architecture, the third type of peasant dwelling - six-walls - has become widespread. The structural basis of this building is the connection of six main walls (two are located parallel to the street and four are perpendicular). The peculiarity of the six-wall layout is the presence of three isolated rooms along the front line of the building of the house. The yard is located behind the house, on the same longitudinal axis as the dwelling.

The six-walled hut was predominantly common in the northern regions. However, its varieties can be found in the Novgorod, Kostroma and Yaroslavl regions.

The path of development of the six-wall can be traced by comparing a number of buildings. First of all, this is a twin hut that has developed in ancient Russian architecture.

The twin hut consists of two independent log cabins, tightly pressed against each other and having a common hallway and roof. There was a hut in one room, with three windows along the facade and two on the side. The stove in the hut stood at the front door and was moved away from the side wall. There was a manual millstone for grinding flour and cereals, hence the name "millstone corner". The rest of the layout is traditional: along the walls of the shop, over the door of the bed, in the red corner of the icon. A similar layout of the hut is typical for all Mezen and Pinega buildings. The second room is a cold cell - a summer room.

The carpenters explained the presence of two adjacent log walls in the twin hut with the desire to make the dwelling more durable. They believed that one log wall separating a warm and cold room was more likely to rot, as it condensed moisture in itself, which could not evaporate due to the lack of air movement in the adjacent room. Two walls with a gap between them provided natural ventilation. It is no coincidence that, over time, they began to arrange a portage window between these walls, and later a slanting one. The increasing distance between the log cabins made it possible to create additional space in the house. At first it was a cold closet, and then a warm isolated room. At the same time, the longitudinal logs of the walls were lengthened and structurally connected to each other.

Over time, the upper room received the same dimensions as the hut and the same number of windows along the main facade. The main facade was clearly divided by transverse walls along the entire height into three parts. The central axis was emphasized by balconies, doorways, paired windows and high porches with long flights of stairs. So a new type of peasant dwelling was gradually formed - six-walls.

Twin hut in the northern villages

Formation from a twin hut with a back street

Six-wall huts in the northern villages

The six-walled hut of the North, with a common structural system, has two main varieties. The first type of six-wall has three living quarters located in front of the house, with passages running in the transverse direction and separating the dwelling from the yard, and porches arranged on the side. In the second type, the hut and the upper room are also located, but instead of a back street, a canopy is made between them. The movement of the vestibule to the longitudinal axis of the building significantly changed its appearance due to the arrangement of the front porch on the facade.

Moving the main entrance and the high porch with the main staircase from the side to the street facade of the building significantly enriched the plastic expressiveness of the building, allowed the architect to create a strong three-dimensional center of the entire composition of the house.

Six-walls with a porch on the central facade

Houses with similar layouts are located in the areas of the Northern Dvina, the Kostroma region and in the Komi ASSR

purse house

The hut with a purse characterizes a new, different type of peasant building. “Koshel” (“koshevnik”, “koshma”) is a term widely used in folk life. This word denotes large rafts of logs and firewood, and long carts, and wide sledge-sledges, and capacious baskets, and bags. In peasant architecture, it represents residential buildings with a huge area of ​​​​the courtyard, two or three times larger than the dimensions of an ordinary hut and adjoining the hut from the side.

The hut and courtyard formed a single and inseparable plane of the front facade. One of the roof slopes was made longer than the other, which made the composition of the facade asymmetrical. The residential part of the house could consist of a cage hut, a double hut, a five-wall or six-wall hut.

Houses with a purse are found in the lower reaches of the Pechora and the Upper Kama region, on the coast of the White Sea, but the house with a purse is most widespread on the islands of Lake Onega.

The houses of Pechera and Prikamye have a structurally monolithic frame, covered with equal roof slopes, giving symmetry to the entire volume. Residential log cabins are small in size and stand on low basements. The number of windows on the main facade ranges from two to three. The houses do not have balconies, bypass galleries, high porches and rich carved architraves.

House of M.S. Chuprovoy in the village of Ust-Tsilma. Komi

Development of a house with a purse in the Pechersk villages

The difficult living conditions of the Pechersk peasants, crop failures, explain the simplicity and severity of the local peasant architecture.

On the shores of the White Sea and the Northern Dvina, along with agriculture, the extraction of salt, ore, resin, fishing was carried out, shipbuilding, various crafts and trades developed. Therefore, local residents could afford to build luxurious houses and richly decorate them.

The rapid economic growth of Zaonezhie falls on the beginning of the 18th century. and is associated with the activities of Peter I, who organized ore mining here and founded metallurgical plants.

Zaonezhsky villages that arose around the churchyards consisted of small groups of buildings. Numerous lagoons and straits separated them from each other, and sometimes from fields, meadows and forests. The boat in these places was the only means of communication, they carried bread, hay, fished, transported livestock, and went to church.

A large number of huts in these villages, despite the variety of internal layouts and decorative design, belong to the purse houses.

Development of a house with a wallet in Zaonezhye

The living quarters of Zaonezhsky houses do not have partitions, boards and golbets near the stove, so they seem unusually large and free.

Houses with a purse are the most archaic type of house in Karelia, houses of a later time consist of a four-walled hut or a five-walled hut with a yard behind the dwelling, such a building is called a house-beam.

Such a layout of housing facilitated the repair of the roof and increased the height of the second floor of the utility part.

two-story buildings

Two-story huts do not represent an independent type of residential buildings. In most cases, the layout of a one-story peasant dwelling is repeated on both floors.

Two-story houses were erected mainly by the wealthy part of the peasantry. They required more material and were significantly more expensive to build and operate.

According to travelers, there were three-four-story buildings in Moscow in the 16th-17th centuries, and the residential log cabins of the palace in Kolomenskoye reached six floors.

Among residential peasant two-story housing, one can single out narrow log-towers, which were additional housing and were placed next to the main house.

House of A.I. Orets in the city of Pechery. Pskov region

The second type is an ordinary peasant house (four-wall, five-wall, six-wall), with two floors.

House N.A. Zuev in the village of Opalikha. Chkalovsky district. Nizhny Novgorod Region

Usually on the ground floor there was a hut with a heavy adobe stove, and on the second floor there were cold chambers, sometimes with a white stove or with a light "Dutch" type.

House in the village of Yedoma. Leshukunsky district. Arhangelsk region

House of M.I. Burmagina in the village of Bredovitsy. Vinogradovsky district. Arhangelsk region

In the Russian North, there were two ways to cut houses: in the first case, the house was built by the owner himself with the help of relatives and neighbors, this is the so-called “help”. Or they invited special carpentry artels. The cost of the house varied depending on the complexity from 30-500 rubles.

estates

In the north, estates with closed yards prevailed - a house-yard, where the residential part was combined under one roof with an economic yard. The first floor of the household yard was occupied by a barnyard, the second floor was occupied by a hayloft. The log cabins of the stables were not connected with the second floor, which relied on special pillars, which made it possible to change the decayed log cabins of the stables in a timely manner.

Depending on the location of the residential and economic parts, the following types can be distinguished.

"Beam" is a house with a single-row connection, covered with a gable symmetrical roof. The house and the household part have the same width and are located along the same axis.

The house is a yard with Yurov's "beam" from the village of Criulea. Vologodskaya Oblast.

A variation of this building is a “beam with a broadened barn”, in this case, the economic part is wider than the residential part, in the resulting corner they arrange a vozvoz. Such estates were typical for the Kargopol region.

House-yard with a broadened yard of Popov from the village of Pogost. Kargopolsky district. Arhangelsk region

"Verb" - the economic part in such houses is located on the side and behind the residential one, in terms of it resembles the letter "G".

