For many centuries, a wooden peasant hut was the predominant dwelling of 90% of the population of Russia. This is an easily worn building, and huts have come down to us no older than the middle of the 19th century. But in their arrangement, they preserved the ancient building traditions. They were usually erected from small-layer 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 to store supplies. The hut is located in the Vitoslavitsa Museum of Wooden Architecture near Novgorod.

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

BAKE. Particularly interesting in the interior of the 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 is why so much love has been invested by folk craftsmen in the architectural processing of the stove and its wooden parts.

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

STORE. Fixed benches were usually arranged along the walls of the entire room. On one side, they tightly adjoined the wall, and on the other, they were supported either by supports sawn from a thick board, or by carved and chiseled posts-legs. Such legs narrowed 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 turned legs. To the edge of the bench they sewed a clew, decorated with some simple carving. A shop decorated in this way was called pubescent, and its legs were called stamiches. Sometimes sliding doors were arranged between the stalls, turning the wall benches into a kind of chest for storing household items.

A portable bench with four legs or with blind boards replacing them on the sides, on which the seat was approved, was called a bench. The backs could be thrown from one edge of the bench to the opposite. Such benches with a reversible back were called benches, and the back itself was called a bench. The carving was mainly used to decorate the backs, which were made deaf or through - carpentry-lattice, carved or turning work. 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 cloth - a bench. There are benches with one sidewall - a carved or painted board. The sidewall was a support for a pillow or it was used as a spinning wheel.

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

TABLE- usually was of considerable size, based on a large family. The top of the table is rectangular, made of good boards without knots and carefully processed to a special smoothness. The underframe was solved in different ways: in the form of plank sidewalls with a notch at the bottom, connected by a proleg; in the form of legs connected by two prongs or a circle; without a tsarga or with a tsarga; with one or two drawers. Sometimes the edges of the table board and the edges of massive legs, ending in carved interceptors in their lower part, were covered with carvings.

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

CHESTS- obligatory affiliation of the hut. They kept clothes, canvases and other household utensils.

The chests were made large - up to 2 m long and small 50-60 cm (packing). Sometimes the chests were upholstered on all sides with short-haired animal skins (moose, deer). The chests were reinforced with metal parts, which also served as decorations.

In metal strips, a slotted ornament was made, clearly protruding against the background of a painted in bright color(green or red) chest. The handles placed on the sides of the chest, the masks of locks and keys were intricately decorated. Locks were made with ringing, even with a melody and in a tricky way locks and locks. The chests were also decorated with carvings and paintings inside, the most common theme was a floral pattern. Especially richly and vividly painted wedding chests. Chests made of cedar wood were highly valued, the specific smell of which repels moths.

SHELVES. Shelves, fixed tightly to the wall, were widely used in the hut. Shelves adjoining the wall along the entire length were called pendulous (from the word hang), shelves resting only at the ends were called crows.

Vorontsy regiments divided the premises of the hut into independent parts. Shelves can also be attributed to the hanging flooring - floors, which were made above the front door; between stove and wall. Above the benches there was a shelf-top shelf, which was slightly higher than the windows. Such shelves were supported by curly-shaped brackets.

CABINETS-SUPPLIERS. Over time (XVIII-XIX centuries), cabinets of various sizes and types begin to appear in a peasant dwelling. Small cabinets are diverse in terms of decoration (carving, turning parts, profiles, painting). Patterns are geometric or vegetal in nature, more often a flowerpot. Sometimes there are images of genre scenes. Often through lockers were used in lockers, which was done to ventilate products.

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

BEDS. For sleep, benches, benches, chests with a flat lid, built-in and mobile beds were used. The built-in bed was placed in the corner, tightly fastened to the walls on both sides and had one back. For infants, hanging cradles, cradles or cradles were intended, which were decorated with carvings, turning parts, painting, figured cutouts in 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 the plants on the windows, in the paintings of household utensils.

A modern version of the Russian house in the performance of the company "Russian House"

A child is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

The table is decorated by guests, and the house is decorated by children.

He does not die who does not leave children.

Be truthful even in relation to a child: keep your promise, otherwise you will teach him to lie.


— L.N. Tolstoy

Children need to be taught to speak, and adults to listen to children.

