* GAMES *

 This was a big, unique and completely independent world. It permeated all aspects of life and influenced a soul creating a character. And though this world existed separately, it was fused with folklore, labour and domestic world, and they mutually enriched each other. This cross-fertilization is proof that diversity, variety, otherness helps to create an ethnic unity, while levelling destroys it.
Let's approach the world of games with the academic yardstick, mentally separate it into components, and arrange them on shelves, to classify. It will be a perfect scheme. It is possible to chart using different principles, but nothing will change. It will remain the same cold, lifeless. It is challenging to dismember the known to us entity without the risk of destroying it or becoming a fool. (Exactly as it happens with a child, who, trying to explain the charm of toy, disassembles and disembowels it.)
The magic disappears like smoke when they begin to look for the cause. The poetry disappears. The meaning disappears just like this when people start to talk more about something than work on it. Similarly, the game is only meaningful for its participants, but not for the audience (fan, too, is a player, he plays, but he has already played in a different game, feeding off the real game). Games are very different: for children and adults, male and female, single and shared, spring and winter, at home and on the street, noisy and quiet, helpful and harmful, athletic, intelligent. Some of these properties are often combined in one game. But what properties are typical for the game as such? No matter what you say trying to explain everything, there will always be something inexplicable and elusive. Perhaps above all inherent in the game is creativity feeding by interest, enthusiasm, experience, and the exact rules. People drop the game at once, as soon as it becomes uninteresting, in other words, uncreative. But the unwritten codes of games do not always let this, instead of pleasure and joy, instantly turn into a severe torment.

* ON THE BORDER OF WAKING UP AND DREAM *

As soon as a newborn child learns a little bit to eat and breathe, it shows one more capacity - the ability to play. So actually, the baby has during such time only two states: the state of sleep and the state of the play.
 What happens in the soul of a newborn? Why is he crying when a stranger tries to entertain him, and if the same does father or mother, he breaks into a happy laugh?
 Grandma and Grandpa, who are closing their own life circle, play with a grandson/granddaughter, not less sincere, indulging themselves and just laugh as the baby does. Frail elderly, as they say, "fall back into childhood," becoming naive as children. Such naiveté sometimes comes before the physical decrepitude. That's fun of infancy brightens simultaneously and the sunset days of the elderly.
 Grandma, shaking the cradle, sings a lullaby. The old woman falls asleep and stops singing. But the song does not subside, it continues to be sung (only without words) by a child, and his rhythmic bellowing lasts as long as the old woman wakes up again.
The play of an old man and the baby was dependent on the characteristics of both, but there were traditional games in most northern villages.
It is impossible to tell about all these games. A rabbit's tail, light, white, and fluffy, suspended on a string in front of the cradle, instantly becomes the game's object. Grandpa blows air on it or jerks. The grandson catches it.
 Two beaten-up outstretched fingers with rhymes: "The goat-thorn comes in and whom she forgets?" Swaying, approaching the child's stomach, they really looked like horns. The fingers will disappear and appear again, bringing a child into raptures. Countless clapping like» Pat-a-cake," "a magpie cooked porridge," rhymes, fingerplays were the life of the baby during his waking hours. If he had not, for some reason, a participant, he played by himself, becoming too introspective and developing excessive contemplation.
But in a big family, the child was rarely left alone. Everybody played with the baby. For the older children to communicate with the baby. The baby wakes up to play, plays (lives) to become tired and goes to sleep again. Even feeding the baby is nothing but a game. The older a child becomes, the more he plays complex games, and his life quickly bifurcates.
The growing up stage can be called the disappearance of unconscious playfulness.
 Personality is formed strongly on the crest of this duality: a quite tragic period. However, which period in human life is not dramatic? This inevitable tragedy was evident even in lullabies: -
"Tsyba-goat Tearful eyes,
Where have you been? –
 I herded horses. –
 And the horses are where now? –
 Nikolashka led them away. –
 And Nikolashka is where? –
 To the cage, he went. –
And the cage is where? –
 It is crumpled by water. –
 And water is where? –
Bulls drank it up. –
 And the bulls are where? –
 To the mountains, they are gone."
Perhaps even to the singer seemed that all of this will be no end. –
"And the mountains are where? –
 Worms have eaten up. –
And the worms are where? –
Geese gouged out. –
And the geese are where? –
 To the reed gone away. –
And the reed is where? –
 Girls, it mowed. –
And the girls- are where? –
 They got married away. –
And husbands are where? –
 All have died."

