In addition to the bathhouse, a good owner always built (somewhere on the hill) a cellar or a small log house, covered and lowered into the ground. In the cellar were preserved carrots, turnips, beets. Onions were stored on the bunk in the dry heat. Walks to the cellar, especially in winter, were eagerly awaited by children.
In the garden, people built a hotbed for growing cabbage, rutabaga's and cucumber seedlings, immediately, if there was no river, dug a well. In the well during the heat was lowered in buckets of meat, butter and milk.
The culture of brewing, long known in Russia, included the cultivation of hops. Therefore, in the established household where everything is lined up, everybody got married, and there are the most necessary things, it was desirable to set up a place for growing the hops. Unfortunately, long slender pegs (twenty or thirty) stuck still not at every house. Some people preferred to purchase the hops. To save these pegs every year after harvest, they were pulled and piled to dry to reuse in the spring again.
What could be more attractive to young people than these lightweight and surprisingly durable lances? A stack of birch, spruce, alder firewood completed the view of the yard, directly adjacent to the neighbouring household.
In winter, nearby the house always stuck on the side a wood-sled: the peasant's winter wagon. This ancient structure consisted of a pair of curved (at notch) birch runners. Into the birch runners were hammered four doubled, also made of birch sticks. The runners were joined with elderberry twigs, which wrapped each pair of sticks. The bend of the elderberry's twigs was cut down and steamed up. The birch sticks were tightly clamped to the curve, and to prevent loosening of the ends of the twigs, they were fastened with a ring woven from twisted birch rope...
The most strong twig connecting the front end of the runners was the head of wood-sled, the thick elderberry's axes which did not allow the runners unbend. The second axes of each runner were attached to the end of the birch shafts. The problem is that the shaft must be mobile, and the load on the cart is in the hundreds of pounds simultaneously. On the strength of swivels, connecting the end of the shafts with the wood-sled depended not only on the quality of the harness but many other things in the peasant household.
If a long, thin birch trunk interweaves twist, you get along the flexible bundle of robust fibres, starting with the most delicate top. This bundle, twisted into a ring, is called the wrapping.
A good owner always had a half-dozen of these rings in stock: they hang on the pin in the shed or in the entryway. Going to the faraway carting, people always take a wrapping or two just in case. There have been cases when the groom arrived on the cart with a broken rope swivel was sent back with nothing. To put a new wrapping, you must untwist the ring and spin it again, but on the axes of the wood-sled with the entire load. The shaft with a notch at the end is inserted into the wrapping (ring) and turns it into an incomplete revolution. Then you can safely go in anywhere with any load.
On the wood-sled were transported heavy tall trees. So that the butt of the log didn't push out from the wrappings, under logs were put the pads with semi-circular notches. The top of the trunk was put on the so-called under-sled (a short wood-sled without the heads with barely curved, but the wide runners). The under-sled was connected with the main wood-sled with ropes crisscross for which runners had the eyelets.
On the same wood-sled, if we put on them "the chair": tree bundled poles or bars, which increase the width of the cart, you could deliver hay, straw, oversized volume items. The most dangerous thing for a winter rider was "rumbles" - the steep ice slopes polished with the sleds' runners. Carts somersault on them, dragging and even dropping not very strong horses. Strong horses would get loose out of shafts.
Later the wood-sled runners were "shoused": on them were put narrow iron strips. Finally, the slack-sleigh ("rozwalny") is something between the wood-sled and the sleigh - were used for small trucking luggage for short and long-distance driving. Their sides formed by curved chairs were interwoven with ropes or sewn up by shingles. Such carts with a shallow back, blind-sided and limbers, were also called the sled-runners.
The field sled, sleigh, with the box, and without it, was made high-backed for two or three riders. Its back was painted in red on black, green on red. The sleigh, as well as the wood-sled, could be made without a single metal part. But anyone who wanted to show off his outing Shrovetide sled inevitably becomes a debtor of a blacksmith.
