*YULETUDES *

The echoes of ancient customs are prevalent in the Northern villages. Yuletide is one of them, the most stable, having held out until the postwar years.

Have you ever had an inexplicable burning desire to go around dressed like a mummer in life? If you have not experienced this, then it is difficult to understand the whole meaning and originality of Yuletide.

The Christmas week falls on frosty wintertime when the economic affairs of the peasant kept to a mandatory minimum of care for the cattle. But, of course, the hard-working family was not sitting idly by even in winter, but at Yuletide, you could leave everything and go where you want, do what you want. Naturally, this wasn't recorded, but moral rights belonged to children, adolescents, young adults, more mature people, even the elderly.

The essence of Yuletide, which came down to our times, was mainly walking in costumes and masks, divination and the so-called fun. People's element, who could not bear the monotony of the ordinary, apparently, not in vain, selected these three festive customs.

Those who have read Gogol and spent at least pre-war childhood in the Northern village must see remarkable similarities between the festive spirit with the atmosphere, as described in the novel "The Night before Christmas." 

 In this sense, everything in "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka» of N.V. Gogol is entirely consistent with the spirit of our Northern folklife. It would seem all is different: the language, songs, nature and manners. But something important, unexplained is familiar; the relationship is striking. N.V. Gogol had never been in any Kadnikove or Kholmogory villages, had not heard of our Northern blizzards and songs, and had not seen our dances and fests. But the Northern storytellers still recognize themselves in Red-headed Panko; the mischief of Ukrainian lads is entirely similar to the Yuletide pranks. Drunken Kalenik personage still roams the countryside of Vologda province...

Fun during the Yuletide seemed to let out accumulated negative emotions that have, saying scientifically, a centrifugal direction. Apparently, it played the role of a kind of "vaccination" that prevents an actual "disease." After tasting the properties and actions of a bit of evil (the Christmas pranks), men lost interest in the great evil; they acquired moral immunity and immunity to severe infection. That's why jokes were usually doing small kids, adolescents and adult males, who for whatever reason have not achieved moral maturity in time, that is, in childhood.

A band of pranksters went at midnight to the villages, and all that was not nailed became the object of mischief. Thus, left on the street, wood-sled necessarily was put on its hind legs, on the road, and in the morning, the owner of the wood-sled had no sympathy. Rugs, dried by frost on the poles, served as material for plugging chimneys; bucket, left at the well, was used for carrying water and freezing the gates.

More serious indulgence was the destruction of firewood piles and bath heaters. Of course, no one would have dared to do this; it is considered a crime, but during Yuletide, it was forgiven, the owners were mad, but not seriously.

All kinds of divination particularly fascinated children, adolescents, women, girls and even adults, many married women. It is difficult also to list all types of divination. In Yuletide, oddly, everything took on special meaning; nothing was accidental. People would pay attention to minor detail. Any item turned into an omen, in a precursor of something definite. Everything was remembered and interpreted that no one would pay attention after the Christmas holidays.

Results of predictions rarely coincided with the subsequent reality. But the actual course of divination touched even people who did not believe in anything, responding to human needs that are obscure for us. However, the power of suggestion and auto-suggestion reached during fortunetelling and divination such proportions that people began to spontaneously seek to ensure that was predicted. Then a "prediction" indeed often came to pass.

Of course, mummers cannot be considered a random detail of people's everyday life. It was omnipresent. Few people in childhood and adolescence were not among mummers, and even in adulthood, most continued this ritual.

There was something strange to our modern view, aesthetic need, to turn yourself inside out. Perhaps with the help of anti-image / (festive mask, unnatural attire, fur coat turned inside out), our ancestors were freed from the power of hideous. Approximately the same need is felt and stupid limericks which have no rhyme, in poetic miniatures with a sense of meaninglessness and direct, deliberate absurdity.

You could feel in villages mild anxiety long before Christmas. Soon came the first day of Yuletide, on the street appeared first small mummers, in the evening dressed up teens, and in the evening at the games, conversations and dances were more spirits of performance.

We should ponder the word "performance.»

Performance is delivered prepared in advance; pretend to be someone else. This need probably is a need to periodically be transfigured, get rid of your own ego, see yourself from aside, and perhaps even get a respite from this "I" and turn at least to the opposite for a short time. It is not accidental the girls liked to dress up in men's clothes and boys - in the women's clothes. The comic effect is achieved in such cases by the discrepancy of attire and behaviour (gestures, mannerisms).

But most likely, dressing up, for example, like the devil, man, disassociated himself from everything terrible, concentrating in its new "twisted" form of all devilish stuff to get rid of it, dropping the dress. Thus, there is a peculiar, like a pagan "purification."

It was necessary to identify this evil, impersonate and imagine it, which happened during Christmas, to get rid of evil spirits.

People dressed up as per their own imagination, using various means. So, turned inside out, shrilling or sheepskin vest and trousers were sometimes half of the battle. Face smeared with soot, homemade locks made out of flax, inserts, cutout from turnip teeth, horns, masks turned a mummer into a terrible evil. People dressed up as a corpse, a gypsy, a soldier, a witch, etc. It was allowed to portray a real person known to all specific features.

A mask (lichina) was a necessary and ancient festive accessory. A variety of masks was made mainly from birch bark. On a piece of birch bark were cut out holes for eyes, nose and mouth, sewn bark nose, beard, eyebrows, mustache, rosy cheeks beet. The most colourful masks were stored until the following Christmas holidays.

In the evening, a crowd of mummers was going around some of the houses in the village. Burst into the house, frightening the children, the mummers immediately began to dance and buffoon.