House-yard "verb" Tsareva E.I. from the village of Pyrishchi. Novgorod region

"Purse" - in this case, the residential part and the courtyard stand side by side and are covered with a common asymmetric gable roof. One slope of the roof over the residential part is steeper, over the economic part it is more gentle. In plan, the purse forms an almost regular square. The name "purse" came from a large birch bark box (Oshevnev's house).

The house is the courtyard of Oshevnev's "purse" from the village of Oshevnev. Karelia

"T - shaped connection" - is a residential building, consisting of two log cabins connected by a vestibule. The long side of the house faces the street, and the utility yard adjoins the opposite wall to the entrance hall. Such a house has the letter "T" in the plan. Similar houses were common in Kargopol.

House-yard with a "T"-shaped connection Pukhova from the village of Bolshie Khalui. Kargopolsky district.

Arhangelsk region

"Two-row connection" - the house and the yard in this case are parallel to each other.

House-yard two-row connection of Kirillov from the village of Kiselevo. Kargopolsky district. Arhangelsk region

A low log cabin of a “winter” or “cattle” hut was sometimes attached to the side of the house-yard. Here they prepared food for cattle and kept it in extreme cold.

A house with a winter hut by Bolotova from the village of Korolevskaya. Vologodskaya Oblast

In addition to the house-yard, the peasant estate included barns for storing grain and clothes (usually from 1 to 3) and a glacier for storing various food products. Barns were placed "in front of" in front of the house or outside the village where they created "granary towns". In addition to barns, the estates included a threshing floor, a barn, a bathhouse, they were located away from housing. In the collective use of the peasants were mills, forges, public barns - shops. The boundaries between the estates were not distinguished, usually all settlements were surrounded by a fence to protect them from livestock.

Epilogue

A peasant wooden house, as it were, with all its appearance indicates that a person, interfering with nature, introduces something new, not similar to natural originality, and at the same time does not break with it completely.

The Russian village, with its man-made nature, contrasts sharply with the miraculous landscape, but at the same time is inseparable from it.

In a house built in accordance with centuries-old traditions, ergonomics and aesthetics do not oppose each other, but naturally combine.

Our ancestors always linked their house with the environment, hence it seems that the hut seemed to have grown out of the ground, it fits so well into the general ensemble that no one planned, just every builder respected everything created before him, this is a necessary condition a culture of construction that cannot be deviated from.

Builders, having called on their own experience and the experience of many previous generations, have always strived to make it convenient for people to live in the house they built. Everything was taken into account. For example, great importance was attached to how the light would fall from the window when the women sat down to weave and spin. Depending on this, there were huts - “spinning” and huts - “non-spinning”.

The hut was considered beautiful, where the layout and furnishings made it possible to work and relax comfortably.

All household items are just a background for the disclosure of the person himself. Take even the smooth surfaces of log walls: the warm, light texture of pine logs, a beautiful but neutral background that does not absorb a person, but highlights him.

A person enlivens a building with himself, brings meaning and content to it - he is her soul.

Now the old traditional forms are leaving or even gone into the irretrievable past, but you should not completely renounce the traditions that have been verified by age-old folk wisdom (experience). However, "tradition is a process, it must always be in development in a constantly changing life." You should not hold on to antiquity where it has finally become obsolete, but you still need to listen to its echoes.

"Any contact with traditional folk art teaches taste and tact, measure and proportion, harmony in life and society." (V.G. Smolitsky).

Literature:

1. Makovetsky I.V. Architecture of the Russian folk dwelling: the North and the Upper Volga region. - M .: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1962. - 338 pp.: - ill.

2. Permilovskaya A.B. Peasant house in the culture of the Russian North (XIX - early XX century). - Arkhangelsk: Pravda Severa, 2005.- 312 p.: 290 ill.

Goals:

• the formation of the spiritual culture of the individual;
• fostering love for the native land, respect for architectural monuments;
• expanding the knowledge of students in the field of arts and crafts.

• educating schoolchildren of love, interest in Russian folk art, respect for the traditions of their people, a sense of national pride in Russian art.
• teaching students to see the beauty, originality of village huts, understanding the connection between the form of the hut and its purpose; accurate execution of sketches of architectural details of monuments of folk wooden architecture.
• development of creative abilities of students.

1. Organizational moment.

Hello guys. We are starting our art lesson.

Today we will take a trip to Russian antiquity.

Working with us will be interesting and fruitful if you are in a good mood.

What is your mood?

On the table, everyone has elements of mood. Please show what mood you are now (bad, indifferent or good).

Most of you are in a good mood. I hope that by the end of the lesson it will remain the same.

2. The main part.

The lesson begins with a conversation about the monuments of folk wooden architecture in the open air “Kargopolye. Artistic Treasures. The relationship between folk art and fine arts is traced.

Human life has always been deeply connected with the native land. People built their own world, in which there was an inextricable unity with nature and a sense of kinship with the surrounding world. Each generation leaves buildings to its descendants that carry the spirit of their era through the centuries. Buildings outlive their creators for tens and hundreds of years and therefore become a link between generations. Buildings can tell us about the social structure of society, occupations, life, habits, aesthetic views of people, their worldview.

Let us dwell in more detail on the peasant hut.

The wooden world of the hut

Wood served as the main material. From wood, the peasant made almost all the items he needed in everyday life. Huts were also cut from wood. Hence the word "village".

Village huts in the old days were placed out of order, but, as they said, “in a joyful place”, so that the owner would be comfortable and not to interfere with the neighbor. Over time, they began to build them with a facade, that is, facing the road, and it turned out “at-face”.

The huts in the villages had never been painted or sheathed with anything before. People knew how to appreciate the amazing beauty and warmth of wood, its calm strength.

On a cloudy day, the logs of the huts look like silver, on a serene day they turn blue, sometimes they are dark brown, and in the sun they are like warm glowing honey.

Not immediately, not suddenly, building skills were born.

Izba - this word sounded in ancient times as a “firebox”, “true”, that is, a dwelling that was heated from the inside and served as a reliable shelter from the cold.

The peasant set up his house-hut firmly, thoroughly, so that it would be comfortable to live in it and that everyone who looked at it would rejoice.

In the arrangement of the hut, the order found by the labor of many generations was observed.

The lesson examines the characteristic details and fragments of the buildings of northern wooden architecture (roofs and towels in the decoration of the roof, horse, shutters and platbands of red windows).

Work on the drawing of architectural details is combined with vocabulary work.

Massive logs, most often pine logs, were chopped in advance. And when the wood became dry, they began to put up a hut.

The log in Russia was laid down with the remainder. This method of fastening was called “in the cloud” or “with the remainder” (so that the corners do not freeze through in winter).

Each row of logs fastened to each other is crown.

The main tool is an axe.

The gable roof is the head of the building. The higher it is, the easier snow and rain roll off it.

Windows - eyes, eyes, light.

Frontal board- closes the junction of logs with triangle boards under the roof.

The edges of the roof protrude, and their ends cover the patterned boards - prichelina.

The junction of the berths, so that water does not get into the gap, is closed from above by a small one hanging down towel.

The prichelins, a towel, a frontal board were necessarily decorated with carvings - wooden lace.

At the ends of the chauffeurs and towels, you can see a carved round rosette - a symbolic image of the sun.

People depicted magical signs - amulets in the most important places (guarded). Jewelry - amulets (birds, horses). The horse is a faithful assistant to the peasant. The horse - amulet completes a long hollowed-out log that closes the junction of both roof slopes - roof ridge.

Window- eyes on the face of the house, connection with the outside world.

One was cut through on the front wall red window- a large window, which was cut through several crowns and fixed with vertical bars - in shoals“slanting” or “red” (beautiful).

Windows were framed platbands- the most decorated part of the hut.

At night, the windows were covered with wooden shutters by cold.

The portage windows were cut in two adjacent logs and were 30-40 cm high. They were covered with boards.