And the child looks with fear at grandfather or grandmother. And suddenly it appears that people died, but not all that's left is Stephan, who ... Here begins a new song, a new game, a new mood.
But you cannot stay forever in infancy. When the real-life responsibilities begin to displace games and fantasy, a man with talent will not fail to bring creativity to work-life… And then the duties of life are no longer an annoying burden.

**SILVER AND GOLD OF CHILDHOOD**

All children love to play. A child without this passion is hardly a healthy child.
  But the situation is: a talent for the game as a talent in youth for love is given not to everybody, but everybody wants to play. Of course, children with disabilities or too shy could not participate in just any game; in this case, the people have created dozens of accessible games, in which a par with the abled children could play disabled children.
 Here is one of such simple old games. After being asked grandmother's handkerchief, one of the children, dressed up as an old woman, takes a stick and, hunched over, stomping on the road. All run for the "old lady," vying to ask: -" The old, old lady, where you are going? - To the monastery. - Take me with you. "Old lady" allows under delicate condition. All ceremoniously go to the monastery, but the pilgrims begin to make embarrassing sounds with the mouth, and "old woman" suddenly discovers extraordinary agility. everybody shrieking with laughter flee from "her" in different directions. For the sake of the happy moment another "old lady" dresses up, the game is repeated.
 Another game is "The Raven." A kid sits and digs a hole. In the pit are pebbles. Players go around him saying: "Cocoon-Kokonaevich, Raven-Ravenovich, long nose. Help you, God! "The Raven" is silent. As if not, it doesn't hear. - What, Raven, you are doing? - Shouted into his ear. - "Dig a hole" - responds at last "the Raven." - What to use for the dig? - Pebbles can be put in it. - What pebbles are for? - And your children to hit with them. With what my kids vexed you? - They ruined onions and potatoes in the garden… - How high there was the fence? Raven-Ravenovich throws up a handful of pebbles. All run away and scream: "Too high, high, we cannot jump it over!"
The ancient game of "The Duck" is also very simple, but young children are very fond of it, such as the Raven-Ravenovich game. A kid playing the Duck walks in a circle under a strange, at first glance, not a children song: "Duck Uti-Uti, you have nowhere to go, if I had a noose, I would have hanged myself, if I had a sharp knife, then cut myself, if there were a deep lake - drowned ..."
The Duck needs to break out of the circle and catch a new Duck. The game's beauty is probably connected with the psychological contrast of the sad beginning and a cheerful conclusion.
There was a game of "The sieve" when children who barely learned to walk would stand in single file, and one asks from the front a "sieve" to sift the flour and is told: "Go take it back." If the last one has time to run from the rear to the front, then you have to ask again "the sieve."
In the "Monk" game played by older children, the one who would be chased first had to guess colours - for example, "white" or "black"? If you guess right, then you are carried on the hands. You have to throw back the head and do whatever not to laugh. "Hello?" - "I cannot." - Laugh. - "I cannot." If you laugh, then you stay a monk for a second term.
Children played in the "The Haves." game in the long winter evenings. The driver was blindfolded, led up to the post, saying: - Where are you standing? - At the post. - What are you drinking? - Tea and berries. - Catch us in two years! "
The "blind" tried to catch, and if endangering him to stumble on the jamb or sharp angle, it was shouted to him: "Fire!" So the first kid who was caught became the "blind."
From a very early age, the girls loved to play the bones game at any time of year. The joint bones left from the lamb jelly were accumulated stored in individual birch boxes; on occasion, they were even painted. The game was not competitive, though very long, multi-stepped, and it helped to develop dexterity and reaction. For example, most nimble kept three or four bone ankles in the air simultaneously tossed new and had time to catch.
 In the spring, dressed warmly, but in what one can find, small children hold a game "hopscotch," usually in a sunny place.
 Two or three planks put on a rock instantly transformed into a house, thawed in the garden shards and fragments transformed into expensive dishes. Then, imitating adults, five-six-year-old girls went from a cell to a cell and made visits.
For boys of the same age, fathers or grandfathers always made "coaches" - genuine carts on four wheels. The wheels even were greased with tar, not to creak. Using the "coaches," children were taken "hay," "wood," "went to the wedding," just given rides to each other, in turn, transformed into the horses. The "coach" accompanies all the fast-passing childhood of boys, until the games and fun of teenagers.
With age, the games usually get more complex and increase physical demands.
 The game team was formed mainly from peers. So you can easily imagine how juniors looked at them. Envy, admiration, impatience has always shone in their eyes. Eventually, his mute request accepted a younger player into the game. But now, do not expect any handicap!
 There was a game called «the Fly." Each player had a bat. On a flat, reasonably extensive meadow was hammered into the ground a very flexible fir stake. If you put a wooden "the fly" on top of the stake and strike at its base, "the fly" will fly quite far. The game began with the tumbling of bats. One had to throw the bat so that it tumbled, "strode" as far as possible. Force was sometimes just a hindrance. Whose bat provided the closest was obliged to lead, run and pick up "the fly." The players have driven down small sticks along one line at a distance of four to five meters from the stake.
 Then, trying to hit the stake, they threw the bat one by one. If the "fly" flew faraway, the player was to run to get his bat and return to defend the sticks. If "the fly" flew close by or he did not hit the stake at all, then the player had to wait for the next player's turn. If the "fly" fell from the stake in a specially-defined circle, the player had to be the driver himself. Good hits kept the driver in the game by hours until exhaustion. But now everybody hit, and everybody failed. Then the last has to try. After his stroke, all run to get their bats. The chased, if "the fly" remained on the stake, could capture any stick. While the "the fly" flies, one had run to catch it and put on any "free" post. The owner of the post has a right to knock it off. From where the "fly" landed, he hits, and if he misses, he will be chased.