Let childhood mature in children.

Life must be disturbed more often so that it does not turn sour.

— M. Gorky

Children need to be given not only life, but also the opportunity to live.

Not the father-mother who gave birth, but the one who made him drink, nurtured, and taught good.

Interior arrangement of the Russian hut

The hut was the most important keeper family traditions for a Russian person, a large family lived here, and children were brought up. The hut was a symbol of comfort and tranquility. The word "hut" comes from the word "heat". The firebox is the heated part of the house, hence the word "fire".

Interior decoration the traditional Russian hut was simple and convenient: a table, benches, capitals (stools), chests - everything was done in the hut with their own hands, carefully and with love, and was not only useful, beautiful, pleasing to the eye, but carried its protective properties . In good owners, everything in the hut sparkled with cleanliness. On the walls are embroidered white towels; floor, table, benches scraped.

There were no rooms in the house, so the entire space was divided into zones, according to the functions and purpose. Separation was carried out using a kind of fabric curtain. In this way, the economic part was separated from the residential part.

The central place in the house was given to the stove. The stove sometimes occupied almost a quarter of the hut, and the more massive it was, the more heat it accumulated. It depended on its location. interior layout Houses. That's why the saying arose: "Dance from the stove." The stove was an integral part of not only the Russian hut, but also the Russian tradition. It served at the same time as a source of heat, and a place for cooking, and a place to sleep; used in the treatment of a variety of diseases. In some areas, people washed and steamed in the oven. The stove, at times, personified the entire dwelling, its presence or absence determined the nature of the building (a house without a stove is non-residential). Cooking in a Russian oven was a sacred act: raw, undeveloped food turned into boiled, mastered food. The oven is the soul of the house. The kind, honest Mother-stove in whose presence they did not dare to say a swear word, under which, according to the beliefs of the ancestors, the keeper of the hut lived - Brownie. Rubbish was burned in the stove, since it could not be taken out of the hut.

The place of the stove in the Russian house can be seen from the respect with which the people treated their hearth. Not every guest was allowed to go to the stove, and if they allowed someone to sit on their stove, then such a person became especially close, welcome in the house.

The stove was installed diagonally from the red corner. So called the most elegant part of the house. The very word "red" means: "beautiful", "good", "bright". The red corner was located opposite the front door, so that everyone who entered could appreciate the beauty. The red corner was well lit, since both of its constituent walls had windows. The decoration of the red corner was especially reverent and they tried to keep it clean. He was the most honored place in the house. Especially important family values, amulets, idols were located here. Everything was placed on a shelf or table lined with an embroidered towel, in a special order. According to tradition, a person who came to the hut could go there only at the special invitation of the owners.

As a rule, everywhere in Russia there was a table in the red corner. In a number of places it was placed in the wall between the windows - against the corner of the stove. The table has always been a place where the unity of family members took place.

In the red corner, near the table, two benches meet, and on top - two shelves of a bench. All significant events of family life were marked in the red corner. Here, at the table, both everyday meals and festive feasts were held; many calendar rituals took place. In the wedding ceremony, the matchmaking of the bride, her ransom from her girlfriends and brother were performed in the red corner; from the red corner of her father's house they took her away; brought to the groom's house and also led to the red corner.

Opposite the red corner there was a furnace or “baby” corner (kut). There, women cooked food, spun, wove, sewed, embroidered, etc. Here, near the window, against the mouth of the furnace, hand millstones stood in every house, so the corner is also called a millstone. On the walls were observers - shelves for tableware, cabinets. Above, at the level of the benches, there was a stove beam, on which kitchen utensils were placed, and a variety of household items were stacked. The stove corner, closed with a wooden partition, formed a small room, which had the name "closet" or "prilub". It was a kind of women's space in the hut: here women cooked food, rested after work.

The relatively small space of the hut was organized in such a way that a fairly large family of seven to eight people was located in it with the greatest convenience. This was achieved due to the fact that each member of the family knew their place in the common space. Men worked, rested during the day on the men's half of the hut, which included a front corner and a bench near the entrance. Women and children were during the day in the women's quarters near the stove. Places for night sleep have also been allocated. Sleeping places were located on benches and even on the floor. Under the very ceiling of the hut, between two adjacent walls and the stove, a wide plank platform was laid on a special beam - “platy”. The children especially liked to sit on the floorboards - and it was warm and everything was visible. Children, and sometimes adults, slept on the beds, clothes were folded here, onions, garlic and peas were dried here. Under the ceiling, a baby cradle was fixed.