During the discussion of the complex plan, the text of the description of the facade of the Russian northern hut, attention is drawn to the significance of individual architectural details in the general appearance of a peasant house - this is the framing of the pediment, windows, roof ridge. Diverse in size and shape, in silhouette and in the degree of detail, the fragments are organically integrated into the overall composition of the house, playing the role of peculiar accents placed by the skillful hand of the master.

3. Independent work.

Students are invited to complete a general outline of the house, then draw the architectural details.

The main parts of the hut are transmitted by the simplest geometric shapes.

Drawing sequence:

• facade wall;
• roof;
• windows, doors and other parts of the house.

It is necessary to mark with strokes the main dimensions of the hut, to mark the boundary of the earth's surface with a rectangle, the height of the hut with a line. Determine the number of window openings.

Further, in the process of independent work, students complete the drawing in color. The prepared sketch should be done with watercolors or gouache paints. First, the general outline of the house is done in color, then the architectural details (to match the color of the tree - brown, gray).

Children who quickly complete the task can be offered to complete the drawing (with trees, a fence, grass and other details).

During independent work, you can quietly turn on Russian folk music.

4. The result of the lesson.

At the end of the lesson, an exhibition of drawings is organized, a collective discussion of the work performed is held, the most successful ones are noted, the quality of the drawings, the drawing of architectural details, beautiful color combinations. Students should admire their work, make sure that they were able to convey the beauty of the Russian northern hut.

Students are asked questions:

• What new did you learn in the lesson?
• What did you especially like?
• What would you like to repeat?

It is necessary to ask if their mood has changed by the end of the work, to thank for the work.

Russian hut: where and how our ancestors built the huts, arrangement and decor, elements of the hut, videos, riddles and proverbs about the hut and reasonable housekeeping.

"Oh, what mansions!" - so often we talk now about a spacious new apartment or cottage. We speak without thinking about the meaning of the word. After all, mansions are an ancient peasant dwelling, consisting of several buildings. What kind of mansions did the peasants have in their Russian huts? How was the Russian traditional hut arranged?

In this article:

- where were the huts built before?
- attitude to the Russian hut in Russian folk culture,
- the device of the Russian hut,
- decoration and decor of the Russian hut,
- Russian stove and red corner, male and female halves of the Russian house,
- elements of a Russian hut and a peasant yard (dictionary),
- proverbs and sayings, signs about the Russian hut.

Russian hut

Since I am from the north and grew up on the White Sea, I will show photos of northern houses in the article. And as an epigraph to my story about the Russian hut, I chose the words of D. S. Likhachev:

Russian North! It is difficult for me to put into words my admiration, my admiration for this land. When for the first time, as a boy of thirteen, I traveled along the Barents and White Seas, along the Northern Dvina, visited the coast-dwellers, in peasant huts, listened to songs and fairy tales, looked at these unusually beautiful people, carrying on simply and with dignity, I was completely stunned. It seemed to me that this is the only way to truly live: measuredly and easily, working and getting so much satisfaction from this work ... In the Russian North, there is an amazing combination of the present and the past, modernity and history, the watercolor lyricism of water, earth, sky, the formidable power of stone , storms, cold, snow and air "(D.S. Likhachev. Russian culture. - M., 2000. - S. 409-410).

Where were huts built before?

A favorite place for the construction of a village and the construction of Russian huts was the bank of a river or lake. At the same time, the peasants were guided by practicality - proximity to the river and the boat as a means of transportation, but also by aesthetic reasons. From the windows of the hut, standing on a high place, there was a beautiful view of the lake, forests, meadows, fields, as well as the courtyard with barns, the bathhouse near the river itself.

The northern villages are visible from afar, they were never located in the lowlands, always on the hills, near the forest, near the water on the high bank of the river, they became the center of a beautiful picture of the unity of man and nature, fit organically into the surrounding landscape. On the highest place they usually built a church and a bell tower in the center of the village.

The house was built thoroughly, "for centuries", a place for it was chosen high enough, dry, protected from cold winds - on a high hill. They tried to locate villages where there were fertile lands, rich meadows, forests, rivers or lakes. The huts were placed in such a way that they were provided with a good entrance and approach, and the windows were turned "for the summer" - on the sunny side.

In the north, they tried to place houses on the southern slope of the hill, so that its top would reliably cover the house from violent cold northern winds. The south side will always warm up well, and the house will be warm.

If we consider the location of the hut on the site, then they tried to place it closer to its northern part. The house closed the garden part of the site from the wind.

In terms of the orientation of the Russian hut according to the sun (north, south, west, east) there was also a special structure of the village. It was very important that the windows of the residential part of the house were located in the direction of the sun. For better illumination of houses in rows, they were placed in a checkerboard pattern relative to each other. All the houses on the streets of the village "looked" in one direction - at the sun, at the river. From the window one could see sunrises and sunsets, the movement of ships along the river.

Prosperous place for the construction of a hut was considered a place where cattle lie down to rest. After all, cows were considered by our ancestors as a fertile life-giving force, because the cow was often the breadwinner of the family.

They tried not to build houses in or near swamps, these places were considered "chilly", and the crops on them often suffered from frosts. But a river or lake near the house is always good.

When choosing a place to build a house, the men guessed - they used an experiment. Women never participated in it. They took sheep's wool. She was placed in a clay pot. And left for the night at the site of the future home. The result was considered positive if the wool was damp by morning. So the house will be rich.

There were other fortune-telling - experiments. For example, in the evening, chalk was left overnight at the site of the future home. If the chalk attracted ants, it was considered a good sign. If ants do not live on this earth, then it is better not to build a house here. The result was checked in the morning the next day.

They began to chop down the house in early spring (Lent) or in other months of the year on the new moon. If a tree is cut down on a waning moon, then it will quickly rot, which is why there was such a ban. There were also more stringent prescriptions for the days. The forest began to be harvested from the winter Nikola, from December 19th. The best time for harvesting a tree was considered December - January, according to the first frosts, when excess moisture comes out of the trunk. They did not cut dry trees or trees with growths for the house, trees that fell to the north during felling. These beliefs related specifically to trees, other materials were not furnished with such norms.

They did not build houses on the site of houses burned by lightning. It was believed that lightning Elijah - the prophet strikes places of evil spirits. They also did not build houses where there used to be a bathhouse, where someone was injured with an ax or a knife, where human bones were found, where there used to be a bathhouse or where a road used to pass, where some kind of misfortune occurred, for example, a flood.

Attitude to the Russian hut in folk culture

The house in Russia had many names: a hut, a hut, a tower, kholupy, a mansion, a horomina and a temple. Yes, do not be surprised - the temple! Mansions (huts) were equated with the temple, because the temple is also a house, the House of God! And in the hut there was always a holy, red corner.

The peasants treated the house as a living being. Even the names of the parts of the house are similar to the names of the parts of the human body and its world! This is a feature of the Russian house - "human", that is, anthropomorphic names of parts of the hut:

• Chelo hut is her face. Chelom could be called the pediment of the hut and the outer opening in the furnace.
• Prichelina- from the word "brow", that is, the decoration on the forehead of the hut,
• platbands- from the word "face", "on the face" of the hut.
• Ochelie- from the word "eyes", a window. This was the name of the part of the female headdress, the window decoration was also called.
• Forehead- so the frontal board was called. There were also "fronts" in the design of the house.
• Heel, foot- so the part of the doors was called.

There were also zoomorphic names in the arrangement of the hut and yard: “bulls”, “hens”, “skate”, “crane” - a well.

The word "hut" comes from the Old Slavic "ist'ba". “Istboy, firebox” was a heated residential log house (and a “cage” is an unheated log house of a residential building).

