The simplicity and naturalness inherent in the Russian style are increasingly beginning to be embodied in the interior of houses and apartments. Most expect to see in such a room exclusively folk art items and some modern technology. Forget about the huge amount of modern technology, wooden furniture will look great and complement the room, but these are not the only components.

Russian style is increasingly being used in the interior of houses

Most people prefer this style because of its simplicity and folk style.

There should be a minimum of modern furniture in this style

It is unrealistic to make a completely Russian hut in an apartment. Externally there can be no talk of this; inside there will only be some kind of stylization. Apartment owners will be able to add some directional features; many stop there. They decide to waste time on completely stylizing their home.

This is suitable for a log house in the interior. In this type of housing it is appropriate to place familiar elements. No one forbids using it in the interior of a wooden house; the inside will look quite harmonious.

Russian style is more suitable for wooden houses

Russian style in the bedroom interior will look very harmonious

What features does it have?

Each direction has its own characteristics in the interior, in which this direction surpasses almost all. The main features are naturalness and comfort. The following properties help it stand out:

Peculiarity	More details
Naturalness	Most people love it for its closeness to nature and the use of natural materials. Various types of wood look beautiful in natural colors or painted. Use stone and natural textiles. Completely free of polyvinyl chloride or plastic, the room, decorated in Russian style, is considered completely environmentally friendly.
Minimal processing	Keep every detail to a minimum level. This allows you to appear before a practical person in its original form. This processing method preserves the texture of the Russian style in the interior.
Availability of handmade accessories	In the form of a “Russian hut”, accessories can highlight a home, making it special. These include wooden kitchen utensils, tablecloths and other household items used in those days. Just note that all accessories must be in harmony, otherwise it will just be a set of parts.
Color spectrum	It deserves special attention; it allows you to distinguish your premises from others. Correctly selected colors will help to properly hide equipment that is not welcome in the Russian style. For example, you can decorate a house according to the “princely mansion” principle, using rich colors. If you want to create cozy apartment look like a “Russian hut”, you should not use bright colors, red and white are enough.
Exclusively wooden furniture	One of the main features of the style. Additionally, you can apply carvings to regular furniture.

The main advantage is its versatility: it looks equally good both in the interior of a country house and a small apartment. The use of wood and other natural materials allows a person to become closer to nature, even in a noisy metropolis. In this style you can find several directions at once, so it is quite difficult to single out a single concept.

In Russian style, only natural materials are used

Correctly chosen colors can hide modern technology

What varieties are known?

It has one important feature - the presence of three directions. Some of them will look ridiculous even in a typical home with this atmosphere. That is why when working with a room, take into account the nuances of each of them. Each has its own characteristics in the Russian style in the interior, which are worth considering in more detail.

Russian hut

It is quite difficult to decorate an apartment in this direction; the overall appearance will look ridiculous, so it is ideal for country houses. It doesn’t matter at all whether you live in this house permanently or come to take a break from the noisy city. Basic principle: minimum technology – maximum natural materials. A house of this type should be a continuation of nature.

Russian style in the interior cannot do without wood; here it is the basis of everything. Boards with an aged effect will look great. Instead of plastic windows, install wooden frames with swing shutters. If you absolutely do not want to give up plastic windows, style them as wood.

The basis of the Russian style is a minimum of modern technology and a maximum of natural materials

Wood is the basis of Russian style

It was customary to welcome guests in the hut and eat food in the upper room. In the modern world, it serves simultaneously for eating and relaxing. This explains the fact that it was the upper room that was always the brightest and spacious room. In this place there should be a large stove, which will find a place even in a modern design, a table and a corner with icons. The oven is used immediately for cooking food, storing basic utensils and beautiful design kitchen and dining room. It looks great in the style of a Russian mansion.

It is worth paying special attention to the bedroom and the main element – ​​the bed. It needs to be decorated duvets, many small pillows and a huge amount of textiles. In the Russian style, they used to actively sew from scraps; nowadays this technique is called patchwork. Now this technology is used in Russia in many other areas and by residents from other countries. This makes shopping for a colorful blanket easier.

It is advisable to decorate the bed with pillows and bedspreads

The upper room must have a stove or fireplace

People's Tower

This Russian style in the interior is worth using if you love luxury and wealth. Patterns of the brightest colors, chests with all the riches and other pieces of furniture characteristic of the nobility and in the general style of Russian Rococo - these elements must be placed in your home if you decide to decorate it in the “terem” direction. The nobles lived in their own world, which is why they were characterized by special style features with their own decorative elements.

This direction is closest to modern types of design. The walls are decorated in Russian style various types fabrics or some types of wallpaper. The floors are covered with parquet and covered with beautiful and luxurious carpets. If rough furniture is used in a country house, here you can freely place armchairs and sofas in the house.

Important! If you are installing armchairs, the upholstery must be chosen only from high-quality fabric in the style of a Russian mansion. It's worth spending a little to buy quality fabric, but it looks very beautiful and complements the atmosphere of the room.

For good lighting, buy a large crystal chandelier. Please note: it is necessary to buy large chandeliers; in those days they were considered an indicator of a certain status of the owner of the house. In this case, metal elements are imitated into gold. It is recommended to decorate the rooms with brocade.

Icons and towels were often hung on the walls

In Russian style you need to use only natural materials

A la russe

This Russian style in the interior most accurately reflects national motifs. This explains the incredible popularity of “a la russe” in other countries of the world. When arranging your home, use nesting dolls, balalaikas, samovars and other attributes loved by tourists. One of the most controversial trends: some consider it vulgar to decorate a room in this way, others happily use folk motifs.