All household belongings were kept in chests. They were massive, heavy, and sometimes reached such a size that it was quite possible for an adult to sleep on them. Chests were made to last for centuries, so they were strengthened from the corners forged metal, such furniture lived in families for decades, being inherited.

In a traditional Russian dwelling, benches ran along the walls in a circle, starting from the entrance, and served for sitting, sleeping, and storing various household items. In old huts, benches were decorated with "edge" - a board nailed to the edge of the bench, hanging from it like a frill. Such shops were called "pubescent" or "with a canopy", "with a view. Under the benches they kept various items that, if necessary, were easy to get: axes, tools, shoes, etc. In traditional rituals and in the sphere of traditional norms of behavior, a shop acts as a place that not everyone is allowed to sit in. So, entering the house, especially strangers, it was customary to stand at the threshold until the owners invited them to come in and sit down. on the bench by invitation only.

There were many children in the Russian hut, and the cradle - the cradle was just as necessary an attribute of the Russian hut as a table or stove. Bast, reeds, pine shingles, linden bark were common materials for making cradles. More often, the cradle was hung in the back of the hut, next to the firebox. A ring was driven into a thick ceiling log, a “rocker” was hung on it, on which a cradle was attached to the ropes. It was possible to rock such a cradle with the help of a special strap with a hand, and in case of busy hands, with a foot. In some regions, the cradle was hung on an ochep - a rather long wooden pole. Most often, a well-bending and springy birch was used for the ochepa. Hanging the cradle from the ceiling was not accidental: the ceiling accumulated the most warm air to keep the baby warm. There was a belief that heavenly forces guard a child raised above the floor, so it grows better and accumulates vital energy. Gender was perceived as the boundary between the world of people and the world where evil spirits live: the souls of the dead, ghosts, brownies. To protect the child from them, amulets were necessarily placed under the cradle. And on the head of the cradle they cut out the sun, in the legs - a month and stars, multi-colored rags, wooden painted spoons. The cradle itself was decorated with carvings or paintings. A canopy was a mandatory attribute. The most beautiful fabric was chosen for the canopy, it was decorated with lace and ribbons. If the family was poor, they used an old sundress, which, despite the summer, looked smart.

In the evenings, when it got dark, the Russian huts were lit with torches. Luchina was the only source of illumination in the Russian hut for many centuries. Usually birch was used as a torch, which burned brightly and did not smoke. A bundle of splinters was inserted into special forged lights that could be fixed anywhere. Sometimes they used oil lamps - small bowls with upturned edges.

The curtains on the windows were plain or patterned. They were woven from natural fabrics, decorated with protective embroidery. white lace self made all textile items were decorated: tablecloths, curtains and a sheet valance.

On a holiday, the hut was transformed: the table was moved to the middle, covered with a tablecloth, festive utensils, which had previously been stored in crates, were put on the shelves.

as the main colors golden-ocher was used for the hut, with the addition of red and white flowers. Furniture, walls, dishes, painted in golden-ocher tones, were successfully complemented by white towels, red flowers, and beautiful paintings.

The ceiling could also be painted in the form of floral ornaments.

Through the use of exclusively natural materials during construction and interior decoration, in the huts it was always cool in summer and warm in winter.

In the atmosphere of the hut there was not a single superfluous random item, each thing had its strictly defined purpose and a place illuminated by tradition, which is hallmark character of the Russian dwelling.

The Russian hut symbolizes Russia in a small way. Its architecture represents the persistence of traditions that have come down to us thanks to the loyalty of the peasants to the precepts of the past. For several centuries, the style, layout and decor of the Russian hut have been developed. The interior of all houses is practically no different, it contains several elements: several living rooms, canopy, closet and room, as well as a terrace.