The game is entirely uncompromising; it does not allow handicaps because of the age, not allowing cheating, not sparing the weak or incompetent. To cry or ask permission to quit was considered the most unnatural, the most shameful. One had to stand up whatever it takes and win. Sometimes, the game shifted to the next day. What kind of night spent a boy, who lost, is difficult to imagine.
Wrestling and boxing are the oldest sports games; they held once an important place in Russian life. It is difficult to talk now about the exact rules of these games. But the fact that there were some stringent rules is beyond doubt. Fights took place on the meadow, in free time, mostly during holidays; fighters were matched on the same physical level. The game was loved by all ages, from early childhood. Young men loved to fight too, but more and more with age, it was a playful attitude to the entertainment. The fistfights apparently could initiate a massive thrill; they attracted men without regard for age or character.
During the twenties and thirties of the XX centuries, Fights still had faint signs of the ancient sport. Usually, they began with the children, for the wronged weak stood up the stronger, for them, in turn, entered even more powerful until the adults were drawn into the brawl. But when the excitement reached a dangerous point, there appeared strong and, at the same time, good-natured and fair people who separated the fighters.
Another echo of the ancient rules of fistfights was that no one had the right to use a stick or stone; it was mandatory to use only their own fists. Ignoring this rule finalized the complete degeneration of the fights. But even with the wild skirmishes with stakes, stones, weight-bells, iron sticks, even in these conditions for a long time, there was a custom to make peace. Intermediaries were elected, two relatives or named brothers of the two warring sides. The drinks were provided, and people drank to the truce, often it was new fraternization; yesterday's rivals also became friends and brothers. The ritual of fraternization consisted of a triple kiss in front of witnesses.
 Games of men, children and adolescents were drastically different for girls and women. Although the general characteristics (interest, creativity, etc.) would remain, finding a more striking example of folk tradition contrast is hard. However, the available features (curiosity, creativity, etc.) would remain. Softness, condescension, lack of excitement and harshness are typical for girls' games. Interestingly, boys, especially at an early age, wanted to play in the girls' games, such as "bones" or "cells." However, even adults, not to mention peers, regarded such a request with an ironic smile, sometimes caustically altogether.
 Tomboys have not also been respected, eager to play boyish games. This girl was called not a very honourable name "suparen" - under-boy. This does not mean that boys and girls did not play together. There were a dozen or so popular games attended by children of both sexes.
An example is the game «gal» - complicated, in several stages, the game of hide and seek, playing with a softball. Imagine a warm, windless summer evening when you did your duties, but the cattle had not yet arrived. Several key players are already hanging around on a broad street. What kind of heart did not tremble and enthusiastically freeze when you heard a call from the street? One after another, who at a gallop, who sideways, was slipping away together.
A hubbub stops after two "queens" are chosen, they immediately establish the order and start the game. The crowd is divided into pairs; they are selected not by age but by physical and psychological matching. But there are no two people, ideally identical by wit, dexterity and endurance. Therefore, each "queen» tries to guess when selecting the best. Pairs of opponents diverge away, whispering, coming up with a nickname or feature. Couples in turns approach the team leaders, first to the one, then to another, asking: "Do you take "spring" or "fall? White or black? Perch or roach? Sour or sweet"?
Even selecting nicknames begins work of imagination, fantasy, and sense of humour, if it is established by nature in a player. Splitting this way into two identical teams, children begin the game.
  "Lapta" is the best example of a popular game… The game of softball allowed the participation of all children, not excluding too shy, orphans, poor, visitors. Popular games for children of both sexes are especially characteristic of the holidays because at other times, children, like adults, could not get together because of fieldwork and school.
Returning to the girls' games, I must say about their particular lyrical property, sparing physical capabilities and promoting femininity. If a boy's game developed strength and agility, girls' games almost entirely ignored such demands. Softness and pliability were simply required. Imitation of adults, as always, played a crucial, albeit perfunctory role.
 Here's a picture of the memories from Anfisa Ivanovna. Two girls of four to five years in the tiny boots, in the sarafan with festive handkerchiefs in their hands, dance in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, on the meadow around the house. And they sing with complete seriousness about themselves: "Our little white veils burnt in the fire, Nastenka's daddy died, Manyushka's daddy went the war." What to do for an adult: cry or laugh for such a sight? You don't know. The girls arranged imaginative field works, weddings, holidays, visits. "the line" was also their favourite game, especially in early spring. A game of jumping on a flexible board placed on a log was mainly for the girls, but this game had already dominated a sports element. "Jumping" wasn't overlooked by grown-up girls, but only on holidays.
 Musical ornamentation, songs and tong-twisters for girls morphed into folk dance elements. Youth festivals, dance, all the fun of young adults, respectively, do not lose the main properties of child play. Amusements were not excluded by labour but instead were included by it. Of course, not everybody turned out well, but ideally, the national imagination always felt this way. That one who was talented in the children's game was talented in the dance and at work. Therefore, the division in the traditional aesthetics for labour, simple way of life and folklore is conditional.
"A young man stepped three times, leaned forward, put his hand on the knee briskly, with another hand-picked up the bone. He took the aim ... go away, curious people! Move away: do not interfere with the dashing Russian game." Alexander. Pushkin

