Peasant house

The main tool of the Russian carpenter until recently remained an axe, a saw in house construction appeared much later. There is an opinion that the Russian peasants did not know the saw at all. They knew, but they didn’t use it consciously. The cut made with an axe is shiny and smooth, and water hardly penetrates into it. But the saw loosens the wood fibers — such a log will draw water into itself.

In the peasant economy, when cutting the corners of the hut, they used only a simple method of connecting logs ("in the oblo"). More complex ones — "into the hook", "into the paw", "into the castle" - penetrated from abroad (sometimes they were called "German"). The floor in the house was made of wood, raised above the ground on beams-logs cut into the lower crown. An entrance hall with a canopy about two meters wide was attached to the hut. Sometimes they were bigger and connected to the pantry.

A hut is the simplest single-log building. Sometimes two log cabins were connected by an entrance hall. Since the end of the XIX century, five-wall houses have become widespread in Siberia. The five-wall consisted of a log cabin, divided by the fifth wall into two halves. In well-to-do families, the five-wall was converted into a "crosspiece". Sometimes houses were built two-storeyed or on a high basement (basement floor).

Travelers in Siberia noted the cleanliness, prosperity and order in Siberian peasant houses. In the center of the house there was a Russian stove, wide shelves ran from it. An indispensable accessory of the front (red) corner of the house was a shrine with icons. Wide benches lined the walls, and a table stood in the middle. In poor houses, all the furniture was limited to this, and in rich houses there were chairs, cabinets, etc., brought from the city. The wooden walls of the houses were either scraped or painted. Later, photographs and mirrors were hung on the walls.

House building traditions

The construction of houses among peasants has ancient traditions, they were followed carefully until the twentieth century. Great importance was given to the place for the future home. Places were chosen where there were no roads, cemeteries, swamps, etc.

Not every wood was suitable for construction. The spruce — the "tree of the dead", was not suitable (coffins were made of it), the aspen, the "cursed" tree, was not suitable (according to legend, the traitor Judas hanged himself on it), it was impossible to take a lime tree: whoever cuts it down will get lost in the forest. Dry and dead trees were not suitable for construction.

Of all the ordinary signs, the peasants believed the most that they were connected with the laying of a new house and the moving from an old house to a new one. The carpenters, according to the peasants, knew certain secrets. When laying a new house, the owner treated the craftsmen after the first crowns were put up, he treated them when the house was built to the rafters. Carpenters could punish stingy owners, for example, an ordinary bottle neck, embedded under the very ridge, produced howling, moaning and crying in gusts of wind, and a "special" object placed under the central ceiling log "uterus" filled the house with various unclean spirits that disturbed the household. Sometimes it was possible to drive away the pests with the help of healers and choppers, in the most extreme case it was necessary to disassemble the house and put it in a new place.

Peasant houses in Siberia, as in the Urals, were built from the trunks of coniferous trees. The main building material was pine. The pine log was very hygienic, as the pine released essential oils, which are antiseptic. In the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a shortage of timber, so the peasants had to change the main building material — for example, to build from birch.

In the southern counties of the Tobolsk province, which receive the bulk of immigrants, wood as the main building material in the late XIX — early XX centuries became difficult to access. So, in the Ishim and Tyukalinsky districts, plots for new settlers were allocated on chernozem lands, where the forest was mainly wood-burning. The lack of timber led to the appearance of huts made of straw bundles, firewood on clay, adobe huts. The floor was dirt. The dwelling was whitewashed outside and inside. In winter, newborn calves and lambs were kept in houses.

The houses were completed with a gable roof made of plank or shingle (the surface part of the trunk of a birch or pine tree together with bark, which was "torn" with special cleavers. Thatched roofs were practically not found, as they were fire-hazardous and at the same time blown away by strong winds.