The audience's task is to recognize who is dancing under one or another guise. An exposed mummer lost the purpose and took off the mask.

The beauty of walking mummers was that anybody could dress up. The shyest person boldly stamped his feet; the most mediocre dancer could dance, it was allowed to all.

Children and teenagers were waiting for the Christmas week, as indeed they were waiting for other events: carnival, drifting of the ice, the first snow, holiday, etc.

For Christmas time, people were preparing in advance. Married and youngish women went as mummers to other villages, proving that it was considered objectionable and even quite indecent in regular times.

Indulgence, masks, divination and fortunetelling continued over the Christmas week. You do not feel that harmony, order, and sequence inherent in other more prolonged folk customs at Christmas time. Of course, everybody tried to entertain the others as best as possible, but this 'disorder' was a stylistic feature of the Christmas holidays.

Inside of the very festive custom was born and evolved in its pure form, one of folk art genres - the kind of drama.

A folk drama cannot be viewed outside the Yuletide tradition; it is entirely out of the masquerade, though contrary to the spirit of the custom. Indeed, in each of the mummers is hidden the actor, but there is the actor, there is inevitable the viewers. But in the old days, acting was not significant; a mummer stopped being a mummer when his identity became known. At the same time, any person could dress up when he pleased.

In acting, in the artistic process were involved all. The people were not divided into two specific camps: the audience and performers, the creators of art and consumers.

With the division of creativity, we first meet in such actions as "Boat," "King Maximilian," "Kobylyak and burial," "Man and hatter."

Despite their artistic identity, these acts called "people's dramas" pale with the same tradition that was created them by science. 

* HOLIDAY *

 Every year in every village, sometimes in the whole parish, there were two traditional beer festivals. Thus, Timonikha village celebrated the Assumption of the Virgin in the summer; it was St. Nicholas Day in winter.

 In ancient times the congregation occasionally brewed beer from the church rye stocks. Although, for some reason, this beer was called "plea," it was transported to homes in small barrels. Often, part of the mash, brewed for a holiday, was, on the contrary, brought in the church, blessed and was given away to just anybody. So people drank wort saying: "Eve to the Holiday, good health to the brewer." The rest of the wort belonged to the priest or keeper.

 The holiday is very similar to the dramatized ritual, like the wedding. It began long before the festive days with grain soaking for malt. All the beer cycle - germination of grain, malting, drying and grinding of malt, finally, boiling the wort and brewing it was itself a ritual. Consequently, the festive act consisted of the beer preparation cycle, the eve of the holiday, the actual holiday and two days after holidays.

 Pre-festive preparations concerned and pleased people no less than the holiday itself. On the eve people went to church, the floors and ceilings were washed, cakes were baked, and jelly poured; during the summer, the canopy was hanged. Of great importance were festive new clothes, especially for children and women. Finally, the holiday was marked with a touching meeting of relatives and friends.

 Visiting is one of the oldest and most remarkable phenomena of Russian life.

 Children and the elderly came in first. People from faraway travelled on horses. By the evening would go in now adults. Bachelors were taken away from the street carnivals into the houses. All guests were welcomed with the bows.
 Usually, visitors were greeted, but only close relatives were kissed. First of all, the host would let everybody try the wort. Then, in the evening, without waiting for the people who were late, all sat at the table, men poured a glass of vodka, women and bachelors were given a glass of beer. The point of the feast for the owner was to be a gracious and generous host, and for visitors, this point boiled down to, as not to seem like a glutton or a drunkard, not disgrace himself in front of strangers. Ritual of the visit consisted of, on the one hand, treating well the guests, on the other - out of polite refusals. A talent of hospitality faced off with modesty and restraint. The more guest refused, the more the host insisted. Competition as an element of a friendly rivalry was ever-present here. But whoever wins in this competition -the guest or the host - in any case virtue and honour would win, leaving self-esteem intact.

 The beer was a favourite drink at the festival. "Wine," as vodka was called, was considered a luxury; it was not affordable to everyone. But it's not just that.

 My mother, Anfisa Ivanovna, says that the other guys went to visit with their glasses, not trusting the volume of host vessels. Most were afraid to drink too much and fall to disgrace. The host did not take offence to such a precaution. People's attitudes toward drunkenness do not allow two interpretations. In an old song that accompanies the groom to the wedding feast, there are words:


 You will go to Ivanushka.

 To a strange land,

 To look for a beautiful girl.

 They will meet you by the high court.

 On the wide bridge,

 Take the shawl handkerchief,

 Below, bow down.

 They will lead you

 To the oak tables.

 To a wonderful feast.

 Will they bring you

 The first glass of wine?

 Do not drink Ivanushka

 The first glass of wine,

 Pour this glass, Ivanushka,

 To a horse in the hoof.


 The second proposed glass also you do not drink, and pour it out "his horse in the mane."


 Will they bring you

 The third glass of wine?

 Do not drink it, Ivanushka,

 The third glass of wine.

 And give it, Ivanushka,

 To your wife, Maria"…


 After two or three rejections, the guest just tasted, but then everything was repeated, and the host spent a lot of time loosening up the guests.

 Regaling as abstinence was raised to the power of art, good hosts were known throughout the county, and if the beer on the table was sour and pies were callous, it was a shame to the family and the host.

 It was developed many methods of treating. Traditional sayings were appealing to logic and common sense: "have a drink for the second leg," "God loves a trinity," and "the house doesn't stand on three corners."

 Guests had their stock of arguments. By refusing, he said, for example: "As the host does so the guests do." However, the host could not drink, first, for the same reasons as for the guest. Secondly, he had to manage the party and stay sober. Thus, a glass of drink fell into a vicious circle, which hesitated to break all but the drunkards. Asking or provoking the host for a new drink looked even more disgraceful.

