THE BLACKSMITHS

     Late in winter, when one side has warmed, and the other cold more than ever, ice-crusts in the mornings sometimes raise the entire wood-sled together with the horse when it is still silent, blinding you with sunshine fields all around is dormant in very cold. A long slumber - in such a time, you are suddenly stunned by the unexpected, clean, and in a way youthful, not downhearted, the sound of a beat.
 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.