House

Depending on class affiliation, national character, and economic activity, there were several dozen types of dwellings: log-type dwellings, dugouts and semi-dugouts, light frame dwellings. Log cabins were common among Russians, Siberian Tatars, Khanty, Mansi and Komi-Permyaks. The dwelling of the Nenets and Komi-Zyryan reindeer herders was a collapsible conical tent with a frane of poles covered with deer skins. Mutual cultural influence led to the spread of Russian-style huts in the North.

The estate of the old-time Russian peasant resembled a fortress: a tall log house, a barn located a short distance from the house, connected to it by a fence with a massive gate. The fence bordered a closed, remote courtyard, along the perimeter of which premises for livestock, cellars, sheds for firewood, carts, and agricultural implements were built.

Immigrants from European Russia brought new traditions in construction to Siberia. Since the end of the 19th century, five-wall houses have appeared. The spread of this type of housing can be associated with the separation of large families. A small log house, fenced off by a capital wall for two rooms, was considered economically more convenient for a small family.

In the southern counties of the Tobolsk province, which receive the bulk of immigrants, wood as the main building material in the late XIX — early XX centuries became difficult to access. In Ishim and Tyukalinsky counties, plots for new settlers were allocated on chernozem lands, where the forest was mainly wood-burning. The lack of timber in the south of the Tobolsk province led to the appearance of huts made of straw bundles, firewood on clay, adobe huts. The floor was made of the soil. The dwelling was whitewashed outside and inside. In winter, newborn calves and lambs were kept in houses.

Furniture

The main decoration of peasant houses were made up of ikons. The ikons were placed in the front corner, which was called "red". Benches along the walls served as seating. The poor had bare benches, the rich were covered with carpets. In addition to benches for seating, there were chairs and stools. The tables were made of wood, long and wide. The tables were covered with a tablecloth.

The walls in the houses were bare or painted. In the old days, there were no wall mirrors — the church did not approve of them. At a later time, mirrors and splint pictures began to be hung on the walls, and then framed photographs. Shelves were made on the walls to store supplies, various boxes, caskets, caskets.

Shirts, skirts, towels and pieces of cloth were stored in chests. The chests were made by special craftsmen. Chests were often purchased at bazaars or fairs from chest merchants. Gradually, chests replaced factory-made wardrobes in the peasant house.

The beds were wooden, made of planks, covered with a feather bed with bed linen and pillows. There were also various bedside tables made by artisan craftsmen.

Utensils

There were various utensils in the peasant’s house. At the stove, the hostess used grapples of various sizes, a poker, a chapelnik to get pans, a large wide wooden shovel to plant loaves. The grip was made of an iron strip curved in the form of an open circle so that the bottom of the pot or cast iron enters between the horns of the grip (horn), and the shoulder pads were on the strip; the grip is mounted on a long handle. A chapelnik is an iron strip impaled on a wooden handle with a tongue carved out of its middle and bent back.

Wooden salt pans with large capacity lids of two types were used in household life: in the form of a carved armchair or high chair and in the form of a duck.

Cast iron and clay pots of different sizes with a rounded body forming shoulder pads and a narrow bottom were used for cooking (pots differed from cast iron with a low whisk in the upper part of the body), and for frying — flat clay bowls (latkes) with high almost vertical sides. Liquids (kvass, milk, etc.) were stored in clay jars, pots with a rounded body, a small bottom and an elongated throat. They kneaded the dough, put the finished baked goods on wide flat wooden mats like a tray with small low sides. Food products were stored in chiseled high containers with lids and in birch bark tuesas or borax, also with lids.

They ate from clay or chiseled wooden cups with wooden spoons. Clay products were shaped, that is, covered with simple watering, sometimes with modest painting, wooden ones were covered with carvings or paintings.

In household use, large clay pots with a capacity of up to two buckets resembling pots were used to store a consumable supply of water, make kvass, beer, and wort. Intoxicating drinks were served on the table on holidays in endows, brothers, ladles. The shapes of the buckets were varied and differed mainly in the location and shape of the handle. They drank drinks from copper, tin and wooden stacks and quite voluminous jars. In general, cooperage dishes were widely used in peasant life: barrels, half-barrels, vats, tubs, gangs.