** LONG GOODBYE **

 Childhood in the countryside is still permeated and coloured with diverse pure child's pleasures. Fun is combined with useful things, though...
 Fishing, for example, or working with the horses - classic examples of this unity. However, there were dozens of other cases where children's games turned into labour or when labour quietly, without much vanity, penetrated into the children's play.
     To set up brooks and streams in early spring was the privilege of children, an occupation that is not comparable in its pleasure. Doing this, the child was not only physically hardened, not only acquired the courage to play with water, but he also brought benefits, which, perhaps, he did not even know.
     Similarly, the boy takes the cattle out to the pasture, but he also guards livestock against wolves and bears. This is something different in comparison with the boring grazing. Horseback riding and riding in a cart were for them in the beginning just riding, not transportation of hay, sheaves, manure or firewood.
 The adults encouraged such fun in every way quietly, but the adolescents have had a lot of neutral concerning the useful work games. Father and mother, older brothers and sisters, all the adults seemed not to notice the useless games, sometimes even prompted them to children, but not seriously, but just in passing. So adolescents and children learn from each other such games from generation to generation.
 Among the dozens of such entertainments was making toy windmills and watermills. To make a first simple windmill and install it on a garden fence would help an elder brother, grandfather or father. But after that, you did not want someone to help you ... So the spinner was soon replaced by a model of a genuine stamp mill with the pestles. And the stamp mill is close to the dam at the spring creek with the filler wheel mill.
 This creek has yet to make a noise, but another stream is already flowing in the forest: sweet birch juice fills a small bucket in half a day.
 There, in a broad gully showed up sour stalks of sorrel, and then arrived sweet, crunchy tubes of angelica. However, they can be eaten only when fresh, soft and juicy.
 By mowing time, they become thick and hard. If you cut the biggest lower part of the reed, leaving one end hollow, pierce it with a pine needle, twist on a willow stick grandmother's tow, you get a water intake device. After being sucked into the reed water, the boy sneaks near girls playing "scotch."
 A thin, steady trickle of water goes eight to ten meters; the girl gazed in amazement at the blue, utterly cloudless sky. Where is the rain? The same reed pipe with the closed-end, if you make a longitudinal slit with a knife and give it a sharp blow, turns into a stunning tube.
 In late summer, when ash berries became ripe, from the reed pipe was made a pneumatic device. Berries from that gun silently flew meters for twenty or thirty. Sitting in an ambush somewhere in the grass or on a tree, you can be successfully firing at roosters, cats, peers, but... Let us stop here for a moment. Remember where we started and how far we went. From a short distance from that gun, you could easily knock out the eyes, and not only to just a chicken…
 The line between good and evil is barely perceptible to the child's soul. The child crosses it with a pure heart, making it overstep (crime) into the habit. The most innocent game can slyly and silently at any time go into a prank, a prank - into self-indulgence, but a step from mischief to disorderly conduct is within reach ... Therefore, elders have always nipped in the bud pranks by nurturing and maintaining clear boundaries in children's amusements, and games - the tradition and the sanctity of rules. Yet in many places, the wire guns (it can smash a button), as well as the rubber slingshot (a pebble pierced the glass in the window), eventually replaced the innocuous reed water guns, willow whistles and carved bats. We must thank the industrialization that provided village boys with steel wire and rubber bands.
 After the First World War, in the villages also appeared adult pranksters. Of course, such a "naughty boy" did not throw stones at the windows of public buildings. But, to be safe, he deftly induced the boys to do that. Still, the fun of village children and adolescents has fully preserved their traditions down to the Second World War. The diversity and vitality of games can be explained by the centuries-old selection, the complexity and diversity of labour, the natural and living conditions. Literally, everything that comes in handy could be used…
 A grandmother had no difficulty removing the headscarf, folding it diagonally and making a "rabbit" when rag dolls "sleep" and it is not time to wake them. Next, a woman reaper made a straw doll from a handful of straw (probably from here went and "straw widow"). Straight rye stalks bent in two, tied up the "waist," and spreading its dress at the bottom, the straw doll was put on the table. If you lightly tap the countertop with the fist, the doll starts to dance.
