My and Google translation of the book of Vasily Belov “The Harmony”
An anthology of short stories on the national esthetics of Northern Russia
litresp.ru: ЛАД Белов Василий Иванович
old-ru.ru: Василий Белов Лад
Saturday, 30 December 2017
THE TAILORS AND OTHERS TRADES
To have a Singer sewing machine (sheath or hand) was considered the main attribute of a tailor. The tailor carried his machine on sleds during the winter. He would settle by the village for long time sewing coats, hats, coats, fancy jackets. All the other kinds of clothing women produced themselves come out in a different way each.
To quilt blankets, women gathered together, headed by a very meticulous master.
Furriers or tanners...
According to the stories, they could be met infrequently, and over the past half-century, they were completely extinct. Furrier trade, meanwhile, was taken by nobodies and got done somehow. Shoemakers criticized customers for poor tanning. Boots shrivel; mercilessly rub the feet, and it turns out that the guilty side is the cobbler. Tanning leather and sheepskin are complex, time-consuming and not very pleasant work: the stench of leather, fermented in the rye flour and not tolerated by all. For tanning hides was used willow bark.
Hunters have usually treated skins by themselves. Hunters may well be also attributed to a particular professional group, but people have always treated them with a shade of light irony. Just as fishermen and beekeepers, people who are not engaged in agriculture. In conjunction with other forest trades, the same hunting skills, and even better with arable farming, would bring a man more material benefits and other respect.
About hunt can be said a lot, about it is written hundreds of articles and books. Over time, hunting art has obviously degenerated; hunting became a sport and everyday fun. However, real professional hunters still remain in some places.
The saddlers have also disappeared, but it was once a flourishing profession. The lives of Russian people and peasants mainly were tightly related to the horse, the horse wagon, and horse pulls; there was always a singular attitude to the harness, the pointed arches, Valdai bells and road songs.
However, fastening the clamp is more challenging than bawling a rowdy song or tearing fifteen to twenty miles in a sleigh. The wooden castors (the clamp frame) were fastened by belts at the top to be spread at the bottom. To it was attached a made of leather, stuffed with straw "roll," felt was put inside, and all covered with leather again. The clamp was made by the size - big or small.
A saddler is a shoemaker who depends on the furrier. All harnesses are often decorated with embossing, soldered plaques and leather tassels. The reins, made from ropes, not leather, were considered a disgrace, even in a family of moderate means.
Tar-makers were also needed in peasant labour and life. Tar was produced from birch bark, stuffing it in ceramic vessels called cubes. These cubes, embedded into the ovens, were heated from below and from them, tar flowed out, so valuable for the household. It was used for lubrication of shoes, wheels, swings, harnesses, carts, the manufacture of drugs, scare away flies, etc.
Resin-makers used dry distillation the same way, but instead of birch bark, they put dry pitch pine roots in a ceramic vessel. Coal makers lived in the woods for weeks. They dig large holes, filling them with wood and burned. The trick was timing to put down this gigantic bonfire, close the gap with turf and extinguish the embers. If you put it down too early, instead of coal would be left smouldering; if too late, it will be ash only left. Imagine what coal-makers looked like when they lived in the woods for weeks! Coal-makers supplied charcoal to local blacksmiths and sold their products in urban areas.
Wheel makers, producers of hub wheels, birch runners and other parts of the carriage also interacted with the blacksmiths. They were settled, but sawyers of hew, tinkers, forgers of millstones and sickles makers travelled to the villages. Rarely would you see weavers of fishnets because everyone, who had to deal with water and fish, often used to make up a gear himself?
At the fairs and villages sometimes appeared the utensils makers and grinders with all kinds of boxes. All counties had their own midwives, mourners, and caretakers; their bell ringers were also in every parish. There was the influence of different types of skills; the professional skill was not insulated. Looking for an excellent earthen vessel, the carpenter was infected with excitement of good work and tried to show off his chair to the potter. Such competition quietly pushed a master to real art.
THE COOPERS
The economy, especially the natural economy, always needed riveted utensils: large and small tanks (for the manufacture of leather, for boiling the wort and grain storage); vats for salting of mushrooms, cucumbers, cabbage, basins and tubs for storage of kvas and water heating stones, attachments for beer and wort, tubs, buckets, pail, etc. All these goods were supplied by the coopers.
Although the technology here is very different, they probably made the same aspen tree boxes for the girls' dowries. No rivets and no hoops were required. Master hollowed out the insides of the aspen tree's thick, smooth trunk, sawed and spread the workpiece the same way as the canoes are spread. The result was a wide flat board. Next, he did a notch, or rather, a cut on the inner side of the future transverse fold, steamed and bent it into the box. Next, he gouged holes, inserted the bottom and sewed with linden bast. Now it is only left to hang the cover. It turned out to be a convenient, light repository for the woman's stuff.
THE HEALERS
The witch was more often feminine, but there were many male witches once in ancient times. A sorcerer means a mediator between people and the evil force, a person who uses the services of demons. According to a popular belief, the sorcerer or medicine-man cannot die without passing first their "knowledge" to another person. Literate or deeply religious people did not recognize quackery; the official church also struggled with this phenomenon. But as it is difficult to imagine a village or a parish without a holy fool, it couldn't exist without a healer! There was an aesthetic need for both a sorcerer and a fool filled with social and moral emptiness. In addition, quackery has often combined the absurdity of superstition with the authentic power of suggestion, autosuggestion and power of medicinal herbs.
Witch doctors were engaged in amorous love spells and contra-spells searches for stolen cattle and treatment of animals (horse doctors often used voodoo herbs and methods).
A granny-witch sincerely believed in her "know-how." But, along with this, if her visitor assumes in it too, then the power of suggestion really started to act: a man freed, for example, of toothache, or skin disease, or dislike of the marital bed, etc.
Some quacks put spells at a distance, for example, at the request of an abandoned or rejected lover. Thus the more robust the object resisted, the harder it was alleged to pronounce spells. The witch had a lump in her throat, the words came out with difficulty, and she kept yawning.
Quacks often led a poor and humble life. By this, perhaps, one could very well finish a short description of the principal types of professional skills. All the main occupations that have economic and aesthetic value in the life of a peasant are listed. But besides those top occupations, there were many subsidiaries or secondary kinds of trades and craftsmanship. And some of them depended on others; in other cases, they were related. The professional relationship is often carried out by one person.
THE MERCHANTS
Clearly, Nekrasov's s Uncle James was a born salesman. Such traders loved their job and took care of the family's professional dignity, rank, and honour. The most offensive and insulting to them was indiscriminate, obviously a bad attitude; they say, if you are a dealer, you cheat the Orthodox people and make profit and money.
Such an assessment was particularly unsuitable for the travelling salesmen - carriers of small goods, sellers of books, lithographs and cheap popular images.