Hut in Russia: history

The hut is a wooden structure, which, up to a third of its part, goes underground, resembling a semi-dugout. Those houses where there was no chimney, were called chicken. The smoke from the stove was coming out into the street through entrance doors, so during the firebox it hung above the ceiling. To prevent soot from falling on people, special shelves were built along the entire perimeter of the walls. A little later, they began to make holes in the wall, and then in the ceiling, which was closed with a valve. D Russian hut decor kurnoy was unremarkable. There were no floors as such, they were earthen, the house also had no windows, there were only small windows for lighting. At night, they used a torch to illuminate the room. A few centuries later, white huts began to appear, in which there were stoves with pipes. It is this house that is considered a classic Russian hut. It was divided into several zones: the stove corner, separated from the others by a curtain, on the right at the entrance there was a female corner, and near the hearth - a male corner. WITH east side horizon in the house was the so-called red corner, where on a special shelf under embroidered towels in certain order the iconostasis was located.

Interior decoration

The ceiling in the house was made of poles, which were previously split in half. Bars were laid out on a powerful beam, the cracks were covered with clay. Earth was poured on top of the ceiling. A cradle was hung from a beam on a special ring. Such inside assumed the lining of the inner walls with linden boards. Near the walls were placed benches where they slept, and chests where things were stored. Shelves were nailed to the walls. There was no special luxury inside the hut. Every thing that could be seen there was needed in the household, there was nothing superfluous. Items needed for cooking were placed in the women's corner, there was also a spinning wheel.

Decor elements of a Russian hut

Everything in the huts was sparkling clean. Embroidered towels hung on the walls. Furniture was scarce; beds and wardrobes only appeared in the nineteenth century. The main element was dinner table, which was located in the red corner. Each family member always sat in his place, the owner sat under the icons. The table was not covered with a tablecloth, no decorations were hung on the walls. On holidays, the hut was transformed, the table was moved to the middle of the room, covered with a tablecloth, festive dishes were put on the shelves. Another element of decor was a large chest, which was in every hut. It contained clothes. It was made of wood, upholstered with strips of iron and had a large lock. Also, the decor of the Russian hut suggested the presence of shops where they slept, and for infants, which was passed down from generation to generation.

Threshold and canopy

The first thing they encountered when they entered the hut was the entrance hall, which was a room between the street and the heated room. They were very cold and were used for economic purposes. Here hung a yoke and other necessary items. Stored in this place and food. A high threshold was built in front of the entrance to the warm room, where the guest had to bow to the owners of the house. Over time, the bow was supplemented by the sign of the cross in front of the icons.

Russian oven

When they got into the main room, the first thing they paid attention to was the stove. So, it assumes the presence of such a main element as a Russian stove, without which the room was considered non-residential. Food was also cooked on it, garbage was burned in it. It was massive and kept warm for a long time, it had several smoke dampers. There were many shelves and niches for storing dishes and other household items. For cooking, cast-iron pots were used, which were placed in the oven with the help of horns, as well as frying pans, clay pots and jugs. Here was a samovar. Since the stove was in the center of the room, it heated the house evenly. On it was placed a couch, which could accommodate up to six people. Sometimes the building was of such a size that they could wash in it.

red corner

An integral part of the interior decor of the hut was considered to be located in the eastern part of the house. It was considered a sacred place; embroidered towels, icons, sacred books, candles, holy water, Easter egg etc. Under the icons there was a table where they ate, there was always bread on it. The icons symbolized the altar of an Orthodox church, and the table symbolized the church altar. The most honored guests were received here. Of the icons in each hut, the faces of the Virgin, the Savior and St. Nicholas the Pleasant were obligatory. The headboards of the beds were turned towards the red corner. In this place, many rituals were performed that are associated with birth, wedding or funeral.

Benches and chests

The chest was also important element decor. It was inherited from mother to daughter and was placed near the stove. All the decoration of the house was very harmonious. There were several types of shops here: long, short, kutnye, court and the so-called beggars. They housed various household items, and an uninvited guest or a beggar who entered the house without an invitation could sit on the "beggar" bench. The benches symbolized the road in many old rituals.