Important! Use only those things that have practical value, otherwise your home will turn into Plyushkin’s house.

In the Russian style, many people use the ornament separately or only as accessories. Even in the modern world, there must be painted dishes in the house, from which it will be pleasant to eat yourself and treat guests. At that time, it was popular to decorate porcelain dinner sets with paintings in floral motifs. This tradition has not gone away over time, so you can use this technique both on holidays and in everyday life.

This Russian style in the interior most accurately reflects national motifs

Use only things that have value

In the Russian style, many people use the ornament separately or only as accessories.

A crazy bright and effective element in the interior of this trend can certainly be called lace. The first lace sparkled incredibly, because it was woven from gold and silver threads. Nowadays it is quite difficult to find such lace. If you still want to purchase this particular option, buy Vologda lace. Don't be afraid to use napkins, tablecloths and curtains to serve as luxurious accessories in your home.

Before you start decorating, think carefully about the design.

Lace was often used in Russian style

Proper creation of room design

The design is divided into separate stages: windows, doors, furniture, accessories, lighting and so on. Before starting work, think over the design, then proceed to decorating the room in the Russian style.

Basic moments

It is often used in wooden houses, so there is no need to waste time on finishing the walls. It is better to put matte on the floor massive board. The effect of aging is often used, but it has become so boring that it is better to do without it. In those days, the heart of the house was the stove, which many people now abandon. Remember that a hearth is necessary in any case, but it does not have to be a stove. In the “Russian hut” part, a beautiful fireplace, the portal of which can be decorated with brick, is quite enough.

You can put handmade pots on the table

The stove is the main interior accessory in the Russian style

Russian style in the interior looks very beautiful and harmonious

Doors and windows

In Russian style there should not be plastic double glazed windows. Use windows with wooden frames, which can be complemented with wooden shutters. Also install doors made of wood, especially in private houses. Previously, curtains were used in many rooms instead of doors, keep this point in mind.

Which furniture to choose?

Furniture should be chosen that is similar to the times when the direction was just beginning; to do this, it must be aged. Cabinets and shelves should be decorated with carvings: they are welcomed in the Russian style and look impressive. The dining room has a massive table and fairly simple chairs that do not stand out as particularly luxurious.

Choose high beds. Instead of the usual cabinets installed near the bed, use stylized chests. There should be a lot of pillows in the Russian style: they are stacked, starting with the largest and ending with the smallest. The color should be close to natural, leather furniture Naturally it is not used.

Decorating a house in the Russian style is not so difficult. If you follow the recommendations, the end result will be amazing.

The dining room has a massive table and fairly simple chairs that do not stand out as particularly luxurious.

How to decorate a kitchen?

In the kitchen you need to put household appliances. The built-in one is ideal because it maintains comfort without compromising the integrity of the picture. In the direction of the “Russian hut”, it is better to use massive furniture in the kitchen, but not painted. For example, a cabinet with convenient drawers, hanging shelves and other similar kitchen furniture.

Video: Russian style in the interior. Style Features

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

“Oh, what mansions!” - this is how we often talk now about spacious new apartment or dacha. We speak without thinking about the meaning of this word. After all, a mansion is 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 built?

In this article:

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

Russian hut

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

“Russian North! It is difficult for me to express in words my admiration, my admiration for this region. When, as a boy of thirteen, I first drove along the Barents and White seas, along the Northern Dvina, visited the Pomors, in peasant huts, listened to songs and fairy tales, looked at these extraordinarily beautiful people who behaved 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 receiving so much satisfaction from this work... In the Russian North there is the most amazing combination of present and past, modernity and history, watercolor lyricism of water, earth, sky, the formidable power of stone , storms, cold, snow and air" (D.S. Likhachev. Russian culture. - M., 2000. - P. 409-410).

Where were huts built before?

The favorite place to build a village and build Russian huts was the bank of a river or lake. The peasants were also guided by practicality - proximity to the river and boat as a means of transportation, but also by aesthetic reasons. From the windows of the hut standing on high place, there was a beautiful view of the lake, forests, meadows, fields, as well as of your own yard with barns, and of a bathhouse near the river.

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 beautiful picture unity of man and nature, fit organically into the surrounding landscape. At the highest place they usually built a church and a bell tower in the center of the village.

The house was built thoroughly, “to last for centuries”; the place for it was chosen to be quite high, 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 had good access and access, and the windows were turned “towards the summer” - to 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 the 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 was protected from the wind gardening part of the site.

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 the rows of houses were placed in a checkerboard pattern relative to each other. All the houses on the streets of the village “looked” in one direction - towards the sun, towards the river. From the window one could see sunrises and sunsets, the movement of ships along the river.

A safe place to build a hut it was considered a place where cattle lay 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 swamps or near them; these places were considered “chill”, and the crops there 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. It was placed in a clay pot. And they left it overnight at the site of the future home. The result was considered positive if the wool became damp by morning. This means the house will be rich.

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

They started cutting 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 the waning Moon, it will quickly rot, which is why there was such a ban. There were also more stringent daily regulations. Timber harvesting began from winter Nikola on December 19th. The best time The months for harvesting trees were December - January, after the first frosts, when excess moisture leaves the trunk. They did not cut down dry trees or trees with growths for the house, trees that fell to the north when felled. These beliefs applied specifically to trees; other materials were not subject to such standards.

They did not build houses on the sites of houses burned by lightning. It was believed that Elijah the prophet used lightning to strike places of evil spirits. They also did not build houses where there had previously been a bathhouse, where someone had been injured with an ax or a knife, where human bones had been found, where there had previously been a bathhouse or where a road had previously passed, where some misfortune had occurred, for example, a flood.