Among them were the true devotees. "Going to the people" also took this form. A famous Russian publisher Sytin began his educational activities with just this occupation. As a boy, he worked as a travelling bookseller. A peasant and urban commoner respected an honest merchant with reverence for the trading business. Therefore, they often got on a hook to a deceiver and con artist.
Using people's credulity, trade rogues sold damaged goods and made fun of people. These merchants treated honest traders with contempt, passing into hatred. How, they say, one can trade without cheating? On the other hand, a trader, who sells without cheating, is rapidly gaining popularity among the people and therefore getting rich quickly. Many then increased revenue and expanded the business. Others artificially slowed the business, assuming it was a sin to increase trade. The latter enjoyed great respect among the people. Not by chance, in old epics, frequently there is a guest trader, a hero, who is rich not because he deceived and pinches pennies, but because of the breadth of his soul, honesty and athletic bravado. The Epic "Sadco" is not very similar to Lermontov's Kalashnikov. But both of them are not suspected of commercialism or soul pettiness.
But the conscientious traders and unscrupulous traders had something in common. It was love for the trade, the desire to communicate with people through trade, the ability to make jokes, entertain, and knowledge of proverbs.
A gloomy trader was not popular. Seller Alexander Kalabashkin traded in the village store, declaring the price of the toy roosters and adding: -"They will sing in the spring." Like Nekrasov's Uncle James, he often gave a small fairing to an orphan or weakling.
A Russian Fair made all traders participants; it seemed to be played down the urban rich and raised the professional dignity of a temporary seller of his food and products. Then, at the end of the XIX century, merchants world-first began supplying the peasant village parvenus and bouncers that worked as the shop clerks. Many of them, coming to visit, began to look with contempt on rural labour, calling village folk clumsy. But Smerdyakov's philosophy, for a long time, could not penetrate the national consciousness; it twisted around a little.
Friday, 29 December 2017
THE MILLERS
The water mills appeared like mushrooms after rain in the villages. The village of Kupaiha was widely known for its windmills, where almost every household had a winged wonder or shared with a neighbour. From a distance, Kupaiha looked sort of a fairy tale village because the mills were higher than the houses, and the sun surrounded the village from three sides.
Who had not been called a miller during the collective time! But, of course, not all of them were so meticulous as Dennis, a miller from Pomazihi. Even in his own house, he built the mill on the upper barn. He called her "built on sand" (water mills were" water mills "and "shove mills").
Dennis's sand mill was supposed to spin non-stop until the wear and tear according to the plan. Still, Denis's perpetual mobile did not work, and he returned to his old "water-flowing."
Matyusha- a miller from the same village, worked on his mill (with a 30-year collective farm) until his death. He was thoughtful, stocky and liked to make fun. Matusha was replaced by Ivan Timofeyevich Merkushev, nicknamed Timokhin. He was a powerful, massive and profound man with a big dark-red beard.
All millers have something in common, a strange contemplation, a spiritual reserve, which did not possess all the others, i.e. non-millers. Water makes noise day and night at the dam. River twinkles in the sun and only a few fish splashes disrupt a vast enchanted expanse. The grinds are not that rustle, as it were, but peacefully snuffle; a helper snores in the cabin. He must pour grain into the bucket, but you, the miller, have to walk and listen to the water, stare at the sky, dividing the weather, watch for bran and touch a warm flour stream. Knock the wedge and slightly lower your upper millstone if the flour went too coarse. Get lost in their thoughts again, looking at the sky, water and green woods.
Wind and water, especially when they are at the service of men, make the miller close to nature, become intermediaries between the infinite world and a man. Even when the elements threaten to destroy the dam or break the wings of windmills, the miller is calm.
He even then knows what to do because he was on familiar terms with nature.
THE FELT-MAKERS
A felt-maker in the North is a figure essential. No wonder that with the felt boots (kataniki) begin or end many limericks:
"Oh, my kataniki are gray; one is torn.
Because of the gray kataniki, I got drunk, drunk."
Or:
"Very weakly felt boots tapping, I will get the high boots,
To walk with a good girl, Hey comrade, lend me a pair!"
You can collect dozens of rhymes that mention the felt boots...
The work of felt-makers was challenging and inconvenient because the work must be done in a steam room damp. But this does not mean that the felt-makers were not required skills, expertise and knowledge of various subtleties.
A brigade of felt-makers made usually of relatives was no more than three or four people. They carried multiple instruments. After settling down in a spacious house, they rolled felt boots, first for the landlord's family, then for other customers. The work began with threshing the wool, preferably winter wool.
First, they pulled off wool's knots, cleaning it of dirt and ticks. Then, wool was beaten up with a leather string stretched very tight on a special portable device hanging on the wall. A wooden hook was used to snap this string. The string, vibrating, tore apart matted wool. Hence is the expression "to tear apart to pieces." To do this job was put a less experienced felt maker, often a teenager.
The master cautiously spread fluffed wool in a 'T' on the table. On the spread wool, also in a 'T' form, was laid a linen lining, on the size to the size of felt boots. Then he gently folded the letter T along the axis without touching the pads and sewed the wool edges with a thin thread. It turned out to be a resemblance to a felt boot. Next, the upper was sprayed with rye flour, carefully placed in a large iron and boiled, then the pad was taken out and put felt on the last. Finally, the actual wallow began (not "of a fool," but the felt boots!).
Master gently used an ability of wool to become matted to join sides, matted edges; only after that, you can safely use force.
To work on felt boots after that could be done by a different person, more robust and less experienced. Boots rolled with the roller, slapped, beaten, pounded, patted, and moved over with tetrahedral iron bars. The more boots were hammered and rolled, the more they shrank on the last, and it was becoming less and less in size.
Into the upper part were inserted spacers. Ready felt boots were dyed, dried and trimmed with pumice. The main advantages of felt boots are durability, softness and economical usage of wool. The master-roller made uppers very elastic, and the higher, the thinner. (Woolen hats were made the same way.)
To correctly guess the size, amount of wool, and to make felt boots precisely to measure could do only a good master. For men, boots with long tops were spent five or six pounds of wool; for the most minor children, felt boots just half a pound. For teenagers or women, boots are from half to three pounds. It is hard to imagine what a joy rose in the soul of the child and even adults when new boots were brought in and they were offered to try on.
THE HORSE DOCTORS
Horse doctors treated animals. But their first duty, of course, was the neutering of stallions, bulls, rams and hogs because not-neutered males were dangerous and restless. "Running around," they do not fatten. A horse doctor, if he respects himself, was able to reduce fungus with special herbs and ointments, eliminate intestinal parasites, make lotions, wash and chop off the hoof, puncture the animal's belly to release the accumulated gas, insert the ring into the nostrils of bulls, sawed off the horns of aggressive cows, and etc.