The house and the hut were living models of the world for people. The house was that secret place in which people expressed ideas about themselves, about the world, built their world and their lives according to the laws of harmony. Home is part of life and a way to connect and shape your life. The house is a sacred space, an image of the family and homeland, a model of the world and human life, a person’s connection with the natural world and with God. A house is a space that a person builds with his own hands, and which is with him from the first to the last days of his life on Earth. Building a house is a repetition of the work of the Creator by a person, because a human dwelling, according to the ideas of the people, is a small world created according to the rules of the “big world”.

By the appearance of a Russian house, it was possible to determine the social status, religion, and nationality of its owners. In one village there were no two completely identical houses, because each hut carried an individuality and reflected the inner world of the family living in it.

For a child, the house is the first model of the outer big world, it “feeds” and “nurtures” the child, the child “absorbs” the laws of life in the big adult world from the house. If a child grew up in a light, cozy, kind house, in a house in which order reigns, then this is how the child will continue to build his life. If there is chaos in the house, then chaos is in the soul and in the life of a person. From childhood, the child mastered the system of ideas about his house - the outcrop and its structure - the mother, the red corner, the female and male parts of the house.

The house is traditionally used in Russian as a synonym for the word "motherland". If a person does not have a sense of home, then there is no sense of homeland! Attachment to the house, taking care of it was considered a virtue. The house and the Russian hut are the embodiment of a native, safe space. The word “house” was also used in the sense of “family” - they said “There are four houses on the hill” - this meant that there were four families. In a Russian hut, several generations of the family lived and ran a common household under one roof - grandfathers, fathers, sons, grandchildren.

The inner space of the Russian hut has long been associated in folk culture as the space of a woman - she followed him, put things in order and comfort. But the outer space - the courtyard and beyond - was the space of a man. My husband's grandfather still remembers such a division of duties, which was accepted in the family of our great-grandparents: a woman carried water from a well for the house, for cooking. And the man also carried water from the well, but for cows or horses. It was considered a shame if a woman began to perform men's duties or vice versa. Since they lived in large families, there were no problems. If one of the women could not carry water now, then this work was done by another woman in the family.

The male and female half were also strictly observed in the house, but this will be discussed further.

In the Russian North, residential and utility premises were combined under the same roof, so that you can manage your household without leaving your home. This was how the vital ingenuity of the northerners living in harsh cold natural conditions manifested itself.

The house was understood in folk culture as the center of the main life values.- happiness, prosperity, prosperity of the family, faith. One of the functions of the hut and the house was a protective function. The carved wooden sun under the roof is a wish of happiness and well-being to the owners of the house. The image of roses (which do not grow in the north) is a wish for a happy life. The lions and lionesses in the painting are pagan amulets, scaring away evil with their terrible appearance.

Proverbs about the hut

On the roof there is a heavy ridge made of wood - a sign of the sun. There must have been a house goddess in the house. S. Yesenin wrote interestingly about the horse: “The horse, both in Greek, Egyptian, Roman, and in Russian mythology, is a sign of aspiration. But only one Russian man guessed to put him on his roof, likening his hut under him to a chariot ”(Nekrasova M.A. Folk art of Russia. - M., 1983)

The house was built very proportionately and harmoniously. In its design - the law of the golden section, the law of natural harmony in proportions. They built without a measuring tool and complex calculations - by instinct, as the soul prompted.

A family of 10 or even 15-20 people sometimes lived in a Russian hut. In it they cooked and ate, slept, wove, spun, repaired utensils, and did all household chores.

Myth and truth about the Russian hut. There is an opinion that in Russian huts it was dirty, there was unsanitary conditions, diseases, poverty and darkness. I used to think so too, that's how we were taught in school. But this is absolutely not true! I asked my grandmother shortly before her departure to another world, when she was already over 90 years old (she grew up near Nyandoma and Kargopol in the Russian North in the Arkhangelsk region), how they lived in their village in her childhood - did they really wash and clean the house once a year and lived in darkness and mud?

She was very surprised and said that the house was always not just clean, but very light and comfortable, beautiful. Her mother (my great-grandmother) embroidered and knitted the most beautiful valances for the beds of adults and children. Each bed and cradle was decorated with her valances. And each bed has its own pattern! Imagine what a job it is! And what a beauty in the frame of each bed! Her dad (my great-grandfather) carved beautiful ornaments on all household utensils and furniture. She recalled being a child under the care of her grandmother along with her sisters and brothers (my great-great-grandmother). They not only played, but also helped adults. Sometimes, in the evening, her grandmother would say to the children: “Soon mother and father will come from the field, we need to clean up the house.” And oh yes! Children take brooms, rags, put things in order so that there is not a speck in the corner, not a speck of dust, and all things are in their places. By the time mother and father arrived, the house was always clean. The children understood that the adults had come home from work, were tired and needed help. She also remembered how her mother always whitewashed the stove so that the stove was beautiful and the house was cozy. Even on the day of childbirth, her mother (my great-grandmother) whitewashed the stove, and then went to give birth in the bathhouse. Grandmother recalled how she, being the eldest daughter, helped her.

There was no such thing as clean on the outside and dirty on the inside. Cleaned very carefully both outside and inside. My grandmother told me that “what is outside is how you want to appear to people” (outside is the appearance of clothes, house, closet, etc. - how they look for guests and how we want to present ourselves to people clothes, appearance of the house, etc.). But “what’s inside is what you really are” (inside is the wrong side of embroidery or any other work, the wrong side of clothes that must be clean and without holes or stains, the inside of cabinets and other invisible to other people, but visible us moments of our lives). Very instructive. I always remember her words.

Grandmother recalled that only those who did not work had poor and dirty huts. They were considered as if holy fools, a little sick, they were pitied as people with a sick soul. Who worked - even if he had 10 children - lived in bright, clean, beautiful huts. Decorate your home with love. They ran a large household and never complained about life. There was always order in the house and in the yard.

The device of the Russian hut

The Russian house (hut), like the Universe, was divided into three worlds, three tiers: the lower one is the basement, the underground; the middle one is living quarters; the upper one under the sky is an attic, a roof.

Hut as a design It was a frame made of logs, which were tied together into crowns. In the Russian North, it was customary to build houses without nails, very durable houses. The minimum number of nails was used only for attaching decor - prichelin, towels, platbands. They built houses "as measure and beauty will say."

Roof- the upper part of the hut - gives protection from the outside world and is the border of the inside of the house with space. No wonder the roof was so beautifully decorated in the houses! And in the ornament on the roof, symbols of the sun were often depicted - solar symbols. We know such expressions: "father's shelter", "to live under one roof". There were customs - if a person was sick and could not leave this world for a long time, then in order for his soul to more easily pass into another world, then they removed the skate on the roof. It is interesting that the roof was considered a female element of the house - the hut itself and everything in the hut should be “covered” - the roof, and buckets, and dishes, and barrels.

The upper part of the house (prichelina, towel) were decorated with solar, that is, solar signs. In some cases, the full sun was depicted on the towel, and only half of the solar signs were depicted on the berths. Thus, the sun was shown at the most important points of its path across the sky - at sunrise, at zenith and at sunset. There is even an expression in folklore, "the three-light sun," reminiscent of these three key points.

Attic was located under the roof and on it were stored items that were not needed at the moment, removed from the house.

The hut was two-story, living rooms were located on the "second floor", as it was warmer there. And on the "ground floor", that is, on the lower tier, there was basement He protected the living quarters from the cold. The basement was used for food storage and was divided into 2 parts: the basement and the underground.

Floor they made it double to keep warm: at the bottom there is a “black floor”, and on top of it is a “white floor”. The floor boards were laid from the edges to the center of the hut in the direction from the facade to the exit. It mattered in some ceremonies. So, if they entered the house and sat on a bench along the floorboards, then this meant that they had come to woo. They never slept and did not lay the bed along the floorboards, As the dead person was laid along the floorboards "on the way to the doors." That is why we did not sleep with our heads towards the exit. They always slept with their heads in the red corner, towards the front wall, on which the icons were located.