Attitude to the Russian hut in folk culture

A house in Rus' had many names: hut, hut, tower, holupy, mansion, khoromina and temple. Yes, don’t be surprised – a temple! Mansions (huts) were equated to a temple, because a 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 his world! This is a feature of the Russian house - “human”, that is anthropomorphic names of parts of the hut:

• Brow of the hut- this is her face. The pediment of the hut and the outer opening in the stove could be called chel.
• Prichelina- from the word “brow”, that is, decoration on the brow of the hut,
• Platbands- from the word “face”, “on the face” of the hut.
• Ocelye- from the word “eyes”, window. This was the name of a part of a woman’s headdress, and the same name was given to the decoration of a window.
• Forehead- that was the name of the frontal plate. There were also “heads” in the design of the house.
• Heel, foot- that was the name of part of the doors.

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

The word "hut" comes from the Old Slavic “istba”. “Istboyu, stokkoyu” was the name for a heated residential log house (and “klet” was an unheated log house for 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 a part of life and a way to connect and shape your life. Home is a sacred space, an image of 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 by man of the work of the Creator, because the human home, 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 one could determine the social status, religion, and nationality of its owners. In one village there were no two completely identical houses, because each hut carried its own individuality and reflected the inner world of the family living in it.

For a child, a home is the first model of the outside big world; it “feeds” and “raises” the child, the child “absorbs” from the house the laws of life in the big adult world. If a child grew up in a bright, cozy, kind home, 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 there is chaos in the soul and in a person’s life. From childhood, the child mastered a system of ideas about his home - the house and its structure - the matitsa, the red corner, the female and male parts of the house.

Dom is traditionally used in Russian as a synonym for the word “homeland”. If a person does not have a sense of home, then there is no sense of homeland! Attachment to home and caring for it were 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” - so they said “There are four houses on the hill” - this meant 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 interior space of a Russian hut has long been associated in folk culture as the space of a woman - she looked after it, restored order and comfort. But the external space - the courtyard and beyond - was the space of a man. My husband’s grandfather still recalls the division of responsibilities that was customary 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 we lived in large families, there were no problems. If one of the women could not carry water now, then another woman in the family did this work.

The house also strictly observed male and female halves, but this will be discussed later.

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

The house was understood in folk culture as the center of the main life values– happiness, prosperity, family prosperity, faith. One of the functions of the hut and house was a protective function. A carved wooden sun under the roof is a wish for happiness and prosperity 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 that scare away evil with their terrible appearance.

Proverbs about hut

On the roof there is a heavy wooden ridge - a sign of the sun. There was always a household goddess in the house. S. Yesenin wrote interestingly about the horse: “The horse, both in Greek, Egyptian, Roman, and Russian mythology, is a sign of aspiration. But only one Russian man thought of putting 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 proportionally and harmoniously. Its design is based on the law of the golden ratio, the law of natural harmony in proportions. They built it without measuring instruments or complex calculations - by instinct, as their soul dictated.

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

Myth and truth about the Russian hut. There is an opinion that Russian huts were dirty, there was unsanitary conditions, disease, poverty and darkness. I used to think so too, that’s what we were taught at school. But this is completely untrue! I asked my grandmother shortly before she passed away, 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 the dark and in the dirt?

She was very surprised and said that the house was always not just clean, but very light and cozy, beautiful. Her mother (my great-grandmother) embroidered and knitted the most beautiful valances for the beds of adults and children. Each crib and cradle was decorated with her valances. And each crib has its own pattern! Imagine what kind of work this is! And what beauty is in the frame of each crib! Her dad (my great-grandfather) carved beautiful designs 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. It used to be that in the evening her grandmother would tell the children: “Soon mother and father will come from the field, we need to clean the house.” And oh - yes! Children take brooms and rags, put everything in order so that there is not a speck of dust in the corner, and all things are in their places. When 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 would be beautiful and the house would be cozy. Even on the day of giving birth, her mother (my great-grandmother) whitewashed the stove, and then went to the bathhouse to give birth. The grandmother recalled how she, being the eldest daughter, helped her.

It was not like the outside was clean and the inside was dirty. They cleaned very carefully both outside and inside. My grandmother told me that “what appears on the outside is how you want to appear to people” (outward is the appearance of clothes, a house, a closet, etc. - how they look to guests and how we want to present ourselves to people clothes, appearance of the house, etc.). But “what’s inside is who you really are” (inside is the backside of embroidery or any other work, the backside of clothes that should be clean and without holes or stains, the inside of cabinets and others invisible to other people, but visible 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 like holy fools, a little sick, they were pitied as people who were sick at heart. Those who worked - even if he had 10 children - lived in bright, clean, beautiful huts. Decorated your home with love. They ran a large household and never complained about life. There was always order in the house and yard.

Construction of a Russian hut

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

Hut as a structure was a log house made of logs that 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 - piers, towels, platbands. They built houses “as proportion and beauty dictate.”

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

Upper part of the house (rails, towel) 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 sides. Thus, the sun appeared at the most important points on its path across the sky - at sunrise, zenith and sunset. In folklore there is even an expression “three-bright sun”, reminiscent of these three key points.

Attic was located under the roof and items not needed were stored on it this moment removed from home.

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

Floor they made it double to preserve heat: at the bottom there was a “black floor”, and on top of it there was a “white floor”. Floor boards were laid from the edges to the center of the hut in the direction from the facade to the exit. This was important in some rituals. So, if they entered the house and sat on a bench along the floorboards, it meant that they had come to make a match. They never slept and laid the bed along the floorboards, since they laid the dead person along the floorboards “on the way to the doors.” That’s why we didn’t 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.