Dogs and cats did not interest the farrier. Owners themselves treated them, sometimes in quite a silly way. It is still unknown what and why some cut off the tip of the cat's tail. It was assumed that such a cat is a better mouser. A good farrier walked from village to village with an assistant or two. They were known far around, always addressed by name and patronymic. Flayers and butchers, who occasionally appeared here and there under the guise of horse doctors, did not enjoy the confidence of the peasants.
THE POTTERS
"Not gods make pots, but the guys from one village or another," - was told about the potters. These townships and villages were scattered throughout the immense Russian North-West. Without interfering with each other and while competing in quality, they supplied the people with tableware. Nobody knows from which ancient time the potter's wheel was rolled to us. (By the way, it is already rolled away.) Perhaps nothing so excellent tells us about the past as ceramics. Baked clay, even in shards, remains virtually forever. Maybe, without them, without these shards, we would be more arrogant towards the past and not so presumptuous about the future ...
A proverb of the potters, like all these proverbs, is ambiguous. "Not gods make pots ..." Of course, not gods, but people. But the man, in the process to understand divinity, became a master, and only then, in front of him, appeared the mystery of art. To open this mystery was not necessary, for the artist's presence in it is enough. This mystery would open only in an artistic image, and each time uniquely. If the art image is serial, it's not art; it is not an image but a cliché. To be able does not mean to be able to complete. Skill, as a rule, is not acquired in the struggle with nature but collaboration with her. Thus, if the village of nature is not stored common clay, people do not engage in pottery.
Good clay, heavy, like lead, very sticky, stretchy, cling to the fingers. But the same property - cling - turns and lousy side: the fingers must be free, and the material clinging to them, so the potter, as well as masonry, constantly needs water. And fantasy. And patience. And something that has no name yet. Especially necessary during sintering, when the fire, or rather a quiet, steady heat, fixes a piece made from wet clay by hands and imagination.
When a person gives the ability to an object produce sound, the clay gets its voice ... Dishes can be bathed and non-bathed, with an ornament or without it. It was sprayed with a special compound. The dried product shines with gloss.
When roads become smooth and quiet in winter, a potter stacked dishes in series in a sleigh. So that the wares would not break, straw layers were put in between. Driving in a new village, the seller called in kids and instructed them to run and loudly announce his visit in return for cakes because the double winter frames are not allowed to hear what was happening on the street. Noisy housewives surrounded the cart; a crowd was formed. "What's the price?" - asked an old lady or young woman. "Put the pitcher full of oats, spill it out to my bag and take the pitcher.
What were potters selling? All of that was required. Large, like jugs with narrow throats vessels called "korchagas," They hold grain and other bulk products. Krynka, drenched with glaze on the edges, contained a bucket of water and was used for baking pies. Pots of all sizes, small mugs, and jars with handles are used for cooking and bottling milk to make yogurt and sour cream.
In the boxes with narrow necks were kept pitch and tar. In churns was churned cream for butter, in bowls - broad and deep clay dishes - fried-steamed food for everyday and holidays. For kids, the potter exhibited a large basket of toys. Teat-whistles in the shape of birds, painted ponies, goats and deer broke into the children's lives. There can be no doubt that every true artist, a potter, painter, enjoyed the most, not the profit but how he is received in a strange village.
THE STOVE MAKERS
The family (i.e., the farm, the house, the homestead) was the center that created a whole parish. But what is a family without a home? A house (or mansion) gave shelter and comfort to people, cows, horses, and other living creatures. And if in a spiritual sense, the principal place in the mansion was the red corner of the main house, then a center of material and moral center, of course, was the Russian stove, a never cold family hearth. The stove nursed, fed, healed and comforted. On it sometimes gave birth, it, when people became decrepit, helped to endure brief suffering of dying and get the eternal peace.
The stove was needed at any age, in any condition and situation. It got cold only with the destruction of the family or home. Is it any wonder that the people revered the mason no less than a priest or a teacher? Nobody knows when and how an ordinary hearth became a closed hearth, or the heater, even now you can see in bathhouses, made in "black" style. The stone hearth was built without the bricks, out of stones only. Therefore, it was important skillfully make the vault; pick up the rocks of such size and form to fit them to each other so that they hold themselves. The upper part of the vault was laid without mortar; the smoke came out in slits between the stones. Heated rocks long kept a house warm.
Over time, the stone heater remained only in the baths, for the homes began to "beat" (build) the stoves. The stoves were constructed usually with the help of neighbours and relatives, arranging small help. On a wooden elevation ("opechek") was established "pig," made in the form of the stove's vault of tight-fitting, curved from exterior sides beams. It, like the mould, was set, not fastened with nails, so you can remove it from the stove a part by part. Outside of the mould were installed boards; it was an ample stove space packed a thick, well-mixed clay. Smoke came out in the hole near the ceiling, so the hut was built reasonably high. However, real masters appeared only after people stopped building houses "in the black way" and when the chimney went through the roof and ceiling. Pipe and casing cannot be made of clay; you need bricks and, altogether, a special master.
Zosima Neustupov, the brother of the already mentioned Ivan Afanasievich, was like a boy, hot-tempered and naive. The men often tricked him, and the kids teased him under the windows of his house. Finally, he jumped out of the house in anger and chased the offenders. But how do you catch them up? But in an hour and a half, the same gang would tumble into Zosima's house, and the conflict was forgotten.
Zosima put down the stove in an inimitable way. As you can see, the brothers did not want to resemble each other: one liked wood, the other - clay and bricks. Until now, in many surviving houses, there are Zosima's stoves. What should be a real stove, as per Zosima?
First, there is not a sniff of carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide stove is a disaster for all life, sometimes for several generations. There have been cases when whole families died from intoxication by CO. And how much suffering, even if you do not die! The head is splitting with pain, ringing in the ears, and all the insides invert. In the ears, people somehow cram frozen cranberries and put in the bosom, too, frozen horse manure.
Secondly, the stove should be large enough for the children and the elderly to lie down.
Thirdly, it should be hot, but not greedy for firewood, to spare the firewood. The same logs provide heat in the excellent stove, much more heat than a bad one.
Fourth that a cloud of smoke is not thrown by the wind back into the house.
Fifth - that it should be beautiful. Pretty. So it would stand out in the house like a bridesmaid, with cornices on the stove for drying all kinds of mittens.
Zosima Afanasievich Neustupov achieved all of those features quickly and with fun. Other bricklayers were present, too, of course. But one is tetchy; the other put stoves with fumes. The third requires a bottle of vodka every day and takes a long time. And if you don't please or you feed not good enough, he will make something out of spite. He would build an ugly relinquishing stove or a very cold one. A howling stove is very bad. A slight breeze, and the chimney wails like a devil. This means that for the bad owners, a dissatisfied bricklayer inserted into the chimney the neck of a bottle. You don't want to live in a house like this ...