Thus, before us is a cozy Russian hut, unity of design and decor which is a beautiful creation created by a peasant. There was nothing superfluous in the house, all interior items were used in Everyday life hosts. On holidays, the hut was transformed, it was decorated with handmade items: embroidered towels, woven tablecloths and many others. This must be remembered if you need to bring a drawing on this topic to school. In the 5th grade at the fine arts, "decor of a Russian hut" is one of the tasks provided for by the program.

People equipped their huts, comparing them with the world order. Here, every corner and detail is filled with a special meaning, they show the relationship of a person with the outside world.

Native penates, in which our ancestors were born, in which the life of the family passed, in which they died ...

The name of the original Russian wooden house comes from the Old Russian "true", which means "house, bath" or "source" from "The Tale of Bygone Years...". The Old Russian name of a wooden dwelling is rooted in the Proto-Slavic "jüstba" and is considered to be borrowed from the Germanic "stuba". In Old German "stuba" meant "warm room, bath".

Also in "The Tale of Bygone Years..." the chronicler Nestor writes that the Slavs lived in clans, each clan in its place. The way of life was patriarchal. The clan was the residence of several families under one roof, connected by blood ties and the power of a single ancestor - the head of the family. As a rule, the family consisted of older parents - father and mother and their numerous sons with wives and grandchildren, who lived in one hut with a single hearth, all worked together and obeyed the elder brother to the younger, the son to the father, and the father to the grandfather. If the clan was too large, there was not enough space for everyone, then the hut with a warm hearth grew with additional outbuildings - cages. Crate - an unheated room, a cold hut without a stove, an extension from a log house to the main one, warm home. Young families lived in the cages, but the hearth remained the same for everyone; food common to the whole clan was prepared on it - lunch or dinner. The fire that kindled in the hearth was a symbol of the family, as a source of family warmth, as a place where the whole family, the whole family gathered to solve the most important life issues.

In ancient times huts were "black" or "chicken". Such huts were heated by stoves without a chimney. The smoke during the firebox did not come out through the chimney, but through the window, door or chimney in the roof.

The first blond huts, according to archaeological data, appeared in Russia in the 12th century. At first, rich, wealthy peasants lived in such huts with a stove and chimneys, gradually the tradition of building a hut with a stove and a chimney began to be adopted by all peasant classes, and already in the 19th century it was rare to find a black hut, except perhaps only baths. in Russia they built in black until the twentieth century, it is enough to recall the famous song of V. Vysotsky "Banka in black":

"...Sink!
Oh, today I will wash myself white!
Cropi,
In the bath, the walls are smoky sprinkles.
Swamp,
Do you hear? Bath me in a black swamp! "....

According to the number of walls in the hut, wooden houses were divided into four-walls, five-walls, crosses and six-walls.

Four-wall hut- the simplest structure of logs, houses of four walls. Such huts were sometimes built with a canopy, sometimes without them. The roofs in these houses were gabled. In the northern territories, a vestibule or cages were attached to the four-walled huts so that frosty air in winter would not immediately enter a warm room and cool it.

Hut-five-wall - log house with the fifth main transverse wall inside the frame, the most common type of hut in Russia. The fifth wall in the frame of the house divided the room into two unequal parts: most of it was a chamber, the second served either as a vestibule or an additional residential part. The upper room served as the main room common to the whole family; there was a stove here - the essence of the family hearth, which heated the hut during harsh winters. The upper room served as both a kitchen and a dining room for the whole family.

Hut-cross- this is a log cabin with internal transverse fifth and longitudinal sixth walls. The roof in such a house was most often hipped (if in a modern way - hip), without gables. Of course, the cross huts were built larger than ordinary five-walls, for large families, with separate rooms separated by main walls.

Hut-six-wall- this is the same as the five-wall hut, only with two transverse, parallel to each other fifth and sixth capital wall from a log.

Most often, huts in Russia were built with a yard - additional household wooden rooms. The courtyards in the house were divided into open and closed and were located away from the house or around it. V middle lane In Russia, open yards were most often built - without a common roof. All outbuildings: sheds, stables, stables, barns, woodsheds, etc. stood at a distance from the hut.

In the north, closed yards were built, under a common roof, and lined with wooden panels on the ground, along which it was possible to move from one outbuilding to another without fear of getting caught in rain or snow, the territory of which was not blown by a through wind. The courtyards covered with a single roof adjoined the main residential hut, which made it possible in harsh winters or rainy autumn-spring days to get from a warm hut to a woodshed, barn or stable without the risk of being soaked by rain, sprinkled with snow or being weathered by street drafts.