 Asking people to eat or drink was a continuous duty of the master of the house. The time between course rounds was spent in conversations and songs. Finally, more ambitious got out from the table to the dance circle. Dancing interspersed long songs throughout the whole evening. Guests came out on the street to see how young people were entertaining.

 Often in the holiday house, people would come without an invitation; it was allowed to acquaintances and strangers, rich and poor. Friends were seated at the table; the rest were served with beer or wort on the tray, depending on age, in turn, drawing from the large cup with the ladle. If somebody was passed, not served, that was the greatest insult. The host watched like a hawk that no one was accidentally bypassed.

 The main celebratory act concluded late at night with a lavish dinner with sheep gel in strong kvas (non-alcohol fermented drink) and ended with oatmeal in the mash.

 On the second day, guests went to other relatives; some just went home. The children, the elderly and the needy could stay with for a week or more.

 Visiting acquired the properties of chain reaction; stop visits between the houses were no longer possible; it lasted forever. Conceding the first places to new, closer relatives, who appeared after the wedding, families continued to visit each other for many decades.
A multiplicity of visits,  many relatives, near and far, tied each village, township and even
counties
.

* VILLAGE GATHERING*

VILLAGE GATHERING



 Novgorod and Pskov Veche, as known to every schoolboy, have been little studied. It is incomprehensible to modern Soviet people.
   What is it? A constitutional assembly? A parliament? The executive and legislative authority of the feudal republic? Neither one nor the other. The Veche can be understood only by making sense of the Russian communal self-government. Village gatherings were its practical realization. Note: self-government, not arbitrariness. In the first case, we are talking about common interests; in the second - about the selfish and personal.
 It is clear that such phenomenon of Russian life, as a village gathering, was implementing primary social, military, political and economic responsibilities and had it's own aesthetic, following the general notion of the Russian people of harmony and beauty.
   The necessity of a gathering ripened gradually, not immediately, but when it finally matured, was enough the smallest initiative to launch the meeting. People would gather themselves feeling such a need.
   In other cases, people were called by police constables or by a distinctive ringing of the bell (of the fire or the enemy raids were unique bell rings. A police constable nimbly and a bit solemnly walked through the street and heralded people to the gathering. Announcing is the first part of this custom. After announcing or bells ringing, people slowly, usually dressed up, come together at a predetermined place.
   Everybody had a right to participate in the gathering and express themselves, but not all dared. When the general commotion was raised, everybody began to yell, even kids. The elderly, often deliberately, was leaving such an uproar. However, the cries and the noise does not always mean a mess. When it came to serious matters, loudmouths stopped talking and joined the general opinion because common sense gained the upper hand even in violent and noisy gatherings. The most ancient kind of gathering is a meeting in the refectory when the adults came together at the table and decided military, trade and economic affairs. Later, this custom has teamed up with Christian Te Deum, as many wooden churches were built with the refectory - a particular room at the entrance to the church. As for us, strangely enough, at the rural peasant gathering was not a committee, neither the chairman nor the secretaries. The same common sense, tradition, and unwritten rule managed the proceedings. Since the opinion of the fairest, intelligent and experienced people was more important than all the other views, these people were listened to more, although sometimes brawlers took over. After listening to all and discussing the details, the gathering declares a so-called sentence (decision). On the need, money would be collected, and the most venerable and most reliable participant would be assigned execution of a case (for example, go with a petition).
 Of course, the decision was binding for all. Formal proceedings of village gatherings changed dramatically with the introduction of the paper documentation. If the meeting participants spoke open what was on their mind ( you cannot put a spoken word into the case ), then with the introduction of the paper logging, people began to speak gently, and this way and that way, some have ceased altogether to speak.
   The power of paper - the power of bureaucracy - has always been hostile to communal settings with its openness and directness, with its sometimes unruly but forgiving speakers.
 The bureaucratization of village meetings created new, utterly alienness to the Russian spirit speakers. Therefore, even such a supporter of European regulations and "politeness," as Peter the Great, had to issue a decree prohibiting talking from the paper. "So that stupidity of speaker was visible to everyone" - sounds like this final part of the order. Moreover, with the introduction of a paper trail on gatherings, many advocates of justice, in general, have stopped going to sincere people. Demagogues had all the more freedom. It is fascinating from all angles, including the artistic, how collective farm meetings were held. However, the protocols preserved in the archives reflect little of the peculiarity of these gatherings. Indeed, the collaborative farm meetings and the postwar years had a distant ritual attribute. The custom of festive gatherings existed until recently in most Northern collective farms. Those meetings were concluded with a heavy, everyday dinner meal. All participated in this dinner, from little kids to old folk. Those who could not come were brought food from the public table.

VILLAGE PARTIES

You could observe the order in the way of life in young people's parties that sometimes involved even children, adults, and the elderly, albeit in a different capacity.

Village parties can be divided into winter and summer parties. The summer parties took place on village streets during big Christian holidays.
Summer festivities would start before the sunset with discordant singing of local teenage girls, kids screaming, games and swings. Youth were coming from many counties. Married couples and older people participated only if they came here on a visit.

Before they came to the street, boys from other villages lined up and did a first "militant" pass by singing with the accordion. Behind them, too, in ranks, and also with the songs, went the girls. After going back and forth along the street, the visitors would stop where a group of locals gathered. Then, after a few pompous ritual greetings, the dancing would start. A harmonist or balalaika player was seated on a log or a rock on the porch. If there were mosquitoes, the girls took turns "fanning" the player with scarves, flowers or twigs.