Not such a master was Zosima! He made not only big stoves but also shields and couches. During the war times, there were stoves with an iron pipes. The masonry does not even show interest in this kind of stove, but Zosima wasn't not taken by it. He knew how much and how to put rotations, how best to do the vault, the mouth and the surface. He knew how to knock a brick that it breaks just where necessary. The trowel in the hands of Zosima acquired some tremendous force, as if magical. The art of making stoves was taught in the fifties in technical schools. Today for some reason, it is stopped. Too bad! In Russia, the last stove will not soon disappear.
THE BOATMAKERS
A Vologda's Hiawatha had to walk around and ride in the woods until he found what he needed. He sharpens a cut-down aspen tree far from home from both ends; it will outline the bow and stern. Then, across the bottom, let us make "guards" - round, strictly identical in thickness and length sticks. Their length will be equal to the thickness of the base. He will drive those "guards" in the holes by rows encircling a future boat, take a chisel in his hands and begin to gouge inside the cherished aspen. "The guards" help him not go through the bottom or not make it too thin. Carved aspen becomes light and resonant.
A master brings it home and puts it somewhere on the threshing floor or the basement to dry up. Sometimes, it dries there for several years. It's not easy for the peasants to escape their jobs: a hay field, harvesting, building houses, and going into military service. Then, finally, it was appointed a particular day. Somewhere on the banks of the river, a workpiece is put on the low box, and underneath the whole, its length starts not a very hot fire.
The workpiece poured hot water, and fire-heated stones were immersed in water. Outside is fry; inside is steam. And then - a miracle! Carved aspen as if she pushes aside its sides. Naked spruce twigs carefully, one by one, are inserted into the body in a bent form. Their gentle firmness slowly pushes the boards out. Broader and broader... A boat silhouette is already clearly seen. An impatient owner adds firewood, inserts more flexible twigs, and hammers spacing between the sides (a treacherous tiny crack inside nobody noticed). And the boat is formed! Suddenly, a crack was heard... One side falls off entirely, and the bottom sticks out in no amenable slit.
There is hardly anything more enjoyable in life than lowering the boat just made by you into the water! If a vessel was large, then along the shore until the water was put spruce logs and the boat was rolled on them. Sometimes it is so light that a one-man could do this without a particular strain. Masters-boatmen were, as a rule, good carpenters or joiners. Boats are usually made by people for themselves and not for sale.
Buying a boat for an average man who was skillful with the axe was somehow shameful, so he took the time to make one himself. Then, after ruining a pair of aspens, he could do it right. This case involved excitement and competition: "I am worse than others?" "Some can make it, but I cannot?" "It doesn't take a genius to make a pot," etc.
Of course, there were also recognized artisans with a unique flair and exceptional skill. They would give advice, help, and inoffensive instruction to a newly appointed boat-maker. So gradually, the whole village acquired boats if it stood on the bank of a river or lake. Only those who did not have a vocation for fishing had either a fear of water or didn't have a boat.
BEGGARS
"Let's play only our accordion, and someone else accordions we'll tear apart.
We don't go around begging, and to others, alms don't give."
can be understood only in thousands of other, more benign limericks.
No, Russian people didn't have respect for such dudes who had not treated beggars charitably! He could sing a similar limerick in drunken fury, farce, and ostentation, but he couldn't not give alms. A proverb such as "Do not swear off the beggar's bag and the prison cell" was known among the people more than the limerick mentioned above.
Beggars on the sly intent, in other words, lazy people who did not want to work, were very few, and they were easily dissolved in a typical large mass. This type of parasite among the folk, shamelessly enjoying worldly kindness, too, was admitted an element of national life.
Justice, however, triumphed, and in this case, the pretend beggar lived under a constant threat of exposure, which forced him to move to places far from his home. Of course, he had to act and fake, but all this does not always work for a healthy person.
From the people's eyes, nothing escaped. But, toward such undercover, according to the popular expression "cunning" men, popular opinion is merciless: he will be exposed and necessarily punished with a derogatory nickname. He will wear it like velvet until the end of his days.
There were not many takers in the world to pass for a parasite! However, a strange and not devoid of entertainment notoriety had a glorious parish northwest of Vologda. (I will not name it out of respect to the current residents.).
The power of a harmful tradition has made this parish, not a laughing stock but something frivolous. Whether the land was fertile or the peasants were not tough, their harvest lasted only to Shrove Tuesday. So a man harnesses the horse to a sleigh, puts in it two large boxes, puts plenty of hay, and, taking with him one or two assistants, goes into the world to collect alms. Sometimes, they travelled almost like the wagon train, trying to get onto different roads and quickly dissipating.
Great is the world! Great and forgiving, it will forgive and this. It will forgive, yes, but at the same time, it will grin. And only a very carefree peasant with strong hands will go begging with a light heart…
All other forms of begging, down to the gypsy, do not cause blasphemy or ridicule in people. In exceptional cases, to beg was not considered shameful. For example, after the fire, people also wandered through the land, giving alms, not only bread but also clothing, utensils and crockery. The community helped get back victims of the disasters. To help prisoners and convicts is also considered a moral obligation. The soldiers, who served for twenty years and were decommissioned, returned home on foot, walked for several months and, of course, lived in the name of Christ.
Or when somebody was mugged on the road, a drunken hauler lost money in a strange land, or a pilgrim returns from a distant journey - all are fed by the community. In ancient times, not sheltering a traveller or beggar and not providing for the passerby was considered a sin. Even the most miserly owners, under the pressure of public morality, have been forced to observe the custom of hospitality.
Sometimes, a not particularly stingy hostess has made for a holiday a separate trough for the alms, treating guests and relatives with one and beggars with another. Such caution is not subjected to ridicule, as there were sometimes many beggars. Villages, where people were not allowed to stay overnight, had a bad reputation, often affecting marriage.
Cripples and the disabled are especially revered by the people. Blind without a guide were led from village to village and arranged with their friends or relatives for the night. To stay, one could only stay overnight. If a beggar slept the second night, he is already looking for manageable tasks (even tales to tell or sing the epic). Do not give a ride to a lame, legless, humpbacked, or blind could only most cruel atheists who are not afraid of sin and flaunt such a "daring."
Almost every village had its fool or blessed - these were fed and clothed by the community. But the people felt special sorry for orphans. To sin against and offend an orphan could make each one individual, but to comfort and encourage an orphan's heart was possible only by the whole world.
A special place in the northern folklife took gypsy begging. Gypsies were loved in the North. Why?