 Now imagine a child delight at the sight of a few straw puppets dancing on the table from skillful taps on a wide tabletop! Dolls then converge, then diverge, then touch each other. Finally, they will pass each other. The goal was that they danced around each other, rather than dance away from each other and not fall off the table...
 A wood splinter was used during the winter evenings for many tricks. To make a "hummer" toy was enough to have a piece of wood shingle and a thick linen thread. The children also were making "fidget spinner," which can spin seemed for an eternity. Common were confidence games, jokes, tricks with a loop and a pair of scissors or with a circle or ring. Finally, depleted fantasy put everybody to sleep, but the next day, it always recalled something new.
 For example, "chicken" is the game when into the sleeves of an old coat or jacket were put one hand and one leg, and the coat was buttoned on the back. Such "chicken" was put "on the feet," and nothing is more ridiculous was how it set foot and fell.
 In spring in the forest and in summer during haymaking, adolescents cut down the stilts, first short and then longer. Walking on the stilts across the stinging nettles and water develops strength and endurance.
 Very funny looks a rustic leapfrog game, quite unlike this game in the city. Players gathered in the street, and a good-natured volunteer took unpleasant duties. He would sit in the center of the meadow. The players piled up all their hats on his head over his own hat. Sometimes it got pretty high; you had to sit motionless for the whole tower not to fall. Then the most robust and tall player was supposed to run and jump over. The number of dropped caps was memorized. The last to jump was the smallest player, and by this time, on the head of the sitter, could be no hats left... The losers got down on all fours. The sitter was taken by the hands and feet of four guys. Then they hard slap his butt into the back of the guy who was standing on all fours. Strikes number was made as several dropped hats. Hits were completely painless and harmless, but there has been a lot of laughing. If you hit someone standing on all fours, he moved too far ahead. The funny thing was when he set out at his former place, he looked around, wanting to know what was happening behind. Before the hit, he would change his facial expression in apprehension.
 A classic Russian summer men's game was praised by Pushkin's "bones" game." Children, adolescents and young men were equally fond of it, and in his spare time, married men were not averse to play. "The bones" were joint bones of sheep and cattle, left after cooking jelly. They were accumulated, sold and bought, they also passed on as an inheritance to the younger boys. Pushkin's "sharp" bone is nothing else as a big bull joint bone. In it was drilled a hole and filled with lead. Later, the bone was replaced by a stone, and then with iron tiles, known as "bat." On the line was set one "bone," if there are not many players, then the pair. There are several types of games. Still, for all, it was a combination of a good eye, agility and endurance. The first man who threw the "bat" the farthest was chosen to start, and from the place where it landed. In some games "bones" were put not in the line but in a column by two.
 The stake in a row would be put either against the wall or in the open. In the latter case, the second series of hits carried out from the other side. In the three-class parish schools, children memorized a poem: "On the lawn near the road a lot of kids, "bones," like in a field army lined up in a row. Oh, Paul is always lucky, he again is first. And what a rich and long today is, brothers, stake.". Continuation and the author of the poem Anfisa Ivanovna did not remember. Adult players in the "bones" game attracted a large crowd of fans on holidays - girls, family people, guests ...
The set of "bones" could rival just one game: the skittles or "gorodki." It is also a beautiful game, the only match preserved to our days and legitimized in the official list of modern sports.
 Games and popular entertainment are difficult to define or separate into something, although they existed independently, separately, and clearly delineated. This is the central paradox of traditional aesthetics. What is the rural swing? Can you describe it; identify what the main thing in them is? You can, of course, but this description is again empty and uninteresting if the reader does not know the spring in the country, the swimming week, and a village holiday.
 By the way, the swing (the circular and simple pendulum) has been widespread for a long time in the North. Around those swings in the holiday bustle, in a cheerful forgetfulness, some simple games, filled with musical content, would become rhythmic, filled with melodies and acquired traits of round dance. A child is no longer a child but a teenager if he plays in the ritual dance with a teenager of the opposite sex. This game is no longer a game but is something else. A lengthy separation from play has a typical person ... Only the broken, encrusted, aged before his time, ill or completely lost the God's spark man loses the need for play, joke, and fun.

