The Day of the Russian Stove is celebrated on May 19. Such an unofficial holiday was invented for the main symbol of Slavic life. It is impossible to imagine a single peasant hut without this cozy home.

The main purpose of the Russian stove is cooking. They boiled, steamed, fried, baked, heated and "tormented" in it.

Russian bake was used to heat the room. The heating season began with the Feast of the Intercession (mid-October) and ended at the Annunciation (April-May).

The Russian stove was located almost in the center of the room and heated it evenly. The warmest place in the house was on the beds. Such a cozy couch warmed the chilled children, healed the sick, gave warmth to the livestock that were born in severe frosts. The stove was personified with a woman who gives life. In order to relieve a woman in labor, a shutter, doors, windows were opened in a peasant hut. The stove possessed healing power, it could turn “strangers” into “ours”, tk. entering the house and putting their hands on the stove, people were imbued with home warmth and kindness.

Thanks to the stove, they were treated not only with heat and fire, but also fumigating with smoke or inhaling steam. For inhalation, a red-hot brick with a depression was used, into which herbs were poured, exuding aromas. For compresses, coal powder mixed with grated potatoes was used. They brewed and drank guardianship (burnt clay) for fever. The Russian stove was often used as a bath. Until the middle of the 19th century, people washed and steamed in it, washed clothes.

She was a supplier of charcoal for boiling a samovar and ash for fertilizing vegetable gardens. Grain, herbs, mushrooms and other natural gifts were dried on the stove.

The Russian stove was an integral part of the entire culture of the people. The weather was predicted by the stove. Every observant owner knows what the sounds of the chimney portend: high and lingering - to a change in weather, low and gusty - to a lingering bad weather. The smoke coming from the chimney also served as a kind of meteorological signal: a column - to frost, creeping or spreading - to wind and rain, and in winter - to a thaw or a blizzard. The fire also promised what the day would be like tomorrow. If the flame is bright and the wood burns cheerfully with a slight crackle, then wait for clear weather.

The Russian stove was used for folk crafts. It was also a potter's forge, metal was melted in it for making household utensils and women's jewelry, and splinters were steamed to make fun for children.

Plots with a stove are reflected in folklore - in folk tales, sayings, riddles. For example, a warm bed raised such a hero as Ilya Muromets, was an ideal place of shelter for children ("Geese-Swans"), served as a unique means of transportation ("By the Pike's Command").

In detail

Close-up

The film "Kholop" had hardly finished its triumphant march through the cinemas when a kind of "Kholop-2" appeared on the screens - the film "On the Moon", filmed on the same topic only in a serious manner. The title suggests science fiction, but there is nothing fantastical in the film - except that it is unlikely that one of the rich will send their son to a remote place for correction.

Close-up

At the words “Russian stove” it becomes somehow immediately warm and cozy, old tales about Emelya, Baba Yaga, the hero Ilya Muromets are recalled ... The history of the Russian stove goes back more than a dozen centuries. The stove occupied the most important place in the house. She fed, and warmed, and treated, even washed in it. The stove played an important role in folk beliefs, ideas about time. Being a repository of fire, a home, the stove possessed healing and uniting energy, it could turn “strangers” into “friends”, because entering the house and putting their hands on the stove, people were imbued with home warmth and kindness. It was believed that a brownie, the patron saint of the house, lived behind the stove or in the furnace.

The stove was personified with a woman, giving life. To make it easier for a woman to give birth in a peasant hut, they opened the stove damper, doors, windows. Like an umbilical cord, a stove man was tied to the house from infancy to old age. Everyone liked to lie on the stove, but by right the place on the stove belonged to the elderly and children. The young were given instructions: "Feed your grandfather on the stove - you yourself will be there." Children climbed under the barrel of their grandmother or grandfather, listened to fairy tales, absorbed knowledge, developed imagination and poetic perception of the world. Women were engaged in household chores, handicrafts, men made or repaired something. In the old days, people who were healthy, but who loved to lie on the stove, were condemned, called them lazy stoves.