Visiting relatives and friends were immediately taken away to homes, the rest of the public continued festivities. All-new "parties" at the night streets and alleys filled the festive crowd from different parts of the village. People danced simultaneously in many places; each "party" sang their own songs.

By the End of festivities, guys would come up to long-ago or just now chosen girls and were strolling in pairs along the street for some time.

After the party, couples would go-to hiding places to sit and talk, and finally, the boys escorted the girls home.

Shy or new guys walk back home singing. Only in the autumn, when it got dark early, they stayed the night in other people's bathhouses, in the hayloft, or in houses where friends were staying.

Street festivities continued on the second day of the patronal feast of beer, though it was not so crowded. On ordinary days or not significant holidays, youth were partying without beer, not so wide and not so long. Often the playground for young people was selected a beautiful hill above the river, at church, at the docks.

The old style of dances for young adults in the 20s and early 30-es of the XX century almost completely disappeared; festivities came down to walking, singing to an accordion and incessant dancing. Dance for married and elderly in the streets among the unmarried was no longer shameful.

The winter carnivals began in late autumn, subject to Lents, and ended in the spring. They were divided into the revels and the conversations.

The revels were held only between Lents. The girls, in turn, gave up their houses for the celebration, and that day, the family would escape for the whole evening to the neighbour's place. If the family was rigorous, the girl hired someone else's house with a necessary condition to provide the candles and wash the floor after the festivities.

At the revels first arrived the children and adolescents. Adults girls did not really like kids at the event and tried to get rid of them from the premises while managing to make fun of local and non-local suitors. If there was music, at once began to dance; if the music was not present, they played and sang. The arrival of strangers was quite ceremonious, even stiff at first; they shook hands, undressed, folded coats and hats anywhere on the shelf. Then they took their seats on the benches. If there were many people, guys were sitting on the girls' laps, not necessarily their own girlfriends.

Once the dancing started, the first round of the game was opened. This kind of a half-game came, probably from the far-forsaken time, gradually acquiring the traits of a ritual. Maintaining high chastity gave young people a place for the first excitements and delights of love and allowed them to select a lad and a gal. This practice is allowed to feel the full value of their own person to even the most conservative and the shyest guys and girls.

The game would start up as a joke. Two locals -a guy and a girl - sat somewhere in the back corner, in the dark scullery behind the stove. They were curtained with a blanket or bedding, behind which no one had a right look in. After some whispering, the guy would ask another young man to replace him, judging by his liking (or interest). After talking with the girl about this and that, the latter had the right to invite the one he liked or needed for a secret conversation. But he, in turn, also had to go away and send in the one she would like to talk to. Equality among sexes was absolute, and the right of choice was the same. To stay together at that place for the whole evening meant to identify the serious thoroughness of feelings that once all caught the eyes of the rest and brought a great responsibility on the young couple. Let young people stay alone for longer than usual, as a new place continued with the new game.

The game continued; participants did not want to sacrifice themselves just for those two.

Thus, this game presented a window of opportunity:

1. Meet somebody in whom they are interested.

2. See a loved one.

3. Get rid of a partner they didn't like.

4. To help a friend (girlfriend) get together with a person of their interest.

During Lent, girls get together doing spinning, knitting, weaving, embroidery, and talking. A place for girls' gatherings was chosen in rounds or rented from the people who lived alone ("bobyl"). People would pay for light and heat, but girls would bring together the spinning wheel under the arm and birch logs in tight times. In conversations, girls sang played games but, if outsiders came, it looked unfavourably, especially by devout parents.

"In the conversations, the girls span, - wrote Vasily V. Kosmachev, who lives in Petrozavodsk - knit and had fun at the same time, sang songs, danced and played various games. In our village, every evening was from four to six such gatherings. The guys walked through the village with an accordion and sang songs. We, too, were not one gang but several, and they were selected by age. We would drop by the girls' gatherings. After the party/gathering, we ordered a "pull" a girl to see her home. Somebody from the company goes to the house, looking for the girl of interest, pulls out from under the spinning wheel. Then he takes out the spinning wheel and gives it to the guy who ordered it. The girl comes out and looks at who took her spinning wheel. Then she decides to go out with this guy or not. If she likes him, then she goes back, puts her clothes on and walks out; if not, then she takes back the spinning wheel and then spins again."