The diagonal was important in the design of the Russian hut. “The red corner is the stove.” The red corner always pointed to noon, to the light, to God's side (the red side). It has always been associated with wotok (sunrise) and the south. And the stove pointed to sunset, to darkness. And was associated with the west or north. They always prayed to 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, exit to the outside world is one of essential elements Houses. 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 (a gardening tool) was placed under the threshold. This reflected people's ideas about the horse as an animal associated with the sun. And also about metal, created by man with the help of fire and which is a material for protecting life.

Only a closed door preserves life inside the house: “Don’t trust everyone, lock the door tightly.” That is why people stopped at 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 places, a young wife, entering her husband’s house, was not supposed to touch the threshold. That is why it was often carried 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. This was a sign of that. That she is now one of her own in her husband’s family.

The threshold of a doorway is the border between “one’s own” and “someone else’s” space. In popular belief, this was a borderline, and therefore unsafe, place: “They don’t say hello across the threshold,” “They don’t shake hands across the threshold.” You cannot accept gifts through the threshold. Guests are greeted outside the threshold, then let in ahead of them through the threshold.

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

Window- another entrance to the house. Window is a very ancient word, first mentioned in chronicles in the year 11 and found among all Slavic peoples. In popular beliefs, it was forbidden to spit through the window, throw out garbage, or pour something out of the house, since “the angel of the Lord is standing under it.” “Give (to a beggar) through the window - give to God.” Windows were considered the eyes of the house. A man 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 frames. The riddles of the Russian people say this: “The red girl is looking out the window” (the sun). Traditionally in Russian culture, windows in a house have always been oriented “toward the summer”—that is, to the east and south. The most big windows the houses always faced the street and the river; they were called “red” or “slanting”.

Windows in a Russian hut could be of three types:

A) The fiberglass window is the most ancient type of window. Its height did not exceed the height of a horizontally placed log. But its width was one and a half times its height. Such a window was closed from the inside with a bolt that “dragged” along special grooves. That’s why the window was called “volokovoye”. Only dim light entered the hut through the fiberglass window. Such windows were more often found on outbuildings. Smoke from the stove was taken out (“dragged out”) from the hut through a fiberglass window. Basements, closets, sheds and barns were also ventilated through them.

B) Box window - consists of a deck made up of four beams firmly connected to each other.

C) A slanted window is an opening in the wall, reinforced with two side beams. These windows are also called “red” windows, 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 handed over if children born in the family died. It was believed that this could save the child and provide him with long life. In the Russian North there was also a belief that a person’s soul leaves the house through a window. That is why a cup of water was placed on the window so that the soul that had left a person could wash itself and fly away. Also, after the funeral, a towel was hung on the window so that the soul would use it to ascend into the house and then descend back. Sitting by the window, they waited for news. The 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, free space (sedimentary groove) was left between the window beam and the log of the house wall. It was covered with a board, which is well known to all of us and is called platband(“on the face of the house” = platband). The platbands were decorated with ornaments to protect the house: circles as symbols of the sun, birds, horses, lions, fish, weasel (an animal considered the guardian of livestock - they believed that if a predator was depicted, it would not harm domestic animals), floral ornaments, juniper, rowan .

From the 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 for the night.

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

Porch of a Russian hut it was often open and spacious. Here those family events took place that the entire street of the village could see: soldiers were seen off, matchmakers were greeted, newlyweds were greeted. On the porch they talked, exchanged news, relaxed, and talked about business. Therefore, the porch occupied a prominent place, was high and rose up on pillars or frames.

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

What word do you think the word “porch” came from? From the word “cover”, “roof”. After all, the porch had to have a roof that protected it from snow and rain.
Often in a Russian hut there were two porches and two entrances. The first entrance is the front entrance, where benches were set up for conversation and relaxation. And the second entrance is “dirty”, it served for household needs.

Bake was located near the entrance and occupied approximately a quarter of the hut’s space. 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.” “The stove is our dear mother,” “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 is transformed into cooked, “our own”, mastered. The stove is located in the corner opposite the red corner. People slept on it, it was used not only in cooking, but also in healing, folk medicine, small children were washed in it in winter, children and old people 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 journey would be happy), during a thunderstorm (since the stove is another entrance to the house, the connection between the house and the outside world).

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

The entire space of the hut was divided into female and male. Men worked and rested, received guests on weekdays in the men's part of the Russian hut - in the front red corner, to the side of it towards the threshold and sometimes under the curtains. The man's workplace during repairs was next to the door. Women and children worked and rested, staying awake in the women's half of the hut - near the stove. If women received guests, then the guests sat at the threshold of the stove. Guests could only enter the women's area of ​​the hut at the invitation of the hostess. Representatives of the male half never entered the female half unless absolutely necessary, and women never entered 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 a bench.

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

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

Married adult couples slept in beds, on a bench under the blankets, in their own separate cages - in their own places. Old people slept on the stove or near the stove, children - on the stove.

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

Svetlyceum The room was called a small room, a little room on the second floor of the house, clean, well-groomed, for handicrafts and clean activities. There was a wardrobe, a bed, a sofa, a table. But just like in the hut, all objects were placed along the walls. In the gorenka there were chests in which dowries for daughters were collected. There are as many marriageable daughters as there are chests. Girls lived here - brides of marriageable age.

Dimensions of a Russian hut

In ancient times, the Russian hut did not have internal partitions and was shaped like a square or rectangle. The average size of the hut was from 4 x 4 meters to 5.5 x 6.5 meters. Middle and wealthy peasants had large huts - 8 x 9 meters, 9 x 10 meters.