The Russian stove in the peasant hut was heated both in summer and in winter. The fire was lit with hot coals, which were kept and stored in a small depression (a hearth) under a layer of ash. They were given on loan with reluctance and only with the condition of obligatory return after kindling. The oven was irreplaceable: they cooked and fried food in it, baked bread and pies, heated water, dried food and clothes, predicted the weather, bewitched, and, of course, slept on it. Thanks to the stove, they were treated not only with heat and fire. But also, for example, smoke, fumigating the premises or inhaling it (inhalation). For inhalation, they used hot bricks with a depression into which herbs were poured, where they smoldered. Coal powder mixed with grated potatoes was used for compresses. They brewed and drank guardianship (burnt clay) for fever. They were treated with ashes, prepared medicines from herbs. They washed and steamed in the Russian stove almost until the middle of the 19th century. Now the stoves have changed, adapted to new conditions and requirements, but still remain popular in private homes. The food cooked in the oven can not be compared to anything - aromatic bread, stewed porridge or cabbage soup ... (The secret is to evenly distribute the heat and maintain a certain temperature.) And, of course, there is a craving for a sense of the connection between generations. Archaeologists claim that the prototype of the modern furnace appeared about 4 thousand years ago, it was then that a person guessed to place fire under an earthen vault.

From the known: in Ancient Russia, the hearths were smoked - without a chimney. Only in the 15th century - the Russian stove acquired the familiar look. Initially, chimneys, called chimneys, were made of wood in the form of a thick plank. It was warming well, but fires began to happen in the huts more and more often. In 1718, Peter I, being tired of allocating money for the restoration of burnt out huts and office premises, issued a decree prohibiting the construction of houses with chimney stoves and wooden chimneys in St. Petersburg. In 1722, the decree was extended to wooden Moscow.

Brick factories have said a new word in the construction of furnaces. Throughout Russia, not only stoves, but also chimneys - chimneys began to be laid out with bricks. Among the nobility, it became fashionable to decorate the Russian stove with painted Dutch tiles. Such stoves, which were called "Dutch women" in the common people, can now be seen in museums, for example, in the Kuskovo park in Moscow. For two centuries (17-19) Russian stove-makers were highly valued in Europe as well. History keeps the names of outstanding masters of stove art: Martyn Vasiliev, Ermolai Ivanov, Ivan Stepanov and others.

In the middle of the 18th century, science comes to the aid of folk craftsmen - stove-makers. Tk, for example, the Russian architect Lvov laid the foundations for the design of stoves and stove heating systems. And the builder and architect Sviyazev invented original fireboxes and stoves, in his work "Theoretical Foundations of Stove Art" he gave a method of calculating gas channels and chimney cross-sections. Great attention was paid to the study and improvement of the art of stove. Stove heating in Russia was used by everyone - from the most seedy peasant hut to the Kremlin chambers. During the last reconstruction of the Moscow Krem, directly the Faceted Chamber, a complex heating system was discovered that was in operation at the end of the 15th century.

• to familiarize students with the origins of the culture of the Russian people, everyday life, customs and traditions;
• instill an interest in folk art, its beauty and harmony, foster a sense of beauty;
• replenish the vocabulary of students, enrich with new knowledge.

Equipment, decoration, props:

• the interior of an old Russian hut;
• Russian folk costumes;
• musical accompaniment (recordings of Russian folk songs).

Characters:

• presenter (teacher);
• Marfa Petrovna (grandmother);
• stove-maker;
• granddaughters;
• two brownies (dolls can be used).

A folk song sounds, Marfa Petrovna receives guests.

Marfa Petrovna:

We are glad to see you at the stove.
Without her, the house is empty,
In it and fry, in it and soar,
And in winter with her like in spring.
In the old days they said so:
“The oven is our dear mother to all,
The whole summer is red on the stove,
I sleep and eat by the stove. ”

We began to forget that the main thing in the house is the stove. The frost will crackle, the wind will blow in the chimney, and it is warm and cozy on the stove.