[Dropped a sentence and a quote] Boys would come where girls were. However, they would typically go to the neighbour villages. At the gathering, girls wove the lace, and the guys (from another village) were joking, flirted with girls, and made a mess of the bobbins with the lace. The girls, while working, would sing limericks if there was an accordion; they sang with accompaniment.
 On Sundays, too, girls met for weaving, embroidery but often, the frame was put aside and entertained with songs, games, flirting and dancing. I liked winter gatherings for their ease sincerity. The Merry Party took place in winter and lasted for two days. This fest happened not every year and only in villages where many young people were. Guys and girls would rent a spacious barn with a hardy floor or free animal barns; they clean, decorate, and place benches along the walls. Girls from other villages, sometimes distant villages, came to visit at the invitation of relatives or friends, and guys went without requests. Girls from nearby communities, who had not been invited, came as spectators. Although the Merry Fest usually was carried out not during the holidays, the village organizer prepared for it as a great holiday, with a sumptuous feast and all the rest. The most solemn and crowded was the first evening. Around five or six o'clock, girls came in without coats, only in dresses, but with warm shawls (winter! barn had no heating!) The boys also came in light clothing, and winter coats or jackets were left in the huts. Village people wore felt boots, even on holidays, but they wore high boots, boots, and shoes at The Merry. And to be warm on the road, they wore over-shoes. In those years felt over-shoes were in high fashion, both for women and men. The girls sat on the benches, but the guys stood near the door.
The essential fun at the Merry fest was dancing. At that time in our area was performed the only dance - "zainka"- a little hare (instead of the word "dance," they said: "to play zainka"). This was a simplified kind of quadrille dance. The number of pas could be any and depended only on the willingness and skill of dancers. In "zainka" dance leading role belonged to the gentlemen; they competed among themselves in the dancing skills. It was danced in four pairs, in "cross." The order was placed and supported by the hosts, that is, boys and young men of the village (they did not participate in the dances). They also determined the order of entry of the dancers. It was always a complex and delicate matter. A great honour was thought to be the first couple, and nobody wanted to be the last. Therefore, when setting priorities, there were some with hurt pride. Invitation girls to dance did not differ from today's, but everything was different after the dance. Seeing the girl to the bench, the young man sat down at her place and put her on his lap. Both covered with a warm shawl and waited for the next round of dancing. Around 9 PM, girls went to drink tea and change clothes. Clothes change was the necessary procedure at the Merry Fest. This is why girls came to visits with large bags of clothes, 4-5 dresses.
Quantity and quality of a girl's clothes, her behaviour was the subject of discussion for village women; they observed everything happening, who wore what, who sat with whom and how they sat. Around midnight were dinner and a second change of clothes. The following days were day and short evening entertainments. The hosts invited boys from faraway villages to a feast and overnight stay. Many homes hosted up to ten guests. The level of the Merry Fest was to be judged by the number of couples, the number of accordions, but by the order, fun and pleasure for the guests and spectators." [End of a quote here]

In many villages, they hold big gatherings and minor, to which teenage girls came with his little spinning wheels. Imitation was not going beyond the spinning wheels and songs.

When the girl went from a bit of gathering to a large, she certainly was remembered her whole life.

**BARLEY**

Barley was used for cooking the "kutya" dish. You had to soak grains and shell them out in the wet mortar to make it. A boiled mixture of barley and peas called "kutya" was the ancient Slavic food used during Pagan rituals.

 Ground barley flour was used for baking pies with an amazingly least a taste and smell.

 In the autumn, the dough was usually put on large cabbage leaves, and the bottom of baked pies had a pattern imprinted with each of the cabbage veins. If the cakes were baked from a mixture of ground barley flour with the other grain (wheat, oats or pea), they were called "two-grain" pies. There were so-called "three-grain" flour pies.

 During the great festivals, and thus relatively rarely, was baked wheat-only bread with only wheat flour. The grain trough for baking pies was not used in savvy families; a large earthenware pitcher or pot was used.

 The pies were baked the same way as the bread, only dough for pies was salted, and it was leavened not with leaven but with "chalk" (dried wort). It is not easy to bake good pies, especially during the holidays. The hostesses started having uneasy feelings a few days before the holidays.

 But how much there is contentment and joy when, after "resting" on the bench under the linen cover, pies are put on the table, and the whole family sits around the samovar.
   Of course, the most famous and loved pie was "fishnik" when folded a fresh bream, pickerel, pike in the dough. (Dace and perch also given to the tasty pie juice, soaked with it, pie is no less delicious.) After that, pies were staffed with mutton, salted lard and chopped eggs. But when it comes to stuffing, fresh saffron milk cap mushrooms stuffing is the most original. "The lips" or saffron cap pies cannot be confused with any other cakes, but at the feast, they were unpopular; it was thought that this was a trite filling.

 Often crashed fresh blueberries were baked in the dough; you can call it the berry pie.

 If there is nothing at hand, the hostess baked onion pies and sometimes made a simple pie with salted dough. "Sprinkled" were called pies, drenched with sour cream, sprinkled with cereals, and abundantly anointed with butter after the oven. The pies were called "drenched" when covered with potatoes mixed with milk and sour cream.

 The pies, baked before the departure of somebody from home, called the on-road pies, and they still have a sad reputation. How many were baked in Russia for soldiers, students and others... The wheat rolls were baked for the road, and for the children were prepared pretzels, that is, those same rolls, only small.

 Sometimes several dozen "larks" were planted in the oven on the vernal equinox, tiny creatures of wheat dough. The most unpopular pie was baked from pea's flour, but the jelly from the same meal was loved by many; people ate them in fasting days hot and cold. Cold pea jelly was cut with a knife and abundantly sprinkled with linseed oil.

 During the Fast, a thick peas dish was often cooked, seasoned with onions. Still, after the rye, the most common cereal was not barley or wheat with peas but oats.

 Oat dishes are generally considered to be curative. For women in childbirth, for example, was cooked a special oatmeal broth. Oatmeal, grits and flour made from oats are not milled but pounded in a mortar mill. To do this, a unique system was built: water or windmill without the millstones called ponders.

 To prepare grits, kernels were steamed in a large cast-iron, then dried in the oven hearth and shell-stripped. Next, sifted oat kernels roughly crushed in the hand-mill. The result is grits, cereals, cooked oatmeal, and oat, so-called no-meat, soup. Oats, crushed with a pestle, turned into flour, and it should have been double-sifted. Bran is used for cooking oatmeal; flour is usually gone for pancakes.

 Oatmeal jelly is a favourite Russian food. There is a saying: "The king and the oatmeal jelly will always find space."

 On ordinary days it was cooked in cast iron pots. The lady of the house fermented the oat bran overnight, and in the morning, she filtered and boiled it on fire.

 On holidays, cooked oatmeal in select barrels, dropping hot stones into it. The porridge was eaten so much that anecdotal rumours about Tighina people existed.

