THE POTTERS

    With a spark in his soul, a born talented person, having gone through childhood, inevitably becomes a journeyman and then a master. So carpenter, cobbler, potter, or blacksmith, but to be a master is required. The particularity of a profession depended on the chance, but not always. Skills passed from father to son, from grandfather to grandson. Sometimes a particular trade for centuries thrived in a separate village and even the whole parish.
    "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.