*SEEING OFF THE RECRUIT*

"The Conscription" usually happens in November. A week before the appointed day, the merrymaking of recruits was particularly enhanced, and for two or three days, they begin to visit their relatives, starting with the closest ones.
When a recruit goes out, his mother gives him the following lament:
"Please listen to me, you, the birth of my heart,
A lost a pearl-berry,
Where are you going?
You dance and twist
With friends with brothers,
With brave migratory lads.
You dance not in the old way,
You party as not you used to.
Faints my heart zealous.
You go to visit people, not of your own will.
You're going to honour a favourite host,
Which will not be the first, but the last one.
You'd come home to your own aunt,
Sit down at the oak tables,
Cross your brave face
Before the icon of God.
You would be wined and dined.
And celebrated, with green wine,
You do not get drunk, my dear heart."

The recruit goes to visit relatives together with peers. A relative (let's her be aunt) meets him, hugging with one shoulder and starts to wail:

"Glory, glory to thee, O Lord,
I finally met my lovely nephew,
a guest long-awaited,
in his house favourite.
So, I put my bright eyes
At my loving nephew.
He goes with friends, with brothers,
With brave migratory lads.
Oh, I look, your poor aunt
At you, good fellow, loving nephew,
As you go away against your free will.
Your frisky legs are tired,
Your hands are down,
Your bright eyes became foggy,
And face became white
From the great grief.
Sit down, my friend, loving nephew
To the tables of the oak
With your good friends.
I put, your poor aunt, the oak tables
With white tablecloths,
Brought the peasant food,
But not the landlord's food."