 The hot oatmeal thickets in front of your eyes; it should be eaten - not to yawn. People gulped it with rye bread, dressed with sour cream or vegetable oil. Cooled oatmeal jellied, and it can be cut with a knife. Out of the wide-mouth pitcher, it tumbled down into a large dish and poured over milk or wort. This dish was served at the end of the meal, as they said, for those who were still hungry. Even the most satiated must have at least a sip ...

 Oat flour pancakes were prepared between Fasts, in the morning, in great abundance, especially during the Shrovetide. Preparation started in the evening; they were baked with good grease in large frying pans on good heat. Oatmeal pancake came out large and thin as paper. It even shone through. It was rolled in a twist folded in two to four or eight layers. It was eaten piping hot, with melted butter, sour cream, salted mushrooms, with crushed blueberries or cranberries. The remaining pancakes were doused with butter, sprinkled with "grits," and placed inside the cleaned oven. Inch-high stack fits thirty pieces, and even more thin pancakes, depending on the cook's skill, who with flushed face, rushes like a bird from the oven to the table.

* HELPING HAND *

Weddings, funerals, christenings and celebrations of young men leaving for the military service were dominated by family and kinship ties. But the ritual is clearly manifested in such public acts as helping to build a house, fairs, gatherings, festivities.
Helping hand- one of the oldest attributes of Russian life. The beauty of this custom is entirely devoid of external ornamentation and colour; for example, as in weddings, it is mostly in moral and spiritual nature.
 The saying "together the load is not heavy, but when you are apart, you will drop it" reflects the economic value of the custom.
 A family calls in advance for helping; they prepare treats and everything you need for great teamwork. Then, they would send somebody to announce it. After that, people tend to agree, and on the appointed day, all assemble together. Most often, it was building a house or a barn. But the help was asked and also received for fieldwork, haymaking and clearing the land, building of the stove and construction of dams.
 A decision made by the family, invitation, getting together and working - necessarily one day only from morning until evening, finally, the communal meal - is the scenario involving all sorts of shared help. Each part was full of sayings omens, accompanied by prayers and traditional jokes. Since there is no identical collective help event (weather, people, place, work are different), everything was always new, even for those who help out, not for the first time.
The tradition has provided an excellent opportunity to show working skills, show your strength, beauty and unusual instruments, show the hidden wit, get known, and finally simply just be around people. To work on these events was not hard, but the benefits provided to the owners were invaluable. So, it was possible to put a small log house at home or barn in one day.
The organizers also had to pass the exam of friendliness and efficiency. Particularly stressed were the house-ladies because, after the work, they had to meet and feed almost the entire village. Good, tasty pies were remembered by people for life, which enhances the excellent standing of the family.

* RYE *

The grain was an identity and a sign of a settled lifestyle that ennobled the restless spirit of the nomad. This tiny seed, hiding in its little belly the mighty and incomprehensible power of germination, has inspired poets and set the tone for the most influential philosophies. Is it not amazing? It must die, literally be buried in the ground, so its life has continued even more extensively and luxuriously. The ability of rye grain to give a few stalks (tillering) resistance to moisture and cold weather made it a favourite and necessary grain in the Russian North-West. Rye is, above all, used for bread, and there is among thousands of others a saying: "Eat cakes, take care of bread."
 Each work related to the grain, starting with planting and grinding, was almost a ritual. Generosity and disrespect of people are most clearly revealed regarding the bread. Without bread, all the labour and peasant household life becomes dull.

 Late in the autumn, after threshing happens, a careful allocation of grain is for the seeds; a bad one is for fodder and flour. A lot destined for milling right away is dried in the barn or the oven and taken to the mill.
 How pleasant it is to go to the mill. To make this trip willingly agree elderly, teenagers and children. Overnight at a water mill is remembered for a lifetime. The mill was in the peasant way of life, a place for communication, the focus of news, disputes, tales, and historical anecdotes to conclude a long and sometimes dangerous grain route. Milled, flowing from the tray, flour was warm, almost hot. You can feel with your palm skin the fruits of your labour. Even the peasant horse, returning home with a larger volume wagon after the mill merrily, snorted, catching a good mood of the owner. Flour poured into a wooden chest or was left, as they say nowadays," in a dry and dark place."
 Henceforth it was under the authority of the lady of the house. There were rye, wheat, barley, and oat flour sections in the chest. The chest stood in the basement, and it always had a wooden flour scoop. Intending to bake bread, the house lady thought first thing about a leaven, which remained from the previous bake and "lived" in a bowl all the time, covered with the old linen tablecloth. So nobody has been able to bake real rye bread from unleavened dough.

    Flour was brought into the house in a wicker basket of birch bark. The hostess was making dough in the evening with slightly heated river water. The homely rhythmic tapping of the whorls on the edge bowl, like a purring cat, or the noise of the samovar, or the creaking of the cradle, complement the feeling of family comfort and solidity. (There were times when the trough and the whorl for a year and more were no longer needed.)

      Also, today in many homes, we could hear the creaking of the cradle once in a life or not hear at all.

       The trough was tied with a cloth and placed in a warm place. Sometimes it was the hearth, and sometimes directly on the stove. The hostess would anxiously awake at night, watch if it "walks,» and stir in the morning. The dough rose while the fire was in the oven, and the hostess began rolling over. She took the bread dough with a wooden spatula, put her in a flour sprinkled round wooden bowl (also called bread bowl), and tossed the dough in the air. It rotated on the fly from side to side. Round, covered with flour dollop tumbled to clean linen cloth. The stove was swept clean with a pine broom, should be warmed up enough, but not too hot. Loaves were put from the linen upside down onto the large wooden shovel and quickly, one after the other, thrust into the heat. Six to eight loaves were sitting in the hearth of the closed oven as long as needed.