Decoration of a Russian hut

In the Russian hut there were four corners: stove, woman's kut, red corner, back corner (at the entrance under the curtains). Each corner had its own traditional purpose. And the entire hut, according to the corners, was divided into female and male halves.

Women's half of the hut runs from the furnace mouth (furnace outlet) to the front wall of the house.

One of the corners of the women's half of the house is the woman's kut. It is also called “baking”. This place is near the stove, women's territory. Here they prepared food, pies, utensils and millstones were stored. Sometimes the “women’s territory” of the house was separated by a partition or screen. On the women's side of the hut, behind the stove, there were cabinets for kitchen utensils and food supplies, shelves for tableware, buckets, cast iron, tubs, and stove accessories (bread shovel, poker, grip). The “long shop”, which ran along the women’s half of the hut along the side wall of the house, was also women’s. Here women spun, weaved, sewed, embroidered, and a baby’s cradle hung here.

Men never entered “women’s territory” and did not touch those utensils that are considered female. But a stranger and guest could not even look into the woman’s kut, it was offensive.

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

Russian stove

About a fourth, and sometimes a third, of the hut was occupied by a Russian stove. She was a symbol of home. They not only prepared food in it, but also prepared feed for livestock, baked pies and bread, washed themselves, heated the room, slept on it and dried clothes, shoes or food, and dried mushrooms and berries in it. And they could keep chickens in the oven even in winter. 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 multi-dimensional, multi-height space.

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

“The oven is like our own mother,” people used to say. Many folk healing practices were associated with the stove. And signs. For example, you cannot spit in the oven. And it was impossible to swear when the fire was burning in the stove.

The new oven began to be heated gradually and evenly. The first day began with four logs, and gradually one log was added every day to heat the entire volume of the stove and so that it was without cracks.

At first, Russian houses had adobe stoves, which were heated in black. That is, the stove then did not have an exhaust pipe for the smoke to escape. The smoke was released through the door or through a special hole in the wall. Sometimes they think that only beggars had black huts, but this is not so. Such stoves were also found in rich mansions. The black stove produced more heat and stored it longer than the white one. The smoke-stained walls were not afraid of dampness or rot.

Later, the stoves began to be built white - that is, they began to make a pipe through which the smoke came out.

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

The Red Corner is the central main place in the hut, in a Russian house. It is also called “saint”, “God’s”, “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 an altar 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 to the icon. Here at the table all meals and main events in the life of the family took place: birth, wedding, funeral, farewell to the army.

Here there were not only images, but also the Bible, prayer books, candles, branches of consecrated willow were brought here on Palm Sunday or birch branches on Trinity.

The red corner was especially worshiped. Here, during the wake, they placed an extra device for another soul who had passed 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 firmly established by tradition, not only during holidays, but also during regular meals. The meal united the clan and family.

• Place in the red corner, in the center of the table, under the icons, was the most honorable. Here sat the owner, the most respected guests, and the priest. If a guest went and sat in the red corner without the owner’s invitation, this was considered a gross violation of etiquette.
• The next most important side of the table is the one to the right of the owner and the places closest to him on the right and left. This is a "men's shop". Here the men of the family were seated according to seniority 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 the “lower” end of the table on the “women’s bench”, Women and children sat down along the front of the house.
• Mistress of the house was placed opposite the husband from the side of the stove on the side bench. This made it more convenient to serve food and host dinners.
• During the wedding newlyweds They also sat under the icons in the red corner.
• For guests It had its own guest shop. It is located by the window. It is still a custom in some areas to seat guests by the window.

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

Table- he was given great importance in the red corner of the house and in the hut in general. The table in the hut was in a permanent place. If the house was sold, then it was necessarily 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 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 forbidden to knock on the table: “Don’t hit the table, the table is God’s palm!” There should always be bread on the table - a symbol of wealth and well-being in the house. They used to say: “Bread on the table is the throne!” Bread is a symbol of prosperity, abundance, and material well-being. That's why it always had to be on the table - God's palm.

A small lyrical digression from the author. Dear readers of this article! You probably think that all this is outdated? Well, what does bread have to do with it on the table? And you bake at home yeast-free bread do it yourself - it's quite easy! And then you will understand that this is a completely different bread! Not like store bought bread. Moreover, the loaf is shaped like a circle, a symbol of movement, growth, development. When for the first time I baked not pies or cupcakes, but bread, and my whole house smelled of bread, I realized what a real home is - a house where it smells... of bread! Where do you want 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 of them!!!, taught me how to bake bread. And then I thought: “If a 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 own hands and your soul! And then the loaf on your table will become a symbol of your home and will bring you a lot of joy!

The table must be 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” was given a special meaning in Russian culture. The longitudinal one had a “positive” charge, and the transverse one had a “negative” charge. Therefore, they tried to lay all the objects in the house in the longitudinal direction. This is also why they sat along the floorboards 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 forms a single whole with the table. The expression “table and tablecloth” symbolized hospitality and hospitality. Sometimes the tablecloth was called “bread-salter” or “self-assembled”. Wedding tablecloths were kept as a special heirloom. The table was not always covered with a tablecloth, but only on special occasions. But in Karelia, for example, the tablecloth had to always be on the table. For a wedding feast, they took a special tablecloth and laid it inside out (from damage). A tablecloth could be spread on the ground during a funeral service, because a tablecloth is a “road”, a connection between the cosmic world and the human world; it is not for nothing that the expression “a tablecloth is a road” has come down to us.