The cover of the sleigh was woven of thin willow twigs. Such fashionable sleds had a box, and the seat could be swung back, opening up a space for presents. At the feet were put a sheepskin coat or sheepskin blanket.
With the reins in his hands, the owner sat on the right. When driving, he "threw" one foot out partly for style, partly in the event of fall. (Luckless riders often broke a leg in road mishaps.) His wife, sister of the bride, and sometimes a friend or relative would sit on the left with the harmonica. Behind, at the back, can rest a casual companion.
Adolescents and young guys were very fond of the free rides, especially if the owner did not see this. Wondering why the horse does not run (even there is soap in the groin), the rider gets angry, but looking back, he does not see anything because an illegal rider could hide at the back. But free-riders yet did not go far because they had to hoof it back on foot. Summer riding is wicked against winter riding. It is better to step than a trot in a shaking one-sit cart, even on the flat road. The two-axed (four wheels) cart shakes less, but the dust and the rumble from it are more than enough.
Some of the peasants had their own carriages and a hearse. It was the same type of carriage only with long flexible poles instead of springs, a light two-wheeled cart with a small sleigh on its springs, like a modern jockey stroller. A simple pair of wheels with a box on the axe was called the portage; it was used for transporting long poles.
But what is the cart without the harness? First, of course, the principal part of the harness is a clamp made of two arched wooden pieces. On the top, they are tightly fastened by the belt, but in a way, so it was possible to push them out. At the bottom was secured with a leather roll, or rather, a half-roll. Densely packed with straw, it fits the horse's chest and could be pushed apart when putting the clamp on the head. The carefully fitted clamp felt fits the horse's withers and shoulders on the sides. In the clamp holes were put the tugs, the collar was covered with leather. A long, twisted strap completed the entire device. The knot at the end of the belt is not allowed to pull out. Clamps were of different sizes, but the same harness saddle fit any horse. The harness saddle was attached to the horse's back through the belly girth. The ends of the girth connected to the shafts, first left, then suitable tugs. You could go.
If the horse harnessed without the crupper, you could do it gently. The crupper is a system of straps attached to the clamp; it would not allow the horse to get out of the clamp. If the horse were backing away, it would be doing together with the wagon. Not knowing all this, it is difficult to understand the meaning of many Russian proverbs.
But it is not all about the proverbs. Around the horse and the harness was created such a powerful field, an aesthetic aura that cannot be imagined without past life. The wagons were stored under the carports, and inside the houses, harnesses hung around the stall. During winter, clamps and saddles were kept in the place to dry. Each premise has been assigned its inventory and its tools. To describe the structure and the use of the peasant tools and household items would require a multi-volume edition.
In the threshing floor had to have a set of brooms made of upper birch twigs, rakes, and ash shovels to scoop up the grain in a heap, trio-corn forks made of birch to raise peas up to threshers, and a thin, light pole with a short twig at the end to bring in the sheaves into the barn.
There was always a brush and several dustpans in the barn, not to mention the baskets and bags. In the bathhouse stood a half dozen bowls. A rake and large wooden tongs were fetched and immersed in water-heated stones. In different parts of the house were kept plows, harrows, scythes, pitchforks, sickles, small rakes and hooks for taking down manure from the carts, hand millstones, mortar and pestle for pounding oats and flax.
Proverb of the pounding water in the mortar belongs to another mortar used in lying position and used to pound the rags, mats, bags. This mortar has always been on the beach or near the ice-hole. We do not know what kind of mortar was used for a flying witch. As a child, for some reason, often I used to have such a fantasy: that's to sit in this water mortar and go by boat down the river past all the villages, under bridges and clouds. However, sometimes, I wanted to climb into the trunk or hide in a chest, a drive through the village on the weaver's machine. But the most exciting thing was to climb "a tower," in a modern way, to the attic, looking from above through a window into the far distance. Here in the winter, you can stock up on frozen rowan or suddenly discover a swallow's nest.
No comments:
Post a Comment