The oven is part of our culture. The old must be known and protected.

Host: The stove fire has an ancient origin - the words “cave” and “stove” have one root. For a long time, the stove symbolized, first of all, the home. On his past - a reflection of a living, kind, giving hope fire. In desolate places and on cold ashes, life always began with bonfires and stoves.

The hearth, which was for the primitive man the first oven that warmed him and prepared food for him, he valued most of all. It was around the hearth that people began to build a roof, erect walls, and then doors - in a word, build a house. And when the first utensils appeared in the house, the hearth, divorced on the floor, ceased to suit the person. He built a separate house for him with windows and a door. This is how the oven turned out.

The first ovens were built from clay and cobblestone. They did not have a chimney or chimney, the smoke went straight into the house (chicken hut). Only, by the beginning of our era, stoves and fireplaces with chimneys appeared.

Stoves and fireplaces are a European invention, and in Russia from time immemorial they put large stoves, in a half-hut (Appendix I).

Marfa Petrovna: In Russia they said: “A hut without a Russian stove, that a man without a soul, such a hut smells like a deserted one, makes me sad. And as soon as the stove is folded down and flooded, the hut immediately comes to life ”.

Host: The fire in the Russian stove is an unforgettable sight: large families gathered around it to twilight. Some are asleep, some are telling the story, and everyone looks at the dying coals as a shimmering treasure. And someone climbed onto the bed, where it was especially good, it smelled of warm bricks and bread smoke.

Cooking in a Russian oven, the dishes were distinguished by their special taste and aroma. The Russian stove determined the methods of cooking geese, ducks, chickens, piglets, they are fried with carcasses. And what kind of pies the oven gives us, the most ruddy!

The layout of the hut was traditional until the beginning of the twentieth century. (Appendix I)... The stove was placed against the back wall, in the right or left corner, with its forehead turned towards the window. The whole family slept on the stove. Under the ceiling, between the stove and the wall, they arranged polati - plank bunks, used for sleeping and storing things.

Marfa Petrovna: The place opposite the oven was called bake. It was intended for cooking and was often separated by a curtain. The hostess always put stove utensils by the stove: a poker, a shovel for raking out coal (“sweepers”), and of course a grab. It was believed that grips and pokers had to be put at night, and not put, so that they could rest and serve a caring hostess longer. There was a belief that when, during a rainstorm and hail, the owner throws a shovel and a poker out of the hut, and it falls crosswise, then the hail will pass by.

Host: To prepare food for a person, first of all, one had to feed the stove fire. This was not easy at times because the fire could be capricious. If, during the heating, the top log rolled down and was ready to fall out of the stove, or the wood-burning hut suddenly collapsed for no reason, then the arrival of guests was to be expected.

The guest must appear exactly on that day, if the hostess was putting firewood into the stove, and at the same time one log fell to the floor.

Marfa Petrovna: It was believed that if a dog lies down on a rebuilt and in the first days of a heated stove, or a person who is walking around gets warm, then the stove will serve properly until the end of the service.

Granddaughter: Mom always lit a fire with a prayer so as not to anger the barely kindled flame. If the fire flared up badly, this meant that the brownie was angry with the owners for something. By the color and behavior of the stove fire, my mother determined the weather and various events: a red flame that crackled, a pillar of smoke predicted frosty weather, and firewood that smoked and did not ignite for a long time, and smoke that spread - was preceded by a thaw, snow.

Marfa Petrovna: There is a belief that Pechkin's guys live in the chimney - they are mysterious little people, grimy, like little gypsies who live in the chimney. They come out of the chimney at night when everyone is asleep. If the moon is shining, they sit on the roof, and in cloudy weather they go down to the hut, run on the floor, climb onto shelves, into cabinets. They like to hide small things: buttons, spools of thread, matches, ribbons, combs. And then you have to look, looking in all corners and say: "Pechkin guys, play and give it back!" And, indeed, you will find things in the most unexpected place: a spool of thread on a shelf among the dishes ...