The recruit is offered a glass of wine, and the host treats him:

"Drink please, love my nephew,
Green wine
Not in the first time, but in the last."

The future soldier sits with his friends at the table covered with a cloth, boiling the samovar, and are different snacks: pretzels, cookies, candies, and indeed a fish cake. He drinks a little wine and snacks and tries to get out of the table. The hostess bows and thanks him:

"Thank you, love my nephew,
that you didn't snob me."

From the house, the recruit led backwards, i.e. the face to the red corner and the back to the door with that thought that soon again he will visit.
With the same ceremonies, recruits walk over to other relatives. When in the evening, almost heavily drunk, he returned home, a mother meets him with laments:

"Glory, glory to thee, O Lord,
I finally see again
My dear brave,
Good young man.
So, you were at a fair favourite party,
And what told you your beloved aunt,
What are the omens and signs?
What can I do for you on my own side
In the old way, and the same way?"

Before the day of departure for the place of army draw, recruits usually turn to local sorcerers and witches who were using tarot cards, beans or some other ways to predict the fortune of the recruit. Sometimes on the eve of departure, bolder women asked about the fate of recruit, even the "evil forces." For the most part, in this case, they refer to a "house spirit."
On the day of departure in the house, gather all of the recruit relatives and a lot of curious neighbours.
 The feast is prepared for the immediate family. Everybody tries to take care of the recruit and service his slightest wish. After dinner, all pray to God and recruit often provides some "covenant of God" (vow) in the case of his release from military service. Parents bless the recruit and lead him out of the house, holding his hands. When a recruit says goodbye to his mother, she wraps her hands around him and begins to wail:

"You say goodbye to the native countryside,
You are my dearest heart,
To a fast-little river,
With all of the vast fields,
With the green meadows.
You say goodbye, my heart-warming child.
With gracious Transfiguration church
And with all the temples of the Lord.
As you will arrive at the distant place,
They will take you to the government-owned reception
And will take from you
Your peasant dress
And a beautiful white shirt,
And will look at you around and inspect,
And will lead you to the czar's service,
under the rule by the government.
And the judge's roar - the authorities are not merciful,
Their hearts are not pitiful.
Your frisky legs get weak,
Your white hands get limb,
Your heart got scared.
They will bring you a German razor,
Will shave your head so violently,
And cut loose the golden curls.
Please gather all of your blond hair,
Golden curls.
Wrap them into a thin white paper
And send it to me, your inconsolable mother.
Until I am alive,
Your poor, unlucky mother
I will keep them close to my heart...
Your daring friends,
All your pals and comrades will go
To the fair on the annual holiday,
I look, unfortunate mother
In a crystal-clear window
On the broad village street,
I look at your fellow comrades,
Start looking and searching to find you,
You are my dearest heart,
Start looking out by the appearance and age,
By the excellent way of walking.
Here will stop my zealous heart
That there is nowhere in sight of my son.
Oh, my son was clever and wise,
Attentive to good people,
With great sorrow that I have
I pull out from my warm pocket,
Take in my unhappy hands
Your yellow curls
From your unruly head
And apply them to my heart
As if to look at you, my dearest soul,
It's as if I have a word with you."