Important in the arrangement of the Russian hut was the diagonal "red corner - oven." The red corner always pointed to noon, to the light, to God's side (red side). It has always been associated with Votok (sunrise) and the south. And the stove pointed to the sunset, to darkness. And associated with the west or north. They always prayed for the icon in the red corner, i.e. to the east, where the altar in the temples is located.

Door and the entrance to the house, the exit to the outside world is one of the most important elements of the house. She greets everyone who enters the house. In ancient times, there were many beliefs and various protective rituals associated with the door and threshold of the house. Probably not without reason, and now many people hang a horseshoe on the door for good luck. And even earlier, a scythe (garden tool) was laid under the threshold. This reflected people's ideas about the horse as an animal associated with the sun. And also about the metal created by man with the help of fire and which is a material for protecting life.

Only a closed door saves life inside the house: "Do not trust everyone, lock the door tighter." That is why people stopped in front of the threshold of the house, especially when entering someone else's house, this stop was often accompanied by a short prayer.

At a wedding in some localities, a young wife, entering her husband's house, was not supposed to touch the threshold. That is why it was often brought in by hand. And in other areas, the sign was exactly the opposite. The bride, entering the groom's house after the wedding, always lingered on the threshold. It was a sign of that. That she is now her own kind of husband.

The threshold of the doorway is the border of "one's own" and "alien" space. In popular beliefs, it was a borderline, and therefore unsafe place: “They don’t greet people across the threshold”, “They don’t shake hands across the threshold.” You can't even accept gifts across the threshold. Guests are met outside the threshold, then let in ahead of them through the threshold.

The height of the door was below human height. At the entrance I had to bow my head and take off my hat. But at the same time, the doorway was wide enough.

Window- another entrance to the house. Window is a very ancient word, it was first mentioned in the annals in the year 11 and is found among all Slavic peoples. In folk beliefs, it was forbidden to spit through the window, throw out garbage, pour something out of the house, since under it "there is an angel of the Lord." “Give (to the beggar) through the window - give to God.” Windows were considered the eyes of the house. A person looks through the window at the sun, and the sun looks at him through the window (the eyes of the hut). That is why signs of the sun were often carved on the architraves. The riddles of the Russian people say this: “The red girl looks out the window” (the sun). The windows in the house traditionally in Russian culture have always tried to be oriented “for the summer” - that is, to the east and south. The largest windows of the house always faced the street and the river, they were called "red" or "skewed".

Windows in a Russian hut could be of three types:

A) Volokovoe window - the most ancient type of windows. Its height did not exceed the height of a horizontally laid log. But in width it was one and a half times the height. Such a window was closed from the inside with a latch, “dragging” along special grooves. Therefore, the window was called "portage". Only dim light penetrated the hut through the porthole window. Such windows were more common in outbuildings. Through the portage window, the smoke from the stove was taken out (“dragged out”) from the hut. They also ventilated basements, closets, winds and cowsheds.

B) A box window - consists of a deck made up of four bars firmly connected to each other.

C) An oblique window is an opening in the wall, reinforced with two side beams. These windows are also called "red" regardless of their location. Initially, the central windows in the Russian hut were made like this.

It was through the window that the baby had to be passed if the children born in the family died. It was believed that this way you can save the child and ensure him a long life. In the Russian North, there was also such a belief that the soul of a person leaves the house through the window. That is why a cup of water was placed on the window so that the soul that left the person could wash and fly away. Also, after the commemoration, a towel was hung on the window so that the soul would rise into the house through it, and then descend back. Sitting at the window, waiting for news. A place by the window in the red corner is a place of honor, for the most honored guests, including matchmakers.

The windows were located high, and therefore the view from the window did not bump into neighboring buildings, and the view from the window was beautiful.

During construction, between the window beam and the log, the walls of the house left free space (sedimentary groove). It was covered with a board, which is well known to all of us and is called platband("on the face of the house" = casing). The platbands were decorated with ornaments to protect the house: circles as symbols of the sun, birds, horses, lions, fish, weasel (an animal that was considered the guardian of livestock - it was believed that if a predator was depicted, it would not harm pets), floral ornament, juniper, mountain ash .

Outside, the windows were closed with shutters. Sometimes in the north, to make it convenient to close the windows, galleries were built along the main facade (they looked like balconies). The owner walks along the gallery and closes the shutters on the windows at night.

Four sides of the hut facing the four directions of the world. The appearance of the hut is turned to the outside world, and the interior decoration - to the family, to the clan, to the person.

Russian hut porch was more open and spacious. Here were those family events that the whole street of the village could see: they saw off the soldiers, met the matchmakers, met the newlyweds. On the porch they talked, exchanged news, rested, talked about business. Therefore, the porch occupied a prominent place, was high and rose up on pillars or log cabins.

The porch is “the visiting card of the house and its owners”, reflecting their hospitality, prosperity and cordiality. A house was considered uninhabited if its porch was destroyed. They decorated the porch carefully and beautifully, the ornament was the same as on the elements of the house. It could be a geometric or floral ornament.

What do you think, from what word the word "porch" was formed? From the word "cover", "roof". After all, the porch was necessarily with a roof that protected from snow and rain.
Often in a Russian hut there were two porches and two entrances. The first entrance is the main one, where benches were set up for conversation and relaxation. And the second entrance is “dirty”, it served for household needs.

Bake located near the entrance and occupied about a quarter of the space of the hut. The stove is one of the sacred centers of the house. “The oven in the house is the same as the altar in the church: bread is baked in it.” “Our mother bake us”, “A house without a stove is an uninhabited house”. The stove had a feminine origin and was located in the female half of the house. It is in the oven that the raw, undeveloped turns into boiled, “own”, mastered. The furnace is located in the corner opposite the red corner. They slept on it, it was used not only in cooking, but also in healing, in folk medicine, small children were washed in it in winter, children and the elderly warmed themselves on it. In the stove, they always kept the damper closed if someone left the house (so that they would return and the road was happy), during a thunderstorm (because the stove is another entrance to the house, the connection of the house with the outside world).

Matica- a beam running across the Russian hut, on which the ceiling rests. This is the boundary between the front and back of the house. A guest coming into the house, without the permission of the hosts, could not go further than the mother. Sitting under the mother meant wooing the bride. In order to succeed, it was necessary to hold on to the mother before leaving the house.

The entire space of the hut was divided into female and male. Men worked and rested, received guests on weekdays in the male part of the Russian hut - in the front red corner, away from it to the threshold and sometimes under the curtains. The man's workplace during the repair was next to the door. Women and children worked and rested, stayed awake in the female half of the hut - near the stove. If women received guests, then the guests sat at the threshold of the stove. Guests could enter the female territory of the hut only at the invitation of the hostess. Representatives of the male half, without a special emergency, never went to the female half, and women to the male half. This could be taken as an insult.

Stalls served not only as a place to sit, but also as a place to sleep. A headrest was placed under the head when sleeping on the bench.

The shop at the door was called “konik”, it could be the workplace of the owner of the house, and also any person who entered the house, a beggar, could spend the night on it.

Shelves were made above the benches above the windows parallel to the benches. Hats, thread, yarn, spinning wheels, knives, awls and other household items were placed on them.

Married adult couples slept in the boots, on the bench under the curtains, in their separate cages - in their places. The old people slept on the stove or by the stove, the children on the stove.

All utensils and furniture in the Russian northern hut are located along the walls, and the center remains free.

Svetlitsy the room was called - a light room, a burner on the second floor of the house, clean, well-groomed, for needlework and clean classes. There was a wardrobe, a bed, a sofa, a table. But just like in the hut, all items were placed along the walls. There were chests in the gorenka, in which they collected dowry for daughters. How many marriageable daughters - so many chests. Here lived girls - marriageable brides.