Host: Guys, who of you knows how the saying “to dance from the stove” appeared?

Initially, not only people were amused by dancing by the fire, but, as it was believed, the inhabitants of heaven. People believed that Saints Basil and Melania were dancing on it and tried not to sleep on the stove on New Year's Eve.

Granddaughter: Grandma, tell the guys about the signs.

Marfa Petrovna: Oh, there are many of them. If milk ran out in the oven, then salt was sprinkled on this place so that the udder of the cow would not crack.

A spark that jumped out of the stove, or an ember that fell to the floor, meant that the guests were already near the doorstep.

Before the owner set out to search for the lost cattle, he shouted into the trumpet, hoping that his voice would reach the distant pastures.

Women gave birth, it happened on the stove, since there were only benches and a table in the house. And in order for the child to grow up healthy, and no one could offend him, after the baptism, the godmother pulled a coal out of the stove, walked with him to the intersection and threw it over herself. And in the future, the oven played a big role in the life of the baby, especially if the child was not in good health.

Host: "Baking a child" was a ceremony that was performed over a sick rickets. The baby was placed on a bread shovel and thrust into a warm oven three times.

It was also believed that one should not throw hair into a flooded stove, it was also considered a sin to throw shells from Easter eggs into the stove, because parents in the next world would be very offended.

Marfa Petrovna: My father was a stove-maker. He laid out a Russian stove in our house. People from all the surrounding villages came to him, suspicious and suspicious tried to appease before work, since the work of stove-makers was surrounded by many legends, rumors, and fables.

This craft was appreciated. The stove-maker did not know where to plant, how to treat him, people from a dozen miles away came to him to bow.

Pechnik: We have a lot of secrets on how to put a good stove. Work often began on the new moon. Experienced people said that in this case, the stove will retain heat for a long time in all its parts. For the first time, the new stove was heated in the presence of the master with wheat straw, with several twigs of consecrated willow being inserted into it. The hearth revived and acquired a soul.

Host: During the Great Patriotic War, Russian stoves were simply not replaceable, because it was necessary to dry a lot of grain at once for the people who defended our homeland. The villagers freed the beds, took the bread to dry with joy, although they knew that in the morning it would be taken to the front. But bread dried in Russian ovens was a sign of love for those who did not spare their strength at the front: fathers, husbands, brothers, sons.

Marfa Petrovna: It used to happen that flies were going to work, and when I saw him off, I opened the damper in the stove and threw the door wide open. The custom was such that the warmth of his home would warm him on the way, and he would return alive. And the door in the house is open, which means that the house is waiting for him.

When I was little, I liked to watch how the stove was heated. The wood in the stove crackles, and from time to time small golden coals fly to the pole. And my mother constantly talked about Chura stove. Supposedly there is such an oven spirit - Chur - a little old man with a shaggy beard made of smoke. This is how it is invisible, but sometimes it is shown to people. And if you show him his tongue, then he will go to another house, and then even though a swamp, even if not a stove, everything will be cold.

Granddaughter: Grandma, tell the guys a story.

Marfa Petrovna: “We met two brownies who lived in neighboring yards.

“I have a caring hostess,” one boasted, “she will always whitewash the stove on time, and clean the soot from the chimney, and sweep the pole with a clean birch broom, not dropping a single coal.
– And I have such a slob, - complains the second, - the whole stove is clogged with ash, she is too lazy to endure. But this is not so bad. And here's how to start a scandal - from her words so everything and twists me, like a bundle of straw. I'll burn her house down tonight.
– Just be careful not to burn the sieve, - says the first one, - your hostess took it from mine yesterday, to sow flour ... At night, the woman's house, a slob, burned down the whole house, but the sieve remained intact, not even smoked. "

Granddaughter: Grandma, what wedding customs were there before?