Perhaps because of national identity, strange talking, and their beautiful songs. Gypsy were loved for their recklessness and carelessness, which the Russian peasant, who was entirely dependent on nature and their labour, could not afford... Male Romas have never asked for alms unless the hay or oats for the horses. The incomparable art of collecting tribute was inherent for many Roma women. Another simple-hearted woman, in the absence of an old man or husband, another simple-hearted woman charmed by the rapid speech and gloss enormous black eyes, instead of a piece of bread, gave a cake, poured tea from a tea caddy, and then went in motion and sour cream and sugar. She would come to the senses only when a gypsy's trace is cold...
Most beggars tried to get rid of poverty, and they sometimes succeeded. Thus, the orphan boy barely learned to run and talk, often taken as a shepherd's apprentice and a girl of five or six years as a nanny. And they lived in the village no longer beggars, reserving the right to leave anytime. The old men and cripples were often hired as shepherds, babysitters, watchmen, etc.
In ancient times, many believed God's punishment was not poverty but wealth. Happiness is associated with moral purity and spiritual harmony, which, in their view, is not conducive to pursuing wealth. You should be proud not of wealth but of intelligence and acumen. Those proud of wealth, especially not earned but inherited, peasants disliked. The parable of the birds of heaven, which "neither sow nor reaps and are well fed," explains the "strange" behaviour of many Russian men, renouncing property and turning into wanderers and pilgrims. Like anyone else, the peasant is akin to a feeling of complete unity with the surrounding world, the feeling known to wanderers.
Nobody, perhaps, expressed this feeling better than A.K. Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. Romance "I bless you, forests" - this masterpiece of aristocratic culture - with remarkable precision reflects the state typical for Russia of simple beggar-pilgrim, understand and feel " And in the field every blade of grass, and every star in the sky.»
Thursday, 28 December 2017
THE WOODWORKERS
Strength and beauty combined in one word: "stout." Carpentry became an independent trade, probably only after Peter the Great. Such words as "shpuntubel," "flat Sebel," "Thicknessing," and "zenzubel" are present in Russian construction technology because of the stubbornness of the crowned carpenter. But build quickly and beautifully, you can then only things that are beautifully and rapidly uttered - this is one manifestation of the unity of a Russian worker's material and spiritual world. Even in our times' an ordinary carpenter says "sampler" and not a "zenzubel."
Of foreign, incomprehensible to others, terms are very fond of using wretched by nature people, or lazy, or disadvantaged workers. This way, they separate from others and assert themselves. None of this is required for the wizard of trade. He works cheerfully, without strain, not under stress, not showing off. He exposes not himself but what he made, and not always. He has no secrets. He, at any time, tells you how and what if you're interested.
A woodworker can make any carpentry, but not every carpenter can do woodworking. Not every carpenter is fond of such delicate matters as grooving or gluing. Not everyone has the patience to take care and groom, trim, and polish the surface of a small piece of wood. A totally different matter, as they say, to cut the angle with an axe!
A log is rolled onto the wall, the angle is cut down, the groove is hewed, planted, and the house grows once a foot up. To each his own ... If a woodworker is at the same time an architect, the carpenter is adept in colour and graphics, and sculpture. You cannot, for example, join the frame; if you cannot draw, you cannot make a good countertop unless you manage to match boards by the structure and colour.
However, the expression "to find the layer" is equally valuable for the carpenter and the carpenter. Carpenter begins with the moment when he senses the tree, its smell, pattern, colour and sound. Most worry for the carpenter is the knot. But under the skillful hands, even a knot begins to live and thrive on the wood like a spoiled stepson.
Wednesday, 27 December 2017
THE SHOEMAKERS
Making boots is not easy. Leo Tolstoy, they say, made boots himself. If you say this to a real cobbler, he will grin: books by the great writer were undoubtedly much better. A cobbler also needs talent. Without love for the trade, the skill will diminish.
What begins as a love for the trade? Perhaps with the acid, incomparable smell of soaking leather. Those who turn their noses from the smell will not be cobblers. Maybe this love arises from the creaking and gloss of new boots worn for the first time by the young lads who came to gather. And maybe just from the fact that all people, young and old, expect this love of the trade from you.
As a child, the author of this book has experienced a burning interest in the work of a shoemaker. Impatience to try to make at least a few stitches in the seam of the boot top was so considerable that it accounted for every possible way to please the cobbler and even to flatter him. However, the master would never allow an apprentice to do something if he did not learn all the steps that had to be done before. However, it also happens that the subsequent operation yields the complexity of the previous one. You certainly want to stitch, twisting a waxed thread on the fists and pulling it out at both ends with a whistle. But no, my dear! Learn first to weave into waxed thread bristles.
And so the shoemaker, nurturing the patience, shows a little boy a spindle of fine good yarn, through the hook driven into the window jamb, hands four or six threads on the length of the future wax end. He divides them in half (by twos or threes) and, from the hook, begins to twist them to make a waxed thread. Then, clasping each pair of threads to the knee with his palm, he twists them, and twisted pairs, in turn, have twisted with each other.
This is the way to make a waxed thread. But he is still on the hook; it should be thoroughly waxed: pull over the leather fold in which smeared pitch a dozen times. The smell of the black sticky potions brewed from beeswax and pine resin brings the cobbler into a particular working state! However, a waxed thread without bristles is still the waxed thread but half of the waxed thread. The flax ends of it diminish to the end with the finest hairs. If genuine, pork bristles have a unique property: they can be split and torn in half lengthwise.
The shoemaker in front of the boy takes to form a bundle one brittle, splits it up in half, puts an end to the splitting of waxed thread, and gently twists his first with a bristle half, then with the other. Done! One thing is done. Now take an awl, the leather belt and sit down to stitch the boot-uppers. But the shoemaker, for some reason, is not in a hurry to sit down on his low folding chair; he begins to drag from the spindle to the hook new threads. Several balls of finished waxed thread should always be in stock, even for a bad employee.
Oh, how one wants to stitch! An experienced mentor will teach how to make what is necessary, but he will not tempt fate: children's interests can fade as quickly as they flare up. Therefore, rewarding the young curious mind's patience, the shoemaker asks him to make a few stitches ... The same thing goes for when you want to nail wooden studs into the sole or layered heel, to nail with the same gusto as a cobbler. You still need to get the hammer; learn to make these wooden nails first.
And now, a future master climbs onto the stove, pulls out from the old shirling dry birch circles, saw-off by the length of the nail. He breaks these circles with the hammer and the knife on equal, same-thickness plates, each such plate resting in a unique rest of the board, sharpening from one end with the shoemaker's knife. Then, put several plates one to another; you can cut them from the bottom, already half-sharpened, and shear nails.
Birch pins crunching fall off from the diminishing plates. The master—an artist with talent or even the desire to do no worse than others at each step of his professional cycle—gives a little ritual, a solemn sense.