The dimensions of the Russian hut

In ancient times, the Russian hut did not have internal partitions and was square or rectangular in shape. The average dimensions of the hut were from 4 x 4 meters to 5.5 x 6.5 meters. The middle peasants and wealthy peasants had large huts - 8 x 9 meters, 9 x 10 meters.

The decoration of the Russian hut

In the Russian hut, four corners were distinguished: oven, woman's kut, red corner, back corner (at the entrance under the floor). Each corner had its own traditional purpose. And the whole hut, in accordance with the angles, was divided into the female and male halves.

The female half of the hut runs from the mouth of the furnace (furnace outlet) to the front wall of the house.

One of the corners of the female half of the house is a woman's kut. It is also called "bake". This place is near the stove, women's territory. Here they cooked food, pies, stored utensils, millstones. Sometimes the "women's territory" of the house was separated by a partition or screen. In the female half of the hut, behind the stove, there were cabinets for kitchen utensils and edible supplies, shelves for tableware, buckets, cast iron, tubs, oven appliances (bread shovel, poker, tong). The “long bench” that ran along the female half of the hut along the side wall of the house was also female. Here women spun, weaved, sewed, embroidered, and a baby cradle hung here.

Men have never entered the "women's territory" and touched the utensils that are considered women's. And a stranger and a guest could not even look into a woman's kut, it was insulting.

On the other side of the oven male space, "male kingdom at home". There was a threshold men's shop here, where men did housework and rested after a hard day's work. Under it, there was often a locker with tools for men's work. It was considered indecent for a woman to sit on a threshold bench. On a side bench at the back of the hut, they rested during the day.

Russian oven

Approximately a fourth, and sometimes a third of the hut was occupied by a Russian stove. She was a symbol of the hearth. They not only cooked food in it, but also prepared fodder for livestock, baked pies and bread, washed themselves, heated the room, slept on it and dried clothes, shoes or food, dried mushrooms and berries in it. And even in winter they could keep chickens in the oven. Although the stove is very large, it does not “eat up”, but, on the contrary, expands the living space of the hut, turning it into a multidimensional, uneven height.

No wonder there is a saying “to dance from the stove”, because everything in a Russian hut begins with the stove. Remember the epic about Ilya Muromets? Bylina tells us that Ilya Muromets "lay on the stove for 30 years and 3 years," that is, he could not walk. Not on the floors and not on the benches, but on the stove!

“Bake us like a mother,” people used to say. Many folk healing practices were associated with the oven. And omens. For example, you can not spit in the oven. And it was impossible to swear when the fire burned in the furnace.

The new furnace began to warm up gradually and evenly. The first day began with four logs, and gradually one log was added every day to ignite the entire volume of the furnace and so that it was without cracks.

At first, in Russian houses there were adobe stoves that were heated in black. That is, the furnace then did not have an exhaust pipe for smoke to escape. Smoke was released through the door or through a special hole in the wall. It is sometimes thought that only the poor had black huts, but this is not so. Such stoves were also in rich mansions. The black oven gave more heat and kept it longer than the white one. Smoked walls were not afraid of dampness or rot.

Later, stoves were built white - that is, they began to make a pipe through which smoke escaped.

The stove was always located in one of the corners of the house, which was called the stove, door, small corner. Diagonally from the stove there was always a red, holy, front, large corner of a Russian house.

Red corner in a Russian hut

Red corner - the central main place in the hut, in a Russian house. It is also called "holy", "divine", "front", "senior", "big". It is illuminated by the sun better than all other corners in the house, everything in the house is oriented towards it.

The goddess in the red corner is like the altar of an Orthodox church and was interpreted as the presence of God in the house. The table in the red corner is the church altar. Here, in the red corner, they prayed for the image. Here, at the table, all the meals and the main events in the life of the family were held: birth, wedding, funeral, seeing off to the army.

There were not only icons here, but also the Bible, prayer books, candles, consecrated willow twigs were brought here on Palm Sunday or birch twigs on Trinity.

The red corner was especially worshiped. Here, during the commemoration, they put an extra device for another soul who had gone into the world.

It was in the Red Corner that the chipped birds of happiness, traditional for the Russian North, were hung.

Seats at the table in the red corner were rigidly fixed by tradition, And not only during the holidays, but also during regular meals. The meal brought family and family together.

• Place in the red corner, in the center of the table, under the icons, was the most honorable. The host, the most respected guests, the priest were sitting here. If a guest, without the invitation of the host, passed and sat in a red corner, this was considered a gross violation of etiquette.
• The next most important side of the table is right from the owner and the places closest to him on the right and left. This is a men's shop. Here, according to seniority, the men of the family were seated along the right wall of the house towards its exit. The older the man, the closer he sits to the owner of the house.
• And on "lower" end of the table on the "women's bench", women and children sat down along the pediment of the house.
• mistress of the house was placed opposite her husband from the side of the stove on a side bench. So it was more convenient to serve food and arrange lunch.
• During the wedding newlyweds also sat under the icons in the red corner.
• For guests had its own guest shop. It is located by the window. Until now, there is such a custom in some areas to seat guests by the window.

This arrangement of family members at the table shows a model of social relations within the Russian family.

Table- he was given great importance in the red corner of the house and in general in the hut. The table in the hut stood in a permanent place. If the house was sold, then it must be sold along with the table!

Very important: The table is the hand of God. “The table is the same as the throne in the altar, and therefore you need to sit at the table and behave as in the church” (Olonets province). It was not allowed to place foreign objects on the dining table, because this is the place of God himself. It was impossible to knock on the table: "Do not hit the table, the table is God's palm!" There should always be bread on the table - a symbol of prosperity and well-being in the house. They said this: “Bread on the table - and the table is the throne!”. Bread is a symbol of prosperity, abundance, material well-being. Therefore, he always had to be on the table - God's palm.

A small lyrical digression from the author. Dear readers of this article! Perhaps you think that all this is outdated? Well, what's with the bread on the table? And you bake yeast-free bread at home with your own hands - it's quite easy! And then you will understand that this is a completely different bread! Not like store bought bread. Yes, and a loaf in shape - a circle, a symbol of movement, growth, development. When for the first time I baked not pies, not cupcakes, but bread, and the smell of bread smelled of my whole house, I realized what a real house is - a house where it smells of .. bread! Where would you like to return? Don't have time for this? I thought so too. Until one of the mothers, whose children I work with and she has ten!!!, taught me how to bake bread. And then I thought: “If the mother of ten children finds time to bake bread for her family, then I definitely have time for this!” Therefore, I understand why bread is the head of everything! You have to feel it with your hands and your soul! And then the loaf on your table will become a symbol of your home and bring you a lot of joy!

The table was necessarily installed along the floorboards, i.e. the narrow side of the table was directed towards the western wall of the hut. This is very important, because the direction "longitudinal - transverse" in Russian culture was given a special meaning. The longitudinal one had a “positive” charge, and the transverse one had a “negative” one. Therefore, they tried to lay all the objects in the house in the longitudinal direction. This is also why it was along the floorboards that they sat down during rituals (matchmaking, as an example) - so that everything would go well.

Tablecloth on the table in the Russian tradition, it also had a very deep meaning and is integral with the table. The expression "table and tablecloth" symbolized hospitality, hospitality. Sometimes the tablecloth was called "holy-solker" or "samobranka". Wedding tablecloths were kept as a special relic. The tablecloth was not always covered, but on special occasions. But in Karelia, for example, the tablecloth had to be always on the table. At the wedding feast, they took a special tablecloth and laid it inside out (from spoilage). The tablecloth could be spread on the ground during the commemoration, because the tablecloth is a “road”, the connection between the cosmic world and the human world, it is not for nothing that the expression “tablecloth is a road” has come down to us.