Marfa Petrovna: When the matchmakers came, the girl hid in a corner behind the stove - this was considered a sign of modesty and the ability to behave. And the messengers of the groom, in order for the matchmaking to succeed, brought pieces of oven clay with them in their pockets. After the wedding, when the wife came to her husband's hut, a stove fire was transferred from her former home.

There was also such a custom: when she got to her husband's house, a young wife threw a chicken into the oven, which her mother gave her, so that she could live in harmony with her mother-in-law. The stove stood guard over the marriage morality. Widows and spinsters who condemned themselves to a celibate life were not supposed to lie on the stove. This was considered a great sin, because the oven is the “second husband”.

And there was also a custom: in the fall, before the Intercession, the villagers insulated the hut, piling brushwood and dry corn stalks along the walls. They said: "Pokrov, Pokrov, heat the hut without firewood"! On the eve of the Intercession, they “dried up the hut” - starting to heat the stove, they performed some “wood-burning” rituals.

Host: Until the beginning of the twentieth century, two types of stoves were laid in our area:

- Dutch (indoor), different types and devices. It was meant for warmth and acne;
– Russian stove (brick or broken). In addition to heat, it was possible to cook food, bake bread, brew beer, jelly in it.

Stove maker: The device of the stove consists of two parts: the Russian stove and the underfloor. The Russian stove feeds, and the flood heats (Appendix IV).

Furnace construction is not an easy task ( Appendix II, Appendix V). First you need to find clay, and unusual, red, but yellowish, with sand. It has a special viscosity. Even with bricks, it is not easy to fold a stove, but a Russian stove must be molded from a completely shapeless clay mass, which cannot harden from water, like cement, but cracks from the intense heat. How to deal with it and how to make a vault? Just on under and the chimney is given a few dozen bricks. Therefore, the search for kiln clay begins in old pits, from where we usually take clay. The suitability of the clay is determined by crushing it in your fingers.

After the clay is dug up and brought home, it needs to be made viscous and homogeneous, like dough, and for this, wooden beaters are harvested - checkmari: cut knot birch so that each sawdust was his derzhak... It turns out huge wooden hammers with hewn tops, with which you need to beat the clay.

For the most complex construction in the furnace - circled, you need to saw the boards, collect the perch, suitable logs.

Before proceeding with the construction of the main furnace, it is done guardians... Then the work becomes more and more responsible, thinner - the master begins to lay out from the boards circled- that very place, that emptiness that will later become the arch of the furnace. To fix the circle, make a wooden support. Then the circle is coated. Before our eyes, a heavy bulk rises, already reminiscent of a stove, it promises warmth and goodness. But the oven is not ready yet, no chela nor pechurkov, where they put all sorts of things in the house. It is too early to cut through them.

They made the stove - joy in the house. How much it is to be able to craft, to know your craft well.

After folded shroud and will bring the pipe to the roof, fine work begins. In the place where the pole sticking out of the oven, which marked the circle, was cut out a brow. Having selected the dried clay, they take out that decisive log that held the entire wooden cage, and open furnace roof... Excellent, conscientiously made vault! Now you can cut out the stove too. It should look nice and smooth.

Marfa Petrovna: After two weeks, the oven should be heated and whitewashed, so that it becomes an affectionate, good-natured, real oven that will warm children, cook food, and bake potatoes and pies.

Stove-maker: In houses with prosperity, stoves were decorated with stove tiles ( Appendix VI, Appendix VII), and also decorated flaps and oven doors ( Appendix V).

Host: Thank you, hosts, for an interesting story.

Guys, we invite you to play and remember what new you learned today (Appendix VIII).

The class is divided into 2-3 groups (teams). Each team completes the task.

Task 1. You need to fill out a crossword puzzle.

Host: I will ask riddles, and you will enter the answers into the crossword puzzle.