Thus, a shoemaker comes to the customer's home and sets up his tools on a bench opposite the window; he starts to soak the leather. Well-made material is a pledge of shoemakers' luck. This proves a mutual relationship and labour dependence on other trades and people. If a furrier tanned leather so-so, the cobbler cannot be envied. A master sharpens the tool after cutting out patterns and soaks the leather. What could you find in his vast box besides two hooks, those big boards with the outlines of the boot! Here are knives, three or four varieties, tongs, and pliers for stretching macerated vamp. Lastly, there are awls of varying length, thickness, and shape. There are also hammers, stones, rasps, and wooden "boots" to smooth the welt.
Once everything is ready—the waxed thread, birch pins, and leather are soaked—the cobbler starts pulling the first hook. He fastens with nails tanned leather on the curved (hence the word "hook"), carved out of spruce roots boot-like board. He pulls it on both sides, smoothing any folds until they disappear. It is difficult and requires patience and skill. It also happened with a whistle that hurled tongs and hammers at the door.
Northern shoemakers preferred to avoid the vamps with tongues sewn into the tops by mass-production method. They had to constantly pull off the hooks to make the vamps and the tops of one piece of leather. Shoemaker puffs, removing stubborn creases. Finally, the hook is made to perform. The leather is stouter and crowded at the bend, and at the corners, which will be joined to the backdrop, it stretches out and thinner. All are fastened with small iron nails. While both "hooks" sit out, taking the required form, the shoemaker does something else: he sews boots for the mistress (to walk in the yard to the cattle), then soles old shoes or makes new vamps for old boots.
Directly embroidery begins with joining the so-called pasting to the tops, i.e. the inner lining. If the pasting is not for the whole hook, then the lower edge of it, the master stitches only to the flesh side of the boot; he does not puncture the skin through. God forbid if he does a lousy stitch! Then, taking off one boot, the customer can pull his foot from the tops together with the pasting. Such a shame to the cobbler!
After the pasting, the boots are joined and sewed in a backdrop, an inner pocket at the heel. Bark plates are inserted into the backdrop for hardness and stitched a few times. Only after that can you put a boot on the shoe-horse and the insole. The leather on the shoe-horse is pulled again with the pliers, fastened with nails and shoe thread, flattened, and made smooth. Before nailing the soles, the cobbler encompasses the entire boot sole with the welt, cuts, and removes nailed on the edges of a strip of leather.
Only bull's leather was used for the soles —selected goods. (There were times when a couple of soles became cash equivalents.)
If a customer was a bachelor or a rare type of dandy, the master put under the sole birch reeds that squeaked at walking and dancing. Bachelors and young men considered "creaking" boots particularly chic. The sole is nailed with three rows of birch pegs, and the heel is built out of leather scraps. All of this is smoothed, painted, and finally, file tips of pins inside the boot. If the product is soft and the customer is dandy, the boots are "on the straw." After sitting "on the straw," the boot-top takes the form of an accordion. Many shoemakers sing during work, and others love having a conversation.
THE SHEPHERDS
Ivan was not very bright. Sometimes, he sits in the meadow around sleeping cows. He plays the cards with himself, "fool" in two hands. "Well, now you go! - The shepherd took the deck from the hand of an imaginary partner. - "Here! You lost again; you turn to shuffle." But shuffled every time he had to himself because Ivan was in two aspects: the losing and winning partner.
As shepherds were hired, disabled people sometimes concealed a great sense that the world cared about the disadvantaged, giving work as per their abilities. The village secretly kept these people on salary; people earned a living with their work, but not for Christ's name. Every shepherd had their pride and skills. A good shepherd knew by the name of every cow and all its quirks. Because the cows are different, they differ in good nature, treachery, and cunning.
One cow could divert the herd, God knows where, while the other was skillful in breaking through the fence and opening the gates. The third one differed in incorrigible laziness and couldn't keep pace with the herd. The latter were often searched by the whole village in the woods.
An experienced shepherd herding cattle every year and, so to speak, by vocation, and not because of the needs, has always valued its title and had a reasonably high level of professional dignity. Nevertheless, he sometimes needs outstanding courage. Wolves and bears were familiar sights in the forest pasture. Generally, between the shepherd and the bear evolved quite well defined, but the mysterious relationship. They understood each other as if they had concluded an agreement and sought to comply with its terms. Thus, at least, thought the shepherd. In the same Pichikha, a neighbour of Vakhrusha, Andrey, nicknamed Slavenok, a permanent shepherd of the kolkhoz herd, talked about the bear as follows: - "He was lying, you know, quietly, but I do know that he's here. And I say: "Go! Go away; go away; there is nothing to sniff. Cows sleep, and you go to bed! And I heard twigs crack. Went away... Seen his conscience awakened somehow ..."
But not all the bears had a conscience. Once, the animal got out from the thicket, mounted on a roaring, half-killed cow, and a shepherd with a whip, cursing, sometimes crying, boldly threw himself at the "bloodsucker." Usually, this animal was not considered "local," as it came to the pasture somewhere else or was abused by people before. As a result, cows often calved right in the woods. And after that, frequently, they were searched for several days. Then, the shepherd felt guilty.
A shepherd was the first in the village to rise to his feet, walk along the street, and play the trumpet or drums the drum: this is a universal reveille. Like it or not - get up, and drive cattle outside.
Paul - a shepherd in the village Timonikha - had a large, one and a half meters in length pipe. He played a plain melody on this pipe so loud that many grumbled. A shepherd's whole life was out in nature, so he was a more experienced forest ranger, knew the well-coming change in the weather, knew many omens, and could tear bark and weave from it bast shoes other products. He ate and slept at each house by turns. If the village has thirty houses, then in a month, he will visit each peasant family. And of course, he knew not only what is cooking in any home. He knew everything. The cattle, too, were in his hands, and it is not surprising that the shepherds were feared, respected, and sometimes spoiled with inexpensive gifts. Sadly, a horn or whistle rang in the Russian forest over its strange and broad noise for centuries. The cows knew few musical melodies. Instead, they performed such musical orders:
1. Come out of the yards.
2. To the run! To the run!
3. Do what you want.
4. Danger! Run!
5. Everybody gets in one place.
6. Go home!
And some other orders… Two dry, dense as bone, heather sticks and a sense of rhythm, so a diligent shepherd boy quickly learns to let out such resounding, intricate drumming through the forest that a cow chewing cud respectfully waved their ears. People mowing nearby unbent their backs and listened with admiration. Wild animals were terrified of this sonorous rhythmic knocking. Besides a small rattle he always carried with him, the shepherd had big rattles in different parts of the pasture. They hung permanently in certain places; each passerby thought it was his duty to make noise. Especially liked that activity with children, travelling for mushrooms and berries, mowing, or tearing bark with adults. Later in the forest, it weighed some iron pieces, for example, removed from the plow parts. In the village with the same "bell," a manager called people to work. Nowadays, shepherds manage cattle on horseback, often with a radio on the shoulder, and they are no longer in the woods but in the fields. The cows listen with pleasure, croaking saxophone sobs.