At the dinner table, the family gathered, were baptized before eating and read a prayer. They ate decorously, it was impossible to get up while eating. The head of the family, the man, started the meal. He cut food into pieces, cut bread. The woman served everyone at the table, served food. The meal was long, slow, long.

On holidays, the red corner was decorated with woven and embroidered towels, flowers, and tree branches. Embroidered and woven towels with patterns were hung on the shrine. On Palm Sunday, the red corner was decorated with willow branches, on Trinity - with birch branches, and with heather (juniper) - on Maundy Thursday.

It is interesting to think about our modern houses:

Question 1. The division into "male" and "female" territory in the house is not accidental. And in our modern apartments there is a “women's secret corner” - personal space as a “women's kingdom”, do men interfere in it? Do we need it? How and where can you create it?

Question 2. And what is in the red corner of an apartment or cottage - what is the main spiritual center of the house? Let's take a look at our home. And if something needs to be corrected, then we will do it and create a red corner in our house, we will create it to really unite the family. Sometimes there are tips on the Internet to put a computer in the red corner as in the "energy center of the apartment", to organize your workplace in it. I am always surprised by such recommendations. Here, in the red - the main corner - to be what is important in life, what unites the family, what carries true spiritual values, what is the meaning and idea of ​​the life of the family and family, but not a TV or an office center! Let's think together what it could be.

Types of Russian huts

Now many families are interested in Russian history and traditions and build houses as our ancestors did. Sometimes it is believed that there should be only one type of house according to the arrangement of its elements, and only this type of house is "correct" and "historical". In fact, the location of the main elements of the hut (red corner, stove) depends on the region.

According to the location of the stove and the red corner, 4 types of Russian hut are distinguished. Each type is characteristic of a particular area and climatic conditions. That is, it is impossible to say directly: the oven has always been strictly here, and the red corner is strictly here. Let's take a closer look at the pictures.

The first type is the North Central Russian hut. The stove is located next to the entrance to the right or left of it in one of the back corners of the hut. The mouth of the stove is turned to the front wall of the hut (The mouth is the outlet of the Russian stove). Diagonal from the stove is a red corner.

The second type is the Western Russian hut. The furnace was also located next to the entrance to the right or left of it. But it was turned by its mouth to a long side wall. That is, the mouth of the furnace was near the front door to the house. The red corner was also located diagonally from the stove, but the food was cooked in a different place in the hut - closer to the door (see picture). At the side of the stove they made flooring for sleeping.

The third type is the eastern South Russian hut. The fourth type is the western South Russian hut. In the south, the house was placed to the street not with a facade, but with a side long side. Therefore, here the location of the furnace was completely different. The stove was placed in the farthest corner from the entrance. Diagonally from the stove (between the door and the front long wall of the hut) there was a red corner. In the eastern South Russian huts, the mouth of the stove was turned towards the front door. In the western southern Russian huts, the mouth of the stove was turned towards the long wall of the house, which overlooked the street.

Despite the different types of huts, they follow the general principle of the structure of the Russian dwelling. Therefore, even being far from home, the traveler could always orient himself in the hut.

Elements of a Russian hut and a peasant estate: a dictionary

In a peasant estate the economy was large - in each estate there were from 1 to 3 barns for storing grain and valuables. And there was also a bath - the most remote building from the residential building. Every thing has its place. This principle from the proverb was observed always and everywhere. Everything in the house was thought out and arranged reasonably so as not to waste extra time and energy on unnecessary actions or movements. Everything is at hand, everything is convenient. Modern home ergonomics comes from our history.

The entrance to the Russian estate was from the side of the street through a strong gate. There was a roof over the gate. And at the gate on the side of the street under the roof there is a shop. Not only the villagers, but also any passer-by could sit on the bench. It was at the gate that it was customary to meet and see off guests. And under the roof of the gate one could meet them cordially or say goodbye.

Barn- a separate small building for storing grain, flour, supplies.

Bath- a separate building (the building farthest from the residential building) for washing.

Crown- logs of one horizontal row in the log house of a Russian hut.

anemone- a carved sun, attached instead of a towel on the pediment of the hut. Wishing a rich harvest, happiness, well-being to the family living in the house.

barn- platform for threshing compressed bread.

crate- a structure in wooden construction, formed by crowns of logs laid on top of each other. Mansions consist of several stands, united by passages and passages.

Chicken-elements of the roof of a Russian house built without nails. They said this: "Chickens and a horse on the roof - it will be quieter in the hut." It is precisely the elements of the roof that are meant - the ridge and chickens. A water drain was laid on the chickens - a log hollowed out in the form of a gutter to drain water from the roof. The image of the "hens" is not accidental. The chicken and the rooster were associated in the popular mind with the sun, since this bird announces the sunrise. The cry of a rooster, according to popular belief, drove away evil spirits.

Glacier- the great-grandfather of the modern refrigerator - an ice room for food storage

Matica- a massive wooden beam on which the ceiling is laid.

platband- decoration of the window (window opening)

Barn- a building for drying sheaves before threshing. Sheaves were laid out on the floor and dried.

ohlupen- horse - connects the two wings of the house, two roof slopes together. The horse symbolizes the sun moving across the sky. This is an indispensable element of the roof construction, built without nails and a talisman of the house. Okhlupen is also called "shelom" from the word "helmet", which is associated with the protection of the house and means the helmet of an ancient warrior. Perhaps this part of the hut was called “cool”, because when laid in place, it makes a “clap” sound. Ohlupni used to do without nails during construction.

Ochelie - this was the name of the most beautifully decorated part of the Russian women's headdress on the forehead (“on the forehead was also called the part of the window decoration - the upper part of the “forehead, forehead decoration” of the house. Ochelie - the upper part of the casing on the window.

Povet- hayloft, it was possible to drive here directly on a cart or on a sleigh. This room is located directly above the barnyard. Boats, fishing gear, hunting equipment, shoes, clothes were also stored here. Here they dried and repaired nets, crushed flax and did other work.

basement- the lower room under the living quarters. The basement was used for food storage and household needs.

Polaty- wooden flooring under the ceiling of a Russian hut. They settled between the wall and the Russian stove. It was possible to sleep on the floors, as the stove kept heat for a long time. If the heating stove was not heated, then vegetables were stored on the floors at that time.

Police- curly shelves for utensils above the benches in the hut.

Towel- a short vertical board at the junction of two berths, decorated with the symbol of the sun. Usually the towel repeated the pattern of the quilts.

Prichelina- boards on the wooden roof of the house, nailed to the ends above the gable (hut hut), protecting them from decay. The prichelins were decorated with carvings. The pattern consists of a geometric ornament. But there is also an ornament with grapes - a symbol of life and procreation.

Svetlitsa- one of the rooms in the choir (see "mansions") in the female half, in the upper part of the building, intended for needlework and other household activities.

canopy- the entrance cold room in the hut, usually the canopy was not heated. As well as the entrance room between the individual cells in the mansions. This is always a utility room for storage. Household utensils were stored here, there was a shop with buckets and pails, work clothes, rocker arms, sickles, scythes, rakes. They did their dirty housework in the hallway. The doors of all the rooms opened into the canopy. Canopy - protection from the cold. The front door opened, the cold let in into the vestibule, but remained in them, not reaching the living quarters.

Apron- sometimes "aprons" decorated with fine carvings were made on the houses from the side of the main facade. This is a wooden overhang that protects the house from rain.

barn- a place for livestock.

Mansions- a large residential wooden house, which consists of separate buildings, united by vestibules and passages. galleries. All parts of the choir were different in height - it turned out to be a very beautiful multi-tiered structure.