Horizontally:

2. Below the top, above the stove - heats the shoulders. (Polati)
3. And small, and evil, a little candle, and sometimes I fall so much that I bring a lot of grief. (Spark)
4. I was on the treadmill, I was on the circle, I was in the fire, I came home - I fed my family. (Clay pot)
9. What kind of beast: in winter it eats, and in summer it sleeps, it is warm, but there is no blood. You will sit on it, but you will not be able to take it from your seat? (Bake)
10. A variety of stoves used on the territory of Russia. (Russian)

Vertically:

1. Varvara climbed above the barn: she does not eat, does not drink, everything looks at the sky. (Pipe)
5. Without arms, without legs - crawling uphill. (Fire)
6. We have a bear's foot under the bench. (Log)
7. Horn, but not a bull, enough, but not full, gives to people, and he goes to rest. (Grip)
8. The black horse jumps into the fire. (Poker)
9. Who builds a house not for dwelling, but for logs and coal, so that the fire would be in it later, the food would cook and warm the whole house (roof). (Stove-maker)
11. What were the stoves decorated with? (Tiles).

Task 2.

Syllables (letters) are written on the cards - pots. Teams need to compose a word and explain what it means. (For example: tile, spark, log, polati, pipe, coals, fire, grapple, utensils, poker, pot, stove, stove, smoke, etc.)

Task 3.

A. Teams are encouraged to decorate the stove with stove tiles (Draw a tile).
B. The team is invited to depict the Russian way of life (the interior of a peasant hut). (Appendix III).

Bibliography:

1. Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Ch. ed. B.A.Vvedensky... second edition. State Scientific Publishing House "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" 1955.
2. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language V. I. Dahl. Compiled by N. V. Shakhmatova and others. SPb .: Publishing House "all", 2004.
3. V.V. Parshin Treasury of the Kaluga Region: History.– Kaluga: Golden Alley, 2005.
4. I get to know the world: Children's encyclopedia: History of things. - M.: LLC Firm “Publishing House AST”, CJSC “Publishing House“ Family Library ”, 1998.
5. Borovsk Territory in the history of Russia. Part 1. Borovsk region from ancient times to the end of the 17th century. Edition 2e, revised. Textbook for teachers of 8-10 grades of schools in Borovsky district of Kaluga region. Compiled by V. I. Osipov. 2004.
6. Borovsk: pages of history. Historical and local history collection. Chief editor V.I. Osipov. The founders of the Museum of History and Local Lore. Culture Fund of the Borovskiy District MO. No. 3 2001.
7. Some of the information was collected in 2006 in the course of local history research work: a meeting with masters and old residents of the city of Balabanov.

The Russian stove is an integral part of the culture of the Russian people. The weather was predicted by the stove; herbs, mushrooms and berries were dried on it; steamed in the stove (yes, the Russian stove was also a bathhouse); they used to guess and bewitched, the matchmakers followed the bride with a poker and a broomstick, they were born and died on the stove. Plots with a stove often appear in folklore - in folk tales, sayings, riddles. The positive characters in fairy tales often like to sit or lie on the stove. Ilya Muromets spent 33 years of his life on it before he got up and became a hero - a people's defender and hero. Emelya, not wanting to leave the cozy couch, went to the stove even into the forest for firewood. Now everyone says that Emelya is the image of a Russian lazy person. But then now everyone in Europe and America is terrible lazy people, as they even go to the bakery in cars. Emelya's stove is a prototype of today's Mercedes. The elderly Baba Yaga also shows great love for the stove.

The stove was endowed with human features, for example, the ability to speak. In the Russian folk tale "Geese-Swans", a girl, in search of her missing brother, stumbles upon a stove in an open field and asks her for advice. The stove first invites her to taste the pies and tells her where the swan-geese carried her brother, and later, on the way back, the stove hides the girl from the chase. Or maybe, indeed, in the dashing times during the forays of enemies, Russian women hid their children in the stove?

Emelya lies on the stove on the ninth brick.