THE DIGGERS OF WELLS
"That's right; they will appear any minute now! But where are they coming to? "First, the women became alarmed. "To which village? Nobody knows…"
But there is no smoke without fire; the rumour was held, so they will come. People started talking about how they ought to dig a new common well. "We have a need, but where are they now? They are coming. They're coming."
Time goes, too. "Have not come yet?" asked passers-by of the neighbouring villages a month later. "Not yet - tell the neighbours. -"But they are near." So near, be it. Time can wait. It has been another month. "Have you seen them?" "Should be here any hour."...We were waiting for spring, but the haymaking time was over. "Okay, let's sit on it," - says the end of the village closer to a river. "No, we will not sit on it!" - protesting others.
Finally, once early in the morning, after the Epiphany day, three diggers appeared. Their belongings are limited: two spades, three axes, the saw and a thick rope to descend to multi-yard depth. Because of the long wait, people did not negotiate too long with the diggers. They agreed immediately. The workers asked for a deposit. One, apparently, the eldest walked a half-hour down the street searching for a water vein. He stopped near the stone and said firmly: "Here." On the same day, they began to dig, dropping to start a small five-row well housing. Work started. Two on the top build the blockhouse; another at the bottom undermines and puts it deeper. It was set up to pull out the bucket with the earth with a rope. When the depth of seven feet was reached, the elderly began to ask: - "What, how far is water?" - "There will be water soon." Here, here. Already, it is wet. On the second day, the voice from the well could be barely heard. People ask: - Well? Is there water? - Close already... All day spent digging. In the morning, before the sunrise, someone came to check out. Guys were not neither on the surface of the earth nor under it. Diggers are gone; even they left behind the work mittens. They were lying forlornly on the common, upside-down tub. Someone kicked the tub; it blurted out and rolled aside ... It was found that they were masters of digging ditches, not wells.
After such an experience, the community with great mistrust regarded honest workmen, who, without thinking twice, continued on to the next village. We have to run after them to the edge of the town to persuade them to stay...And now, a gray-haired old man, an unofficial leader of the digger's gang, rattles with the nail at the snuffbox, coughs, and glances. Before the sun, he walks along the back streets in the morning, looking where dew has fallen, where and how midge buzzes, and where and what kind of grass grew. Make estimates, coughs. He is not in a hurry. It's about these old people. There is a saying that they can see three yards down the earth. The wells dug under their leadership served people not for decades but centuries.
THE BLACKSMITHS
The forge was present in almost every big village. On the outskirts, near the creek or ravine, not to mingle with cellars and bathhouses, it could be seen as a medium-sized plank barn with a black roof, brick, or sometimes plank chimney. Nearby, four pillars dug in the ground, connected by lateral beams and round bolts from the back and front, were stuck. This construction is called the machine for shoeing horses.
A horse was led into the machine and locked the rear pillars with round lug bolts. The horse was in a cage; it could not even kick. Inexperienced was just fine trembling and old even did dozing. Soft leather tied horse legs to an unusual step with the hoof pointed outside. The hoof was cleaned from dirt; an uneven dispensing edge was cut off. After that, a sharp round chisel stripped away the excess white pulp. Only then began to shoe. The horse trembled when the blacksmith was applied to the hoof carefully selected by size, hot (of course, not red hot!) horseshoe. To the edge of the outside carefully, so as not to offend the living flesh, were hammered the tetrahedral horseshoe nails. They were folded and put along the horseshoe groove. By the end of the blacksmith, he carefully filed the hoof with the rasper. The front bolt-crossbar was opened, and a boy who got on the horse's back triumphantly rode into the open space. (Remember, again, Pushkin: "Winter! … A farmer, celebrating ... "
If we adults felt triumphant, God himself told the boy to feel it! Forever remembered this cheerful sound of a small hammer on the anvil, a blacksmith who seemed to be having a little fun between heavy, soft hammer blows. Those long, ongoing sighs of the leather bellows… A pink changing in front of your eyes, a horseshoe flies into the tub with water and sizzles. In the dazzling gold center of the hearth, where the three air jets blow from which scatter around tiny embers, but big ones only move, there is already heated white-hot new horseshoe and the blacksmith with long iron spatula re-arranges the coals. The earthen floor in the forge thawed and smelled of spring.
Sparrows living under the roof are so happy and dirty that they do not look like themselves. Nevertheless, people stop by from the high road now and then. Everyone can drop off. Bartholomew Samsonov, from the village Pichihi Kadnikovskaya County, was a six-foot-stooped peasant with a chestnut beard and a good, thick, bordering on hoarseness bass. In addition to farming, he kept the forge free from fieldwork time and made a noise of the bellows.
To become a blacksmith in old times, it was necessary, above all, to buy an anvil and the bellows. The rest can be acquired gradually or done yourself: to build the smithy set a thick two-girth block for the anvil, and lay the furnace's brick walls. A new blacksmith borrowed tools from another blacksmith to make their own tools. Vakhrusha (as he was called, not in his or his family's presence) made some tools and partly bought the pliers, small hammers, hammers, and chisel. He shooed for a tiny fee horses and made tongs, candelabras, pokers, door breakdowns, and nails. And most important, he "shooed" wheels for the carts. The tire was heated and put on the wheel. Cooling down, it dragged the wooden arches on the spokes and was fastened with rivets.
The blacksmith said about himself: "Ah, an eccentric. The fish got into vertices. I am dragging it from the lake, the basket in front and another in the rear, every 60 pounds. The sun sat, but I still had to work in the forge. I was thinking: Too slow I am walking; let me start running. " So Bartholomew began running through the woods with 120-pound baskets on his shoulders.
After Bartholomew died, the forge stood empty. However, sometimes, a blacksmith from a neighbouring farm named Pushkin visited. He was an excellent blacksmith! Besides a humorous disposition, he had a rifled board and markers and could do the most complex plumbing operations. Another blacksmith from Vologda forged the prosthesis for his brother, a war veteran who lost both legs in the war ...
Like a watermill or windmill, a village smithy was always surrounded by a mysterious mist. Work, life, and poetry were once a fusion of folklife. In this sense, the contemporary village workshop still retains the spirit of the village smithy.
Introduction to rural life: New technology sometimes manifests itself unexpectedly. Everywhere, some wizards can adapt the rubber wheels from a broken or disassembled trailer to a milk or manure truck. Fishermen fishing "with the flashlight" instead of burning resin and iron "goat" use the battery. A blow torch is used not for soldering but for heating up cars or singe slaughtered pigs for levelling repaired houses long since hydraulic jacks are adapted.