 A surprising, not like anything, the smell of baked dough appears in the house and on the street. For this smell came once a guy called Kolyaka, deciding to tease a baker lady (true story): «Auntie, what are you doing? Bake or what? - Bake. - We also bake over there". A word for word, the guy, talked about a mountain with a woman.
 When the conversation is about, seemed to dry up, he tossed a new theme: - And now a cow of my godmother wanted to calve early, but changed her mind. - Do not lie! It's not a human; it is a cow." Standing in the middle of the house, the woman began to talk about her cow and then switched to something else, then to the third story. She loved to talk. She stopped bubbling only when a blue smoke went around the house. She clasped her hands. - "Goblin, you are a goblin, Kolka; I have seven loaves in the oven!"
 She got rushed to save them. The loaves were black as the iron kettles. The trace of Kolka was already cold... Burned bread is not better than under-baked, but at least half-baked rolls were good for the cattle. So a loaf of bread was always on the table, along with the bread knife and the salt shaker.


 Children could take a piece of bread at any time; the adults had to comply with the meals schedule. The bread was always cut at the table by the master. Beggars would get a piece of bread of average size, and when the table was empty, it was said: "God will provide."

      Ironically, sometimes the bread was baked from the rye's satellite weed - fireweed, it saved people from starvation. At the time of the disaster, the symbol of which was the rye croutons, to the trough could be added anything: dried potatoes, bone meal, sawdust, crushed straw. A failure, that is, either non-risen or over-leavened bread, lies on the lady of the house as a disgrace, and she always lamented.

 A loaf of non-risen bread would settle down, and the lower crust was hard and dense. Over-leavened bread would cause heartburn. On the other hand, nothing was tastier than salted rye bread (the dough was usually not salted) with clean water after hard labour. And it was watered down with milk and yogurt. The cracker cake was made from crushed rye crackers in lean times." Tyurya," or "mura," pureed rye bread dish had some respect, unless, of course, there was something else to eat. A recipe for «tyurya» is the simplest: boiling water poured into a cup, place crumbled bread, then onions, adding flax seed oil and salt.


 Kvas was also made from bread crusts or crackers, but it was not the primary method of kvas preparation.

 "Mother Rye feeds all around." Not only fed but gave drink as well, we have the right to add. Before the war, beer in the North was the main festive drink among peasants. It was made from rye. Anfisa Ivanovna told me about this: "The nineteenth of December and the old style of the sixth was the feast of St. Nikola, the patron of our parish. We have to schedule the wedding to St. Nichola to be the same expense. It is 1926, there were no formal weddings, but if there were a church during Lent, the priest still would not marry.


 The holiday was awaited by all, from little ones to the elderly. Even the beggars were longing for holidays. So many people would visit; homemakers baked pies, especially for the poor. Mash was left, not first-round liquor, though, but a second-round distillation for greeting strangers.

      Rye for beer was chosen only very good, quickly fermented; people made pooling of three or four houses, an average of 50 pounds for 40 gallons barrel. Who had rye not so good, had to bring some more. The women will be ordered to bring fresh river water to stay at room temperature and scatter the grain there. This was the winter way of making beer.
 And in the summer, it was put directly into bags and the bags into the river, with stones on them, so they do not float. Rye grain swells in the stream longer than in the barrels, about three days; at home, the grain swells much faster. So the bags should be turned; rye is stirred with a spatula in barrels. The swollen grain is taken out and levelled down in a thin layer on a white floor. The grain sprouts in four or five days, sometimes in a week, it is sprayed with water but is not turned. When the shoots become large and grow together as a seedling, they will be thrashed, rubbed, splashed with water using a new broom and put back in bags. The bags with rye will be put and malt for four or five days on the floor.


 When a whiff of malt appears, the bags are pulled to the barn to dry. You cannot dry a lot of malt in the oven; it can go sour. And if you give it away to people to dry in their homes, it will become different; some will not dry it thoroughly, some will make it over dry. Malt is kiln dried in a half-day; particular firewood for this is chosen. Brew makers now and then stir malt, but do not dry it completely; they say: it will dry later. Shove malt from the barn, sift it, and it has to be ground with small millstones ..."


 The preparation of malt required twelve or thirteen days; boiling wort took one and a half days, a beer in the cold "walked around" up to two days. Consequently, the whole process of making beer lasted at least two weeks and sixteen or seventeen days in the winter. In the early days of Philip's Fast, guys from the Sohotskaya parish began to visit each other to figure out how many guests they would host and how much rye they would use. Each village had one or two meticulous brewers. Others knew how to brew, but not all dare: too great responsibility for the collective malt. There were times when all the brew, hundreds of pounds of choice of rye grain went up in smoke, instead, was going into the garbage to feed the cattle, and half the village remained for a holiday without beer and wort.


 Once, two men in Timonikha village ventured to brew separately. They spoiled everything. A local poet, without hesitation, immediately came up with a long song about them. Thus, to brew beer unanimously was trusted by the most experienced people. Anyone whose life was even slightly touched with the pre-war Northern Russian village, probably forever keep in the memory feeling of the cold night, crack frost logs, the smell of fire, red sparks and blue starry sky. brewing in the lane does not let people sleep; many people even get up in the middle of the night, hurriedly dressed and ran to look. Before dawn, when it becomes darker, on the snow and the walls of houses flashed past large shadows, the fire-pit set up very close to the building already thaw ice crust in the snow.