When building a new hut, our ancestors followed the rules developed over the centuries, because the construction of a new house is a significant event in the life of a peasant family and all traditions were observed to the smallest detail. One of the main precepts of the ancestors was the choice of a place for the future hut. A new hut should not be built on the site where there was once a cemetery, road or bathhouse. But at the same time, it was desirable that the place for the new wooden house should already be inhabited, where the life of people in complete well-being, bright and in a dry place.

The main requirement for building material it was the same - the log house was cut from: from pine, spruce or larch. future home was erected from a log house, in the first year the log house was defended, and the next season it was finished in the new wooden house a family settled in with a stove. The trunk of coniferous trees was tall, slender, well axed and at the same time was durable, the walls of pine, spruce or larch kept the heat in the house well in winter and did not heat up in the summer, in the heat, keeping a pleasant coolness. At the same time, the choice of a tree in the forest was regulated by several rules. For example, it was forbidden to cut down diseased, old and withered trees, which were considered dead and could, according to legend, bring illness to the house. It was forbidden to cut down the trees that grew on the road and along the roads. Such trees were considered "violent" and in a log house such logs, according to legend, can fall out of the walls and crush the owners of the house.

Details about construction wooden houses in Russia can be read in a book written at the beginning of the 20th century by the famous Russian architect, historian and researcher of Russian wooden architecture M.V. Krasovsky. His book contains a grandiose material on the history of wooden architecture in Russia from the most ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century. The author of the book studied the development of ancient traditions in construction wooden buildings from residential buildings to church temples, he studied the methods of building pagan wooden temples and temples. M.V. Krasovsky wrote about all this in his book, arranging it with drawings with explanations.

hut- a peasant log house, living quarters with a Russian stove. The word "hut" was used only in relation to a house, cut from wood and located in countryside. It had several meanings:

• firstly, a hut is a peasant house in general, with all outbuildings and business premises;
• secondly, this is only a residential part of the house;
• thirdly, one of the premises of the house, heated by a Russian oven.

The word "hut" and its dialect variants "ystba", "istba", "istoba", "istobka", "istebka" were known in Ancient Russia and were used to mark the premises. The huts were cut with an ax from pine, spruce, larch. These trees with even trunks lay well in the frame, tightly adjacent to each other, retained heat, and did not rot for a long time. The floor and ceiling were made from the same material. Window and door blocks, doors were usually made of oak. Other deciduous trees used in the construction of huts quite rarely - both for practical reasons (crooked trunks, soft, quickly decaying wood), and for mythological ones.

For example, it was impossible to take aspen for a log house, because, according to legend, Judas strangled himself on it, betraying Jesus Christ. Construction machinery over the vast expanses of Russia, with the exception of its southern regions, was completely the same. At the heart of the house lay a rectangular or square log house measuring 25-30 square meters. m, made up of horizontally laid one on top of the other round, peeled from the bark, but unhewn logs. The ends of the logs were connected without the help of nails. different ways: “in the corner”, “in the paw”, “in the hook”, “in the boar”, etc.

Moss was laid between the logs for warmth. The roof of a log house was usually made gable, three-slope or four-slope, and as roofing materials they used tes, shingles, straw, sometimes reeds with straw. Russian huts differed in the overall height of the dwelling. High buildings were characteristic of the Russian northern and northeastern provinces of European Russia and Siberia. Due to the harsh climate and high soil moisture wooden floor the huts were raised here to a considerable height. Basement height, i.e. non-residential space under the floor, varied from 1.5 to 3 m.

There were also two-story houses, the owners of which were rich peasants and merchants. Two-story houses and houses on a high basement were built by the rich Don Cossacks who had the opportunity to buy timber. Huts were much lower and smaller in size in the central part of Russia, in the Middle and Lower Volga regions. Beams for the floor here were cut into the second - fourth crown. In the relatively warm southern provinces of European Russia, underground huts were set up, that is, the floorboards were laid directly on the ground. The hut usually consisted of two or three parts: the hut itself, the passage and the cage, connected to each other into a single whole by a common roof.