The family gathered at the dinner table, crossed themselves before eating and said a prayer. They ate sedately, and it was forbidden to get up while eating. The head of the family - a man - began the meal. He cut food into pieces, cut bread. The woman served everyone at the table and served food. The meal was long, leisurely, 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. IN Palm Sunday the red corner was decorated with willow branches, on Trinity - with birch branches, and with heather (juniper) - on Maundy Thursday.

It's 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 “female kingdom”, do men interfere with it? Do we need him? How and where can you create it?

Question 2. And what is in the red corner of our apartment or dacha - what is the main spiritual center of the house? Let's take a closer look at our home. And if we need to fix something, we’ll do it and create a red corner in our home, let’s create it to truly unite the family. Sometimes you can find advice on the Internet to put a computer in the red corner as the “energy center of the apartment” and organize your workplace in it. I'm always surprised by such recommendations. Here, in the red - the main corner - 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 clan, but not a TV or an office center! Let's think together about what it could be.

Types of Russian huts

Nowadays, many families are interested in Russian history and traditions and are building houses as our ancestors did. It is sometimes believed that there should be only one type of house based on the arrangement of its elements, and only this type of house is “correct” and “historic”. In fact, the location of the main elements of the hut (red corner, stove) depends on the region.

Based on the location of the stove and the red corner, there are 4 types of Russian huts. Each type is characteristic of a specific area and climatic conditions. That is, it is impossible to say directly: the stove has always been strictly here, and the red corner is strictly here. Let's look at them in more detail in the pictures.

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

The second type is the Western Russian hut. The stove was also located next to the entrance to the right or left of it. But its mouth was turned towards the long side wall. That is, the mouth of the stove was located near the entrance door to the house. The red corner was also located diagonally from the stove, but food was prepared in a different place in the hut - closer to the door (see picture). A sleeping area was made on the side of the stove.

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

Despite different types huts, they are observed general principle structures of Russian housing. Therefore, even if he found himself far from home, the traveler could always find his way around the hut.

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

In a peasant estate the farm was large - each estate had from 1 to 3 barns for storing grain and valuables. There was also a bathhouse - the building farthest from the residential building. Every thing has its place. This proverbial principle has always been observed everywhere. Everything in the house was thought out and arranged intelligently so as not to waste extra energy and time 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 street through a strong gate. There was a roof over the gate. And at the gate on the side of the street there is a bench under the roof. Not only village residents, but also any passerby 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 welcome them cordially or talk goodbye.

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

Bath– a separate building (the furthest building from a 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 to the gable of the hut. Wishing a rich harvest, happiness, and prosperity to the family living in the house.

Barn floor– a platform for threshing compressed bread.

Cage- design in wood construction, is formed by crowns of logs placed on top of each other. The mansions consist of several cages, united by passages and vestibules.

Chicken-elements of the roof of a Russian house built without nails. They said: “Chickens and a horse on the roof - it will be quieter in the hut.” This refers specifically to the elements of the roof - the ridge and the chicken. A water tank was placed on the chicken - a log hollowed out in the form of a gutter to drain water from the roof. The image of “chickens” is not accidental. The chicken and the rooster were associated in the popular mind with the sun, since this bird notifies about the sunrise. The crow of a rooster, according to popular belief, drives away evil spirits.

Glacier– the great-grandfather of the modern refrigerator – a room with ice for storing food

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

Platband– decoration of a window (window opening)

Barn– a building for drying sheaves before threshing. The sheaves were laid out on the flooring and dried.

Stupid– horse – connects the two wings of the house, two roof slopes together. The horse symbolizes the sun moving across the sky. This is a mandatory element of the roof structure, built without nails, and is a talisman for the house. Okhlupen is also called “shelo” 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 “okhlupny”, because when put in place it makes a “pop” sound. Ohlupni were used to do without nails during construction.

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

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

Podklet– the lower room under the living quarters. The basement was used for storing food and household needs.

Polati- 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 beds, as the stove kept the heat for a long time. If the stove was not heated for heating, then vegetables were stored on the floors at that time.

Policemen– figured shelves for utensils above the benches in the hut.

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

Prichelina- boards on the wooden roof of a house, nailed to the ends above the pediment (edge ​​of the hut), protecting them from rotting. The piers 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 mansion (see “mansions”) on the women’s side, in the upper part of the building, intended for needlework and other household activities.

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

Apron– sometimes “aprons” decorated with fine carvings were made on houses on the side of the main facade. This is a board overhang that protects the house from precipitation.

Stable- premises for livestock.

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

Russian hut utensils

Dishes for cooking, it was stored in the stove and near the stove. These are cauldrons, cast iron pots for porridges, soups, clay patches for baking fish, cast iron frying pans. Beautiful porcelain dishes were stored so that everyone could see them. She was a symbol of wealth in the family. Festive dishes were stored in the upper room, and plates were displayed in the cupboard. Everyday dishes were kept in wall cabinets. Dinnerware consisted of a large bowl made of clay or wood, wooden spoons, birch bark or copper salt shakers, and cups of kvass.

Painted baskets were used to store bread in Russian huts. boxes, brightly colored, sunny, joyful. The painting of the box distinguished it from other things as a significant, important thing.

They drank tea from samovar.

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

Salt is not only food, but also a talisman. That’s why they served bread and salt to guests as a greeting, a symbol of hospitality.

The most common was earthenware pot. Porridge and cabbage soup were prepared in pots. The cabbage soup cooked well in the pot and became much tastier and richer. Even now, if we compare the taste of soup and porridge from a Russian oven and from the stove, we will immediately feel the difference in taste! Tastes better out of the oven!

For household needs, barrels, tubs, and baskets were used in the house. They fried food in frying pans, just like now. The dough was kneaded in wooden troughs and vats. Water was carried in buckets and jugs.