 Large barn chocks burn in the round hole of snow, the saw-horse stands over the fire pit, on the saw-horse hangs a large cast-iron boiler. The boiler gives up the powerful steam; under it, there are heated red-hot boulders and stones in flames. Nobody is allowed to enter into the darkness of the open gates, but it is possible to slip quietly and see the enormous kettle. The kettle sits on two massive logs; beneath it is a big wooden block. The pot is covered with clean bedding and coats. The dim light of homemade lanterns illuminates concerned, solemnly-important elders. - "Shoo."


 Kids like bullets fly out into the street. Meanwhile, in silence, with a strange sort of importance, people prepare clean containers treated with boiling water: tubs, buckets. They also treat with boiling water wooden tongs for getting out stones, large and small ladles. In the mid of the barrel bottom, there is a small square hole, tightly shut up with a long stick. The barrel was first heated with boiling water, and after that, chilled water was let out. Then poured all course-ground, as if crushed malt, suppressed it, gradually filled with clean, hot water. Then began the actual brewing - the most critical and crucial moment. The brewers could expect a disgraceful danger of not getting out of malt. If malt was over dried, wort could not settle, and everything was ruined. The first portion of water, the second... Hot stones with a hiss were immersed into the barrel. Sometimes they are stacked in a purse with handles woven of twisted birch twigs. Loaded with hot stones, this purse was lowered into the barrel; it hangs there on the crossbar, warming the content.


 Meanwhile, the latticed chamber is made of thin strips of spruce; its height is equal to the size of the barrel. Straw cut according to the chamber length filled the gaps between the planks, was sewed with thread, the lower ends of the twisted outward fan-like fashion. This kind of filter is carefully placed over the probe. When the wort is brewed and finally settled down, the chief brewer solemnly declared: "We let it out now." Crossed themselves, threw insulation aside and started gently shaking the probe. And this is the first jet of hot, fragrant mash that hits the wooden through. First, they try it from the spoon, all in a row, starting with the elderly. Then it hastily poured into the wooden bucket and cooled. Later after the first wort, it began to boil the second round. In the morning, the first thing women, the elderly and children were treated with was wort.


 It was the tastiest, healthy, most honourable non-alcoholic drink. Anfisa Ivanovna says that after dividing the wort: "Who gets a bucket, some get two buckets," into a great remainder put hops with the proportion of two pounds per 32 pounds of rye. First, the wort is boiled with hops. Then it is cooled, poured into barrels, and prepared "chalk" (a substitute for yeast) of the same hops and wort. Then it ran into the shake all the content and waiting to ferment in the cold.


 Anfisa Ivanovna continued: "It is desirable to ferment when it is quite cold, but if it can don't "walk," then a hot stone dipped briefly to slightly warm. Usually, it doesn't ferment completely; it would be put away into containers just before the end. Hop-pomace was too divided, dried in the summer, freezing in winter. Women made them "chalk" (yeast) for pies. And to speed up fermentation, people would dance around it to make it a festive drink.


 Sometimes, beer comes out too weak, it gives off hops too firm, and visiting guys would not drink. Too watery, they would say.

 The brewer hates this: "But I have brewed it thoroughly! And you brewed for St. Nicolas brew that smells malt." Good beer holds a handkerchief and looks beautiful, and the drink is tasty and effervescent and thickly. And about the good wort say: "You can almost bite it. Out 64 pounds of rye would come out along with the second-round of malt five or six buckets of wort.


 Approximately two-thirds were used for beer, one-third for festive drinking for teenagers, children and the elderly. (The women and older bachelors in holidays were allowed to drink beer.) With the cup of wort were greeted relatives, welcomed guests. Beggars and strangers during the feast were welcomed at the door with glasses and mugs of wort. An everyday drink was considered kvas, brewed in boiled river water from the pelts, that is, from the burned malt.


 Thus, bread and malt are the two major "engines," without which is unthinkable peasant life, were driven by the Mother Rye. From the rye flour were baked «klatches» (padlock-shaped pretzels) forms when there was no bread and kids were hungry. The dough is very thickly kneaded on the water, stretched into a long roll, bent from it the rolls, rolled balls and thrust into the oven. The hostess was making the same dough with the rolling pin-dense cakes. If you hang this moist cake on the end of the grasp and put it into the fiery oven, it almost immediately blows up from both sides. You created a delicious crusty bubble.


 In the morning, in haste, women often cooked cereal-brewed kasha using the ability of rye flour to malt, become soft, sticky. This thick porridge was eaten with milk, yogurt and grilled in the oven crème- fraise.


 With large thin rye crepes, made fifteen or twenty, were prepared potato "rogulki." Diluted with milk, crushed potatoes evenly spread on the pancakes, folded and pinched the edge, then doused with sour cream, sprinkled with flour and thrust into the hot oven. The hostess tried to bake them for all tastes. Someone in the family liked rolls thin and soft; others liked them dry, the third preferred thicker. ..

 Similar "rogulki" often were baked using cottage cheese (for some reason called "thick"), a tenderized reminiscent of Salamat cereals from pea and barley mix.

 Often the crepes were folded with the stuffing, and it steamed inside, singling out the juice. In this way were baked, for example, "sicheniki." Finely chopped rutabaga, turnip at the worst, the hostess puts it into the crepes, bakes and tightly closes the oven for an hour to have them thoroughly steamed. Anointed with butter for beauty, they are delicious. Similarly, they were baked in crepes, cut potatoes and boiled peas.


 The diligent cooks had such items in a shape of an exact copy of the crescent, while by the incapable ones, they resembled fish. If they have not kept in hand, collapsed, the hostess lost much in the eyes of the household. But she mainly worried when the pies came out bad.