The main part of the residential building was a hut (called in the villages Southern Russia hut) - a heated living space of a rectangular or square shape. The cage was a small cold room, used mainly for household purposes. The canopy was a kind of unheated hallway, a corridor separating the living quarters from the street. In Russian villages of the 18th - early 20th centuries. dominated by houses consisting of a hut, a cage and a passage, but often there were also houses that included only a hut and a cage. In the first half - the middle of the XIX century. in the villages, buildings began to appear, consisting of a vestibule and two living quarters, one of which was a hut, and the other was a room, used as a non-residential, front part of the house.

The traditional peasant house had many variants. Residents of the northern provinces of European Russia, rich in timber and fuel, built several heated rooms for themselves under one roof. Already there in the 18th century. five-walls were common, twin huts, crosses, huts with cuts were often installed. The rural houses of the northern and central provinces of European Russia, the Upper Volga region included many architectural details, which, having a utilitarian purpose, simultaneously served as decorative decoration of the house. Balconies, galleries, mezzanines, porches smoothed out the severity appearance hut, cut down from thick logs that have become gray with time, turning peasant huts into beautiful architectural structures.

Such necessary details roof structures, like okhlupen, valances, cornices, chapels, as well as window frames and shutters, were decorated with carvings and paintings, sculpturally processed, giving the hut additional beauty and originality. In the mythological ideas of the Russian people, a house, a hut is the focus of the main life values person: happiness, prosperity, peace, well-being. The hut protected a person from the outside dangerous world. In Russian fairy tales, bylichkas, a person always hides from evil spirits in a house whose threshold they cannot cross. At the same time, the hut seemed to the Russian peasant a rather miserable dwelling.

A good house included not only a hut, but also several upper rooms and cages. That is why in Russian poetic creativity, which idealized peasant life, the word "hut" is used to characterize a poor house in which poor people live, deprived of fate: beans and bobs, widows, unfortunate orphans. The hero of the tale, entering the hut, sees that a “blind old man”, “grandmother backyard”, or even Baba Yaga - Bone Leg is sitting in it.

WHITE HUT- living quarters of a peasant house, heated by a Russian stove with a pipe - in white. Huts with a stove, the smoke from which, when fired, came out through a chimney, became widespread in the Russian village rather late. In European Russia, they began to be actively built from the second half of XIX century, especially in the 80s and 90s. In Siberia, the transition to white huts occurred earlier than in the European part of the country. They became widespread there at the end of the 18th century, and by the middle of the 19th century. in fact, all the huts were heated by a stove with a chimney. However, the absence of white huts in the village until the first half of the 19th century. did not mean that in Russia they did not know stoves with a chimney.

During archaeological excavations in Veliky Novgorod in the layers of the XIII century. in the ruins of the furnaces of rich houses there are chimneys made of baked clay. In the XV-XVII centuries. in the grand ducal palaces, mansions of boyars, rich townspeople there were rooms that were heated in white. Until that time, white huts were only among the rich peasants of suburban villages, who were engaged in trade, carting, crafts. And already at the beginning of the XX century. only very poor people stoked the hut in a black way.

hut-twins- a wooden house, consisting of two independent log cabins, tightly pressed against each other by the sides. Log houses were placed under one gable roof, on a high or medium basement. The living quarters were located in front of the house, with a common vestibule attached to the back, from which there were doors to the covered courtyard and to each of the rooms of the house. The log cabins were usually the same size- three windows on the facade, but could be of different sizes: one room had three windows on the facade, the other two.

The installation of two log cabins under a single roof was explained both by the owner's concern for the conveniences of the family, and by the need to have a reserve room. One of the rooms was actually a hut, that is, a warm room, heated by a Russian stove, intended for a family to live in winter. The second room, called the summer hut, was cold and was used in summer time when the stuffiness in the hut, heated even in the hot season, forced the owners to move to a cooler place. In rich houses, the second hut sometimes served as a front room for receiving guests, i.e., a room or a room.

In this case, an urban-type stove was installed here, which was used not for cooking, but only for generating heat. In addition, the upper room often became a bedroom for young married couples. And when the family grew, the summer hut, after the installation of a Russian stove in it, easily turned into a hut for the youngest son, who remained under his father's roof even after marriage. It is curious that the presence of two log cabins placed side by side made the twin hut quite durable.