Good owners immediately after eating all the dishes were washed clean, dried and placed overturned 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 take them out of the oven you 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 work this is and how strong women used to be even without fitness classes :). For them, every movement was exercise and exercise. I’m serious 🙂 - I tried it and appreciated how difficult it is to get a large pot of food for a large family using a grab handle!

Used for raking coals poker.

In the 19th century, metal pots replaced clay pots. They're called cast iron (from the word “cast iron”).

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

Furniture in our understanding, this word was almost absent in the 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 always had locks. The design of the chest could tell about the prosperity of its owner.

Russian hut decor

A house painting master could paint a house (they used to say “bloom”). They painted strange patterns on a light background. These are 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 homes with their handicrafts.

Guess what tool was used to make carvings in a Russian hut? With an axe! And the painting of the houses was done by “painters” - that’s what the artists were called. They painted the facades of houses - pediments, platbands, porches, porches. When white stoves appeared, they began to paint the huts, partitions, and cabinets.

The decor of the roof pediment of a northern Russian house is actually an image of space. Signs of the sun on the racks and on the towel - an image of the path of the sun - sunrise, sun at its zenith, sunset.

Very interesting ornament decorating the piers. Below the solar sign on the piers you can see several trapezoidal protrusions - the legs of waterfowl. For the northerners, the sun rose from the water and also set in the water, because there were many lakes and rivers around, which is why waterfowl were depicted - the underwater and underground world. The ornament on the sides represented the seven-layered sky (remember the old expression - “to be in seventh heaven”?).

In the first row of the ornament there are circles, sometimes connected with trapezoids. These are symbols of heavenly water - rain and snow. Another series of images from triangles is a layer of earth with seeds that will wake up and produce a harvest. It turns out that the sun rises and moves across a seven-layer sky, one of which contains moisture reserves, and the other contains plant seeds. At first the sun does not shine at full strength, then it is at its zenith and finally sets down so that the next morning it begins its path across the sky again. One row of the ornament does not repeat the other.

The same symbolic ornament can be found on the platbands of a Russian house and on the decor of windows in central Russia. But window decoration also has its own characteristics. On the lower board of the casing there is an uneven relief of a hut (a plowed field). At 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 held by its owner. The house is being painted by the owner.
• What it’s like at home is the same for yourself.
• Make a stable, and then some cattle!
• Not according to the house is the lord, but the house according to the lord.
• It is not the owner who paints the house, but the owner who paints the house.
• At home, not away: once you’ve been there, you won’t leave.
• A good wife will save the house, but 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 a disorderly house.
• If the hut is crooked, the mistress is bad.
• As is the builder, so is the monastery.
• Our hostess is busy with work – and the dogs wash the dishes.
• To lead a house is not to weave bast shoes.
• In the house the owner is more than the bishop
• Getting a pet at home means walking around without opening your mouth.
• The house is small, but it doesn’t allow you to lie down.
• Whatever is born in the field, everything in the house will be useful.
• Not the owner who does not know his farm.
• Prosperity is not determined by the place, but by the owner.
• If you don't manage a house, you can't manage a city.
• The village is rich, and so is the city.
• A good head feeds a hundred hands.

Dear friends! In this hut I wanted to show not just the history of the Russian home, but also to learn from our ancestors how to run a household - reasonable and beautiful, pleasing to the soul and eye, to live in harmony with both nature and 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 the memories of her early years of life in a 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 it took me so long to write it: in the bustle of the capital, in an ordinary panel house in the center of Moscow, with the roar of cars, it was too difficult for me to write about the harmonious world of the Russian home. But here, in nature, I completed this article very quickly and easily, with all my heart.

If you would like to learn more about the Russian home, below you will find a bibliography on this topic for adults and children.

I hope that this article will help you talk interestingly about the Russian house during your summer travels to the village and to museums of Russian life, and will also tell you how to look at illustrations to Russian fairy tales with your children.

Literature about the Russian hut

For adults

1. Bayburin A.K. Dwelling in the rituals and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs. – L.: Science, 1983 (Institute of Ethnography named after N.N. Miklouho-Maclay)
2. Buzin V.S. Ethnography of Russians. – 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. Wisdom of the ancestors. Russian yard, house, garden. – Arkhangelsk, 2005.
6. Sukhanova M. A. House as a model of the world // Human House. Materials of the interuniversity conference – St. Petersburg, 1998.

For children

1. Alexandrova L. Wooden architecture of Rus'. – M.: White City, 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 Village Life

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

Video 3. How to build a Russian hut: a documentary for adults

Get a NEW FREE AUDIO COURSE WITH GAME APPLICATION

"Speech development from 0 to 7 years: what is important to know and what to do. Cheat sheet for parents"

For many centuries, the wooden peasant hut was the predominant dwelling for 90% of the Russian population. This is an easily worn-out building, and the huts that have reached us are no older than the middle of the 19th century. But in their design they preserved ancient building traditions. They were usually built from thin-layered pine, and in some areas of the Mezen and Pechora rivers from larch.

Russian hut on a high basement with a gallery. The basement was used for storing supplies. The hut is located in the Vitoslavitsa Museum of Wooden Architecture near Novgorod.

The hut is combined under a common roof with outbuildings. The peasant's dwelling consisted of a cage, a hut, a passage, an upper room, a basement and a closet. The main living space is a hut with a Russian stove. The interior of the hut: fixed wide benches, tightly attached to the walls, shelves above them; wooden elements adjacent to the stove; an open dish cabinet, a cradle and other details of home furnishings have a history of many centuries.

