THE BOATMAKERS

    Without a holiday, life is not life... A holiday without a fish pie—not a feast! So it turns out that fish is sometimes desperately needed, but you cannot see it without a boat, just like your ears. That means we need to make a boat. What is simpler? But before you make it, you need to find a suitable aspen: a high, thick, smooth, with a hardcore.

 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.

        Now, start all over again. However, an experienced boater will never be in a hurry, and the boat in his hands takes shape without effort. He inserts half-circles of the frames into the formed boat, fastens thin boards along the sides, and makes two seats. Then, the boat is covered with resin; only after all of this can you go fishing.
   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.