At first, Russian stoves were fired in a black way, which is why the huts were called chickens.
The smoke from the stove entered the hut, here it gave off its heat and, already fairly cooled, went out into the street through a special drag window in the wall under the ceiling. In the XIV century, stoves in poultry huts began to be built with a wooden chimney - a chimney. Smoke boxes were made of thick boards, but they did not move away from the stove, but at a fairly large distance from it. Through such a plank chimney, the smoke was discharged into the street, already quite cooled.

But already in Ancient Russia in the X century. there were Russian brick ovens with a brick chimney. And the age of the black oven, in all likelihood, is several thousand years old.
Furnaces with a pipe in Russia began to be made when they mastered the manufacture of bricks. But people did not immediately abandon black ovens. A stove with a chimney and a chimney is less economical, it requires more firewood, since the heat with hot smoke goes, as they say, into the chimney - to heat the streets. In addition, the hut is not disinfected, and sparks from the chimney on the roof are very dangerous, especially in windy weather. Roofs used to be often covered with thatch, shingles, and in dry weather this material could be ignited by the slightest spark.

Modern people think that if you heat in black, then all the walls will be smoked, and the tenants of such a hut will walk around smeared with soot, like the Cinderella from Andersen's fairy tale. Ethnographers who described such huts in Russia invariably were surprised to find that the walls in the chicken huts were light, and only the ceiling and walls were smoked down from it along a straight line by 20-30 cm. You just had to be able to choose the right firewood and observe the regime burning them in the oven. To avoid soot and soot, the type of trees was carefully chosen, and firewood was procured and stored. Dry pine, aspen or alder were used for kindling. And when the wood in the stove is well heated, spruce and birch logs were added.

Soot accumulated only at the upper lintel of the hut or near a special "top" (the so-called drag window, that is, a gap made in the wall in the diameter of a log, which, when the stove was not heated, was closed by a shutter - a covering).

Russian stove in black. For hundreds of years, our ancestors heated their homes with such stoves. Today it is almost impossible to find such a stove outside of a museum.

In 1718, Peter I issued a decree prohibiting the construction of houses in St. Petersburg with chimney stoves and wooden chimneys, and in 1722 this decree extended to Moscow. Consequently, until that time, Russians heated their homes in a black way, even in the capitals. Russia began to imitate Western Europe, everything of its own began to laugh, to seem bad and primitive. Peter I forgot that the climate in Russia is not at all the same as in Holland or England. After this his decree, the number of colds in St. Petersburg increased sharply. And pulmonary tuberculosis for residents of St. Petersburg has become a widespread disease. But villages and villages, thank God, the decree of Peter I did not touch, and there in the northern villages they continued to make stoves in black until the twentieth century

Russian stove in white
At first, Russian stoves in white appeared in the homes of the rich - boyars and princes, but by the 17th century they were widely spread among the middle class. The main center of the art of stove and the training of masters of stove affairs in the period from the time of the creation of the Russian state to the second half of the 17th century. there were the cities of Vladimir and Moscow. Here, progressive designs and new architectural forms of heating stoves were born, a technology for the manufacture of stove tiles was developed, brick factories and iron foundries were built that manufactured stove devices - latches, doors, grips, etc. In the 18th century, brick production became widespread, at this time many churches were erected in cities and villages. But the Russians were in no hurry to abandon wood as a building material. The huts were built of logs by both the rich and the poor. In housing construction, if brick was used, then the first non-residential floor was made of it, and the second wooden floor was the residential floor. For a long time, stone and wooden churches coexisted in the same village next to each other. The stone cold church was summer, and the wooden one was warm in winter.

An adobe Russian stove in white. Photos from the site: http://sontucio.livejournal.com

The Russian stove is a truly ingenious invention. Its simplicity, efficiency and versatility are striking at the same time - three in one, as they say today.