BAKE. Particularly interesting in the interior of a Russian hut is the arrangement of the stove. Combined with its wooden parts with the internal architecture of the hut into one whole, it embodies the idea of ​​a home. That's why so much love is invested folk craftsmen into the architectural treatment of the stove and its wooden parts.

Sometimes a cooking corner was set up near the stove, separated by a brightly painted wooden paneled partition that did not go all the way to the top. Often this partition was turned into a double-sided and painted built-in wardrobe. The painting was either geometric in nature (sun motif) or depicted flowers. The predominant colors in the painting were green, white, red, pink, yellow, and black.

STORE. Fixed benches were usually arranged along the walls of the entire room. On one side they were tightly adjacent to the wall, and on the other they were supported either by stands cut from a thick board, or by carved and turned pillars-legs. Such legs tapered towards the middle, which was decorated with a round, chiseled apple.

If the stand was made flat by sawing out of a thick board, then its design retained the silhouette of a similar chiseled leg. A piece of wood decorated with some simple carving was sewn to the edge of the bench. A bench decorated in this way was called pubescent, and its legs were called stamishki. Sometimes sliding doors were installed between the stashishkas, turning the wall benches into a kind of chests for storing household items.

A portable bench with four legs or with blank boards replacing them on the sides, on which the seat was installed, was called a bench. The backs could be thrown from one end of the bench to the opposite. Such benches with a flip-up back were called saddle benches, and the backrest itself was called a saddle bench. Carvings were mainly used to decorate the backs, which were made blind or through - through carpentry, latticework, carving or turning. The length of the bench is slightly longer than the length of the table. The benches in the upper rooms were usually covered with a special fabric - a shelf cloth. There are benches with one side - a carved or painted board. The side was used as a support for a pillow or was used as a spinning wheel.

Chairs in peasant homes spread later, in the 19th century. The influence of the city was most noticeably reflected in the design of the chair. In folk art, the stable symmetrical shape of a chair with a square plank seat, a square through back and slightly curved legs predominates. Sometimes the chair was decorated with wooden fringe, sometimes with a patterned back. The chairs were painted in two or three colors, for example blue and crimson. Chairs are characterized by some rigidity, which makes them similar in shape to a bench.

TABLE- usually was of considerable size for a large family. The table top is rectangular; it was made from good boards without knots and carefully processed until it was particularly smooth. The underframe was designed in different ways: in the form of plank sides with a recess at the bottom, connected by a leg; in the form of legs connected by two legs or a circle; without a drawer or with a drawer; with one or two drawers. Sometimes the edges of the table board and the edges of massive legs, ending in their lower part with carved interceptors, were covered with carvings.

In addition to dining tables, they made kitchen tables for cooking - suppliers that were placed near the stove. The shelves were higher than the dining tables, so that it was convenient to work at them while standing, and had shelves at the bottom with closing doors and drawers. Small tables on which stood a casket or a book were also common; they had a more decorative solution.

CHESTS- a mandatory accessory of the hut. They stored clothes, canvases and other household utensils.

Chests were made large - up to 2 m long and small ones - 50-60 cm (laying). Sometimes chests were lined on all sides with short-haired animal skin (elk, deer). Strengthened chests metal parts, which also served as decoration.

A carved ornament was made in the metal strips, clearly protruding against the background of the chest painted in a bright color (green or red). Handles placed on the sides of the chest, locks and keys were intricately decorated. Locks were made with a ringing sound, even a melody, and a cunning method of locking and picking. The inside of the chests was also decorated with carvings and paintings; the most common theme was a floral pattern. Wedding chests were especially richly and brightly painted. Chests made of cedar wood were highly valued, the specific smell of which repels moths.

SHELVES. Shelves were widely used in the hut, tightly fixed to the wall. Shelves adjacent to the wall along the entire length were called hanging (from the word hang), shelves supported only by the ends were called voronets.

Voronets regiments divided the hut premises into independent parts. Shelves can also include hanging flooring - flooring that was made above the front door; between the stove and the wall. Above the benches there was a shelf-overhead, which was located slightly above the windows. Such shelves were supported by shaped brackets.

SUPPLIER CABINETS. Over time (XVIII-XIX centuries), cabinets begin to appear in peasant homes various sizes and types. Small cabinets are varied in artistic design (carving, turning parts, profiles, painting). The patterns are geometric or floral in nature, usually a flowerpot with flowers. Sometimes there are images of genre scenes. Often, through-threads were used in cabinets, which was done to ventilate food.

The supply cabinets consisted of two parts: the lower one was equipped with shelves with closing doors or drawers (two to five) and had a folding board, which was used as a table cover. In the smaller upper part there were shelves, closed with blind or glazed doors.

BEDS. For sleeping they used benches, chests with a flat lid, built-in and mobile beds. The built-in bed was located in the corner, tightly attached to the walls on both sides and had one backrest. Hanging cradles, cradles or cradles were intended for infants, which were decorated with carvings, turning parts, paintings, and figured cutouts in the boards.

The leading color scheme was golden-ocher with the introduction of white and red. Golden-ocher tones are characteristic of the walls of the hut, wooden furniture, dishes, utensils. The towels on the icons were white, the red color sparkled in small spots in clothes, towels, in plants on the windows, in the paintings of household utensils.

A modern version of the Russian house performed by the Russian House company

- 8767

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

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

The stove corner was considered a dirty place, in contrast to the rest of the clean space of the hut. Therefore, the peasants always sought to separate it from the rest of the room with a curtain made of variegated chintz, colored homespun, or a wooden partition. The corner of the stove, covered by a board partition, formed a small room called a “closet” or “prilub.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Utensil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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