Utensils of a Russian hut

Tableware for cooking was stored in the stove and by the stove. These are boilers, pots for porridges, soups, clay patches for baking fish, cast-iron pans. Beautiful porcelain dishes were kept so that everyone could see them. She was a symbol of prosperity in the family. Festive dishes were kept in the upper room, and plates were displayed in the cupboard. Everyday utensils were kept in hanging cabinets. Dinner utensils consisted of a large clay or wood bowl, wooden spoons, a birch bark or copper salt shaker, and cups of kvass.

To store bread in a Russian hut, painted box, brightly colored, sunny, joyful. The painting of the box distinguished it from other things as a significant, important thing.

Drinking tea from samovar.

Sieve it was also used for sifting flour, and as a symbol of wealth and fertility, it was likened to the vault of heaven (the riddle “The sieve is covered with a sieve”, the answer is heaven and earth).

Salt- this is not only food, but also a talisman. Therefore, they served bread and salt to the guests as a greeting, a symbol of hospitality.

The most common was earthenware pot. Porridge and cabbage soup were prepared in pots. Shchi in a pot was well rebuked and became much tastier and richer. And even now, if we compare the taste of soup and porridge from the Russian oven and from the stove, we will immediately feel the difference in taste! Out of the oven - delicious!

Barrels, tubs, baskets were used for household needs in the house. They fried food in pans, as they do now. The dough was kneaded in wooden troughs and vats. Water was carried in buckets and jugs.

For good hosts, immediately after a meal, all the dishes were washed clean, dried and put upside down on the shelves.

Domostroy said this: "so that everything is always clean and ready for the table or for delivery."

To put the dishes in the oven and get them out of the oven, they needed grips. If you have the opportunity to try to put a full pot filled with food into the oven or take it out of the oven, you will understand how physically difficult this work is and how strong women used to be even without fitness :). For them, every movement was exercise and physical education. I'm serious 🙂 - I tried and appreciated how difficult it is to get a large pot of food for a large family with a tong!

Used for raking coal poker.

In the 19th century, clay pots were replaced by metal ones. They're called cast iron (from the word "cast iron").

Clay and metal pots were used for frying and baking. frying pans, patches, braziers, bowls.

furniture in our understanding of this word, there was almost no Russian hut. Furniture appeared much later, not so long ago. No wardrobes or chests of drawers. Clothes and shoes and other things were not stored in the hut.

The most valuable things in a peasant house - ceremonial utensils, festive clothes, dowries for daughters, money - were kept in chests. Chests were always with locks. The design of the chest could tell about the prosperity of its owner.

Russian hut decor

To paint a house (they used to say “bloom”) a master in painting could. Outlandish patterns were painted on a light background. These are the symbols of the sun - circles and semicircles, and crosses, and amazing plants and animals. The hut was also decorated with wood carvings. Women weaved and embroidered, knitted and decorated their home with their needlework.

Guess what tool was used to carve in a Russian hut? With an ax! And the painting of houses was done by "painters" - that was the name of the artists. They painted the facades of houses - pediments, architraves, porches, chapels. When white stoves appeared, they began to paint guardianships and partitions, lockers in the huts.

The decoration of the pediment of the roof of the northern Russian house is actually an image of the cosmos. Signs of the sun on the berths and on the towel - the image of the path of the sun - sunrise, sun at its zenith, sunset.

Very interesting an ornament that adorns the berths. Below the solar sign on the chapels, you can see several trapezoidal ledges - the paws of waterfowl. For the northerners, the sun rose from the water, and also set into the water, because there were many lakes and rivers around, and therefore waterfowl were depicted - the underwater-underground world. The ornament on the porches personified the seven-layer sky (remember the old expression - “to be in the seventh heaven with happiness”?).

In the first row of the prichelin ornament there are circles, sometimes connected with trapeziums. These are symbols of heavenly water - rain and snow. Another row of images from triangles is a layer of earth with seeds that will wake up and give a harvest. It turns out that the sun rises and moves across the seven-layer sky, one of the layers of which contains moisture reserves, and the other contains plant seeds. The sun at first does not shine at full strength, then it is at its zenith and at the end rolls down to start its journey through the sky again the next morning. One row of ornament does not repeat the other.

The same symbolic ornament can be found on the architraves of a Russian house and on the decoration of windows in central Russia. But the decor of the windows has its own characteristics. On the lower board of the casing there is an uneven relief of the hut (a plowed field). On the lower ends of the side boards of the casing there are heart-shaped images with a hole in the middle - a symbol of a seed immersed in the ground. That is, we see in the ornament a projection of the world with the most important attributes for the farmer - the earth sown with seeds and the sun.

Proverbs and sayings about the Russian hut and housekeeping

• Houses and walls help.
• Every house is kept by the owner. The house is being painted by the owner.
• What is it like at home - like this yourself.
• Make a barn, and there the cattle!
• Not according to the house of the master, but the house according to the master.
• It is not the owner's house that paints, but the owner the house.
• At home - not away: after sitting, you will not leave.
• A good wife will save the house, and a thin one will shake it with her sleeve.
• The mistress of the house is like pancakes in honey.
• Woe to him who lives in disorder in the house.
• If the hut is crooked, the hostess is bad.
• What is the builder - such is the abode.
• Our hostess has everything at work - and the dogs wash the dishes.
• Leading the house - do not weave bast shoes.
• In the house, the owner is more archiere
• Start a pet at home - do not open your mouth to walk.
• The house is small, but does not order to lie.
• Whatever is born in the field, everything in the house will come in handy.
• Not the owner, who does not know his economy.
• Prosperity is not maintained by the place, but by the owner.
• If you don’t manage the house, you can’t manage the city either.
• The village is rich, and the city is rich.
• A good head feeds a hundred hands.

Dear friends! I wanted to show in this hut not just the history of the Russian house, but also to learn from our ancestors, together with you, housekeeping - reasonable and beautiful, pleasing to the soul and eyes, living in harmony with nature and with your conscience. In addition, many points in relation to the house as the home of our ancestors are very important and relevant now for us, living in the 21st century.

The materials for this article were collected and studied by me for a very long time, checked in ethnographic sources. I also used materials from the stories of my grandmother, who shared with me her memories of the early years of her life in the northern village. And only now, during my vacation and my life - being in the countryside in nature, I finally completed this article. And I understood why I could not write it for so long: in the bustle of the capital in an ordinary panel house in the center of Moscow, under the roar of cars, it was too difficult for me to write about the harmonious world of the Russian house. And here, in nature, I completed this article very quickly and easily, from the bottom of my heart.

If you want to learn more about the Russian house, then below you will find a bibliography on this topic for adults and children.

I hope that this article will help you to tell about the Russian house in an interesting way during your summer trips to the village and to museums of Russian life, and also tell you how to look at illustrations for Russian fairy tales with your children.

Literature about the Russian hut

For adults

1. Baiburin A.K. Dwelling in the rituals and ideas of the Eastern Slavs. - L .: Nauka, 1983 (Institute of Ethnography named after N.N. Miklukho - Maclay)
2. Buzin V.S. Russian ethnography. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Publishing House, 2007
3. Permilovskaya A.B. Peasant house in the culture of the Russian North. - Arkhangelsk, 2005.
4. Russians. Series "Peoples and Cultures". - M.: Nauka, 2005. (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after N. N. Miklukho - Maclay RAS)
5. Sobolev A.A. The wisdom of the ancestors Russian yard, house, garden. - Arkhangelsk, 2005.
6. Sukhanova M.A. The house as a model of the world // House of man. Materials of the interuniversity conference - St. Petersburg, 1998.

For kids

1. Alexandrova L. Wooden architecture of Russia. – M.: Bely Gorod, 2004.
2. Zaruchevskaya E. B. About peasant mansions. Book for children. - M., 2014.

Russian hut: video

Video 1. Children's educational video tour: children's museum of rural life

Video 2. Film about the northern Russian hut (Museum of Kirov)

Video 3. How a Russian hut is built: a documentary for adults

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