The FARMSTEAD

On the compound usually lived one family, and if two were present, it was rare and temporary. The household of the same family in different places and at other times has been called different things (yard, smoke, draft, residence, etc.). The terminology was used to squeeze out the peasant's taxes and duties, but it also expressed other purposes of the family unit with all the economic and moral nuances.
    For the Russian people, the family has always been the focus of all their moral and economic activity, the raison d'être, the foundation not only of the state but also of the world order. Almost all ethical and aesthetic values were shaped in the family, assimilated gradually with their depth and seriousness.
If he is not a monk, every healthy adult has a family. Being fit and mature and not having a wife or husband was considered godless, unnatural and absurd. Childlessness was seen as a punishment and the fate of the greatest human catastrophe. Big, prominent families enjoyed in the village and parish universal respect. "One son - not a son, two sons - half of a son, three sons - a son," - says the old proverb.
    In that remark, there is a conclusion of the world. First, three sons must replace two of his father and mother, and a third to hedge their brothers. Secondly, if the family has many daughters, the family and the farm with three sons will not decline and not interrupt, and thirdly, if one goes to serve the prince and the second to God, then one of the three still remains.
    But before we talk about the moral and aesthetic atmosphere of the Northern peasant family, recall the key names of relatives. Husbands and wives were called "spouses" for special occasions and had many other names. For example, the boss, spouse, "spousenik," man, father, lord, dad, "himself" - this way, wives called their husbands in different circumstances.
  The wife was called a wife a wife, a lady of the house, "herself," mom. Add to these the names of a few vulgar names as a "broad," familiarly-loving "a little wife," economically justifiable, "big boss ."
    Mother was called mom, matushka, Mammy, mama, mother, and parent. Sons and daughters are frequently called father daddy or batyushka (modern "papa" was introduced relatively recently). Parents in the North have never formally accessed "you," as is common in Ukraine. Stepfather and mother, as they are known, are called the stepfather and stepmother and stepdaughter and son - stepdaughter and stepson. Children of brothers and sisters were called cousins. Small children often called their grandfather "Dedo" and grandmother "Baba," nephews called uncles and aunts sometimes bozhat, bozhatok, bozhatushkoy or godfather, godmother.
  The daughter-in-law came into another family's house and was obliged to call her father-in-law and mother-in-law as father and mother; they were for her "God-given" parents. Concerning the husband's father, the daughter-in-law was called "snokha," but concerning the mother and sisters of the husband - "nevestka ."
    Sisters called brothers "bratelko" (little brother"), and cousins sometimes called each other "friend and brother," as could do non-related friends.
 Fraternization of friends with the oath and the exchange of crosses and triple kisses was widespread and resulted from a special friendship or the events of salvation in the battle. Maiden's friendship, not connected by kinship, was set by a ritual: the girls exchanged the crosses. After that, the friends were called cross-exchanged. The term "My cross-exchanged" can often be found in the limericks. Fraternization and friendship oblige, making a person more circumspect in his behaviour.
 No accident is that the ancient proverb states that "nobody needs a strained horse, a broken bow and a friend with a soiled reputation." By "dever," a woman called her husband's brother and a sister of her husband "zolovka ." There is a proverb for this occasion: "Better to have seven axes than seven hoes ."That is better if the husband has seven brothers than seven sisters. "Zyat" (The son-in-law) is the husband of a daughter.
 The wife and husband's parents called each other "swat" (kinsman) and "swatya" (kinswoman). ("Swat" in the wedding ceremony is another person). Men married sisters are considered "swoyaki" (close ones), and the wife's sister is called, for some reason, "swoyachenniza" also. The title of "brother-in-law" exists only in the masculine, and for male relatives, it means the wife's brother and sister's husband is the son-in-law for both sexes. In this regard, the people come up with the humorous riddle: "Brother-in-law's nephew is what? In what kind of relation to the son-in-law?" Not right away; you can guess that it is a son.
There are countless poems, songs, and legends about the father's house. In terms of importance, the "native home" was one of the concepts of the Russian peasantry as death, life, good, evil, God, conscience, homeland, Earth, mother, and father.
    A sweet home for a man is definite and concrete in shape, as scientists say. The image is not abstract but always subjective, accurate and ... individual, even for members of one family, born to the same mother and grown under the same roof. This house is always different from other houses, even constructively, and even though it would be built down to a hair, just like someone else's, which was, in general, a rare case.
Building wooden and equipping two identical homes cannot be done even by the same carpenter, at least because all the trees in the forest are different, and every day of the year is also other.
The difference was in the very atmosphere of the family, its moral and aesthetic appearance, family habits, traditions and characters.
     Each house had a centre, something important about the entire farmstead. This focus, of course, has always been the hearse, a Russian stove that will not cool off as long as the house exists and if there is at least one living soul. Every morning, there has been a fire in the stove for many centuries to warm, feed, comfort and heal people. This fire is connected to my whole life. The home is alive until the hearse is warm; this physical warmth is equivalent to soul warmth.
And if there is a merger of the invisible world and the physically tangible one, the example of the hearth is ideal for such a merger. Since the beginning of Christianity, the hearse of the Russian house, apparently, gave way some of its "rights and duties" to the front right corner with the icon lamp and Orthodox icons. The shrine in the corner of the family table, which has always been present daily bread and salt, is the spiritual centre of a peasant's hut, both winters and summers. However, the hearse does not oppose the right front corner; they complement each other.
Favourite icons in Russian life, apart from Christ the Saviour, were considered the images of the Virgin (link to the significance of the lady of the house, "big-one," the keeper of the hearse and family warmth, is obvious), Nicholas the Miracle-worker (which is a carpenter and fisherman and hunter), and finally, the image of St. George, treading by the spear a serpent (defender by the force of the arms).
There were a lot of omens related to home and the hearth, all kinds of legends and superstitions. It was believed, for example, that it is forbidden to inundate the stove with a woman's head uncovered. "Grandfather behind the stove - tells Anfisa Ivanovna - put a pot on a lady's head, and she lived with the pot all her life."