Two log walls, one of which was a wall of a cold room, and the other of a warm one, set at a certain interval, had their own natural and quick ventilation. If there was one common wall between the cold and warm rooms, then it would condense moisture in itself, contributing to its rapid decay. Twin huts were usually built in places rich in forest: in the northern provinces of European Russia, in the Urals, in Siberia. However, they were also found in some villages of Central Russia among wealthy peasants engaged in trade or industrial activities.

hut chicken or hut black- living quarters of a peasant log house, heated by a stove without a pipe, in a black way. In such huts, when the stove was fired, the smoke from the mouth rose up and went out into the street through a smoke hole in the ceiling. It was closed after heating with a board or plugged with rags. In addition, smoke could escape through a small portage window cut into the pediment of the hut, if it did not have a ceiling, and also through open door. During the firing of the stove in the hut it was smoky and cold. The people who were here at that time were forced to sit on the floor or go outside, as the smoke ate their eyes, climbed into the larynx and nose. Smoke rose up and hung there in a dense blue layer.

From this, all the upper crowns of logs were covered with black resinous soot. The benches that encircled the hut above the windows served in the hut for soot settling and were not used for arranging utensils, as was the case in the white hut. To keep warm and ensure the quick exit of smoke from the hut, Russian peasants came up with a number of special devices. So, for example, many northern huts had double doors that opened into the canopy. External doors, which completely closed the doorway, were opened wide. The inner ones, which had a rather wide opening on top, were tightly closed. The smoke came out through the top of these doors, and the cold air going down met an obstacle in its path and could not penetrate into the hut.

In addition, a chimney was arranged above the ceiling smoke hole - a long exhaust wooden pipe, the upper end of which was decorated with a through carving. In order to make the living space of the hut free from the smoke layer, clean from soot and soot, in some regions of the Russian North the huts were made with high vaulted ceilings. In other places in Russia, many huts, even in early XIX v. had no ceiling at all. The desire to remove the smoke from the hut as soon as possible also explains the usual absence of a roof in the entrance hall.

He described the smokehouse peasant's hut in rather gloomy colors at the end of the 18th century. A. N. Radishchev in his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: “Four walls, half covered, like the entire ceiling, with soot; the floor was cracked, at least an inch overgrown with mud; oven without chimney best protection from the cold, and the smoke that fills the hut every morning in winter and summer; the windows, in which the stretched bubble, fading at noon, let in the light; two or three pots... A wooden cup and bowls, called plates; a table cut down with an ax, which is scraped with a scraper on holidays. Trough to feed pigs or calves, if they eat, they sleep with them, swallowing air, in which a burning candle seems to be in a fog or behind a veil.

However, it should be noted that the chicken hut also had a number of advantages, thanks to which it was preserved for so long in the life of the Russian people. When heating with a tubeless stove, the heating of the hut occurred quite quickly, as soon as the firewood burned out and the outer door closed. Such a stove gave more heat, less wood was used for it. The hut was well ventilated, there was no dampness in it, and the wood and thatch on the roof were involuntarily disinfected and preserved longer. The air in the hut, after heating it, was dry and warm.

Chicken huts appeared in ancient times and existed in the Russian village until the beginning of the 20th century. They began to be actively replaced by white huts in the villages of European Russia from the middle of the 19th century, and in Siberia - even earlier, from the end of the 18th century. So, for example, in the description of the Shushenskaya volost of the Minusinsk district of Siberia, made in 1848, it is indicated: “There are absolutely no houses of blacks, the so-called huts without the removal of pipes.” In the Odoevsky district of the Tula province, as early as 1880, 66% of all huts were smokehouses.

hut with prirub- a wooden house, consisting of one log house and a smaller living space attached to it under a single roof and with one common wall. A prirub could be erected immediately during the construction of the main log house or attached to it after a few years, when there was a need for additional premises. The main log house was a warm hut with a Russian stove, the prirub was a summer cold hut or a room heated by a Dutch woman - an urban stove. Log huts were built mainly in the central regions of European Russia and in the Volga region.

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