They cooked food in the Russian oven: they boiled, steamed, fried, baked and "tormented". For cooking, they used pots, pots, bowls, goose pans, cast iron pots, pans, baking sheets. And to put something in the oven and take out of it, they used grips, frying pans (herons), wooden shovels. An obligatory attribute near the stove were: a stick or a poker, a container for extinguishing and storing charcoal, which was raked out of the stove at the end of the firebox. Utensils used to be made of clay, but then for the most part they used metal pots made of cast iron - cast iron, however, clay bowls and pots were also used. At the oven, in addition to 3 grabs and a frying pan, there were 2 more pokers for mixing coals and raking out ash, a metal scoop - to rake out coals. In addition to heating and cooking food, the stove produced charcoal for boiling the samovar and ash, which was used to wash clothes when there was no soap, and to fertilize vegetable gardens. The ash was put into a special container in the yard - an ash pan. In the villages, neither coal nor ash was ever thrown on the road. Therefore, the snow in the village was clear until spring. Not like in cities today!

Russian stove in action. Dry firewood burns together. Smoke comes out through the mouth. They cook in cast iron pots: in one potatoes, in the other, presumably, cabbage soup or borscht.

The Russian oven is multifunctional: it heats the house, cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner in it, bakes pancakes, pancakes, bread and pies, prepares feed (swill) for livestock, and heats water. Grain, herbs, mushrooms and other gifts of the forest and vegetable garden are dried on it. In severe frosts, newborn pets are warmed near the stove. On the stove they are treated for colds. There is no warmer bed than on the stove or on the beds near the Russian stove.

Food was cooked in the oven, and it turned out to be amazingly tasty and nutritious. The secret lies in the fact that the heat of the oven is evenly distributed, and the temperature does not change for a long time. Dishes with food do not have direct contact with fire, allowing the contents to warm up evenly from all sides, without burning. In addition, mushrooms, berries, and fish were dried in the oven. On the stove itself, the constantly freezing old people slept, and children slept on the golbts and beds attached to the side. From those times, a saying that is incomprehensible to a modern person has remained: "Did you fall from the stove or something?" So they say about a person who began to speak nonsense or behave inappropriately. Indeed, falling off the stove was very, very painful, and even falling in a dream: inevitably you will become inadequate. Therefore, along the edge of the stove, good owners made barriers and fences from slats or boards so that people would not fall from the stove.

Baked milk with real foam can only be cooked in a Russian oven in a clay pot.

Very tasty pies were baked in the Russian oven: open, like this one, or closed, when the filling was placed inside the pie. Pies were not baked with anything: with cottage cheese, with an egg, with cranberries, with raspberries, with potatoes, with cabbage, with fish ...

The bread is baked in the oven, you can take it out.

The porridges and casseroles cooked in the Russian oven are delicious. One crispy crust is worth something!

Probably, having seen such a scene, someone jokingly said: "And then - soup with a cat." I liked the saying so much that it is still used.

The Russian stove was located almost in the center of the hut and warmed it up evenly.
There was a compulsory sunbed on the stove. The dimensions of the Russian stove were such that two adults were completely seated on the lounger. The saying was: "Come look for me, I'll sleep on the stove." Next to the stove, a golbets was traditionally built - a plank bed next to the stove, but slightly lower than the stove bed. If it became too hot to lie on the stove, it was possible to climb onto the golbets. Inside the golbets, like in a closet, household utensils were kept. In addition, through the golbets there was an entrance to the underground. A person, without bending, could go through the golbets into the underground, where potatoes, vegetables, pickles and preserves were stored.

When it got hot on the stove, you could climb onto the bed. In the villages, there was such a ditty-joke in the old days: "I slept on the stove, I got up on all fours, I moved on to the floor, I found Manka a redhead."

While the stove in the house was heated, its owners were also alive. The oven cooled down only with the death of the whole family. Even during a fire, when the house burned down, the Russian stove on its foundation stood for a long time among other houses in the village. Probably, a fabulous girl Masha came across such a careless stove on the site of a burned down house - in the ashes - in search of her brother Ivanushka.

The concepts of reliability, protection, solidity were associated with the stove in the minds. The children, frightened by the thunderstorm, huddled closer to the stove.
She was the core of the house, the hearth of home, giving well-being, satiety, warmth.