Tuesday, 26 December 2017
THE CARPENTERS
Apprentices and Masters
The Carpenters
A settled-down plowman from time immemorial looked with irony at the craftsman who had ceased to make a living from the land. Land—the cornerstone—does not forgive the infidelity of a weak master. It allowed them to walk on it with proud dignity only to the true masters; only they could have a clear conscience, and the only true experts of their trade, zealots of skill, did not suffer because they forsake the land.
The other rumour is that they simply are "zimogors" (winter residents), which is not an honourable word in the carpenter's luggage.
A child has not had time to learn how to walk but extends his hand to his father's hammer. Yes, and he strives to hammer a nail. A peasant must be a carpenter. We have no right to ask, what is more important: the plow or the axe? Carpentry comes to us together with agriculture from ancient times. Before plowing the land, it was necessary to cut down the forest. The same axe could be used as a weapon during raids of nomads. Once the houses had been built simultaneously with forest plots, plots were stubbed.
People laughed at men who did not know how to do carpentry and women who had difficulty spinning and were unable to weave, embroider, or weave lace.
Remember: "Our Dunya spun not thinner than a log ..." Regardless of whether there is talent, all people wanted to obtain the skill of trades. And they acquired the trade to the extent of their abilities. One could cut the end of the logs for many types of connections and knew everything, another one knew only half of it, and the third only learned how to cut the most straightforward way. The fourth one had no skills but still wanted to know because of the shame. And he was able at least to sharpen pegs. It's not so hot, but it's better than nothing. So it was like this in any trade.
The world of carpentry is vast and diverse. The teenager began to comprehend it by making the axe handle. To make an axe handle meant to pass the first exam. Grandfather, father, or elder brother handed the boy his axe and dry birch dice from stocks of kindles. Not from the first time this axe handle turned out right: it sometimes took a lot of birch dice to spoil. There were only a few cases when a guy did not make the grade and did not deserve to be commanded by a senior. Next, the axe handle must be installed and correctly set up so that the axe would not fall off and be polished with the glass splinter. After that, the axe is sharpened on a whetstone.
Each consequent operation demanded wit, skill, and patience by itself. So, life in childhood and adolescence requires future carpenters' patience and consistency. It is impossible to sharpen the axe until it is fastened on the handle, although it is unbearable to wait! You can not throw the hay that has not yet dried or knead cakes that have not yet risen. Typically, the ability is passed from the older to the younger in the family. However, it deepened and developed in the working team.
"What are the eyes for," - said Anfisa Ivanovna. In the first season of working with the team, a teenager grasped one or two ways to cut the log corner; he studied how to work for the shoals and got his own tools. Asking for a tool, especially an axe, was considered mauvais ton. People would lend it reluctantly and not out of greediness. For a carpenter, the axe was like a continuation of his hands; you get used to it and make the axe handle according to your own tests. A good carpenter would not work with somebody's axe. The carpenter tool set included the axe, the transverse saw (could be one for two), a drawing knife, a hacksaw, a chisel, the drill for drilling wood, and the plane.
The planer and the hammer were optional for the carpenter. All this is for woodworking. But the carpenter could only do with the iron ruler, which is marked what must be removed from the log so that it is closely interlocked with the others. A string with a sinker and firebrand (a burnt piece of wood with a handle) served to mark a long, straight line on a log or board. The level was also needed, but not everyone could afford it. An expensive piece... The folding yard (later called meter) is also helpful for a good carpenter. All other accessories carpenters made themselves during work (e.g., crowbar, plumb lines, wedges, etc.).
The head contractor, the intermediary between the carpenter and the customer, would assemble the work gang in advance. Many peasants out of poverty had to take an advance to pay the tax, and then, like it or not, if the time came, you had to go away for work. So, the working gang picked the most skilled in the craft and everyday affairs guy. After finishing the job, the carpenters went home. But some would drink away the money; it is a shame to go home broke. Or they got involved with a girl lured to a foreign land. Then, they would stay for the winter to suffer grief. Hence the contemptuous nickname "zimogors" (winter sufferer).
Houses were rough-cut with the community's help. The peasants gradually completed windows, stairs, floors, and ceilings during breaks from the fieldwork. Finally, a bathhouse, a barn, a potato pit, and a well or nursery were built without special help from neighbours.
Of course, the most essential thing in carpentry is to learn how to cut corners. If the building is rectangular, then, of course, it will be at the right angle. Obtuse angles were cut less frequently. An obtuse angle is required for certain types of bell towers, the wooden altar of the temple, and the erection of six-sided domes.
The easiest way to connect the logs is by cutting grooves; plain "cow" or "bowl" connections are more complex. Next, the carpenter learned to hack "in the paw" and "in the hook." "In the paw" means the ends of logs were flush with the conjugate row; they are not exposed to the outside. You can climb up like the ladder on the corner and cut down "in the cow," while the angle of cutting down "in the paw" is perfectly smooth, without protrusions. An angle cut up "in the hook" is considered the best in insulation and rigidity. Unfortunately, few carpenters know how to hack "in the hook." Even worse, there is a ridiculous fashion to not cut the corner; logs, or the boards, are stacked back to back like bricks. How long will stand such a construction, how it will keep warmth is better not to ask. Stacked on each other logs connected with pins or put on "the coxes" with the usual moss liner. Threshing floors, haylofts, and sheds were built without moss.
Even of the same kind, trees are all different, and so are people. One is spiral-grained, another straight-grained, with dense wood, the other flabby, not to mention the straightness or the thickness. Clearly, a carpenter's skill began with a "sense of the tree." For a man who does not feel the tree's character, it is better not to sit on the corner (not to do carpentry). But the matter is that all adult men had to do carpentry! Do you feel the tree or not? Does the axe obey you or does not obey? Anyway, you had to do carpentry. It's a shame not to be a carpenter. Yes, and the need will make you do it out of necessity.
That's why carpenters were all different—bad, mediocre, and excellent… And they are numerous. But every one in his life tried to be better than he was. The art of carpentry is based on this attitude.
Interestingly, carpentry never had professional secrets; it was considered the public domain: conceive and derive as far as the mind and talent allow. However, the pride and dignity of the masters have always lived up to their art and are supported by widespread rumours. A good carpenter, of course, has always had exuberant strength. But even without the considerable strength, he still could be a good carpenter.
The saying "Have the strength, no need the mind to apply" was born in the carpentry world in a mockery of sheer stupidity and zeal. Nevertheless, the strength was respected, too. But not on a par with the talent and skill, just but by itself… Real carpenters were frugal on brute force. They were deliberate. They didn't work without mittens. The logs were rolled rather than dragged. They have not spared time to sharpen axes. Carpenters were treated with the meat soup, even amid haymaking.