When the recruit gets in the sleigh, people watch the horse. It is a bad omen if it is not standing still but shifts its weight from foot to foot.
The recruit goes with one of the close male relatives - father or brother. At the place of the draft, you will not hear wailing, as women rarely go there.
But now, the lot is taken, a medical examination is passed, and the recruit gets a haircut and becomes a new soldier. Before going to his service, he still comes for a week or two to have fun. Then the rookie starts carousing in the vast expanse of the Russian soul. He dresses in the best peasant outfit - made of the wool jacket, a bright coloured scarf and a fur hat. Family and distant relatives give him coloured scarves, which he links together by the ends, and they are always with him. Now starts a high-spirited revelry of recruits. They are paying visits on the three horse's carriage with the bells, playing harmonica and singing, waving coloured handkerchiefs. The constant companions of the recruit are two or three young friends, who lead him by the arms.
There comes a departure date for the service. Mother and female relatives cry all the time. Once again, the recruit is parting with his relatives, accompanied by a lavish feast: at home at this time, his belongings are being packed, and bread for travel is being baked.
  On the day of departure, the recruit house visits almost the entire village. Mother is not only unable to wail, but even to cry, but only groans and moans. A touching farewell starts. The recruit falls at the feet of all your family and close relatives, beginning with his father. They pick him up and hug him, with strangers he just embraces. The young man walks around the house: he prays to God in each room and falls to the ground. Then he goes into the backyard - to say goodbye to the cattle. Before each beast, he bows to the ground and thanks them for their faithful service to him. When the last time he says goodbye to his mother, she hugs him and gives him the following laments:

"Will you go, my sweetheart,
But not in the old way and not the same path.
They will give you not an excellent soldier shirt
For your white body.
They will give you the army coat
That doesn't fit the bones and shoulders,
And will provide you with a soldier's cap
That doesn't fit your smart head
And the boots that hurt feet,
And gloves that don't fit your hands.
They will send you to the big road,
Portages will be long,
And miles will not be measured,
And you will go through dark high forest,
You will go, my dear son
To the cities unknown,
All peoples are so unfamiliar.
As you reach a church of the LORD,
A sacred place,
Please place the candle to the King of Heaven,
The Blessed Virgin,
And recite prayers for the great grace
So that Christ would give you
The true mind
To live in a faraway land.
You should serve faithfully and truthfully,
Hold on to the Christian faith
And obey authorities, merciful judges,
Commanders, officers
And ordinary soldiers.
Let the judges and authorities have mercy,
And their hearts to be compassionate."

* CHAPEL *

The second, and in some villages, the first and only architectural "vertical" was the chapel - a small wooden church.
  Of the thousands and thousands of northern village chapels, there was probably not one that looked exactly like the other. They were all different because they were built by different people. However, even they were created by the same person, and if he really wanted it, there could not be two identical houses, not to mention the chapel. Typical for artists-builders, maybe only the beauty and proportionality. Proportionality of parts, volumes and lines.
The chapel was built by collective effort, without collecting money. People helped by cutting down trees and bringing logs from the forest. An experienced and very skilled carpenter was entrusted to do the log foundation. In the course of construction, each participant in the work could bring to the project something different. However, the unspoken leadership still felt it was behind those with the highest moral and masterful authority. The individual aesthetic need could be satisfied with the construction, such as a porch or windows, charming and well-done floors, or frames and doors. But the master artist could do everything. And churches, and windmills, with all their design and artistic details.
 Art and workshop hierarchy would not have been created in a graceful solidity without altruism and dislike of vanity. Of course, any talented artist who knew their own worth felt the difference between them and the less skilled. But he knew, and another difference - the difference between him and a more gifted man. Respect and giving credit to a more capable and experienced person is the first sign of talent. Vanity and pride toward others, less well-known artists, a truly gifted artist never experienced, as he didn't experience envy for the man, who had a far greater force of talent.
As less compelling storyteller became silent when appeared and began to speak, a more capable storyteller, just as quickly, without giving way to resentment, worked and carpentry seniority.
Chapel architectural style in the North-Western regions formed under urban civic and religious architecture. In the last period, just before their widespread disappearance, many chapels were built with panelled and coloured boards. However, physical destruction of the old and the cessation of the construction of new facilities went ahead of the complete degeneration of artistic tradition.

* HOUSE *

 If you put the hut above the storeroom, such a structure can be called the house. There was a time when on the ground floor was kept cattle in the winter. From the hut into the storeroom was the ramp entrance. Later the storeroom turned into a simple basement. The gate was not from inside, but from the facade, straight from the street. Painted, sometimes iron-bound doors to the basement were made with the prospect of small store trade. Regardless, the cellars were an excellent place to store stuff.

 The house with a basement was almost a two-story, but truly two-story houses you can meet in the North very often. In such homes in the winter, a hut serves the lower part of the house, and there is no need to build a separate log house added to the side of the main building.

 The rear part of the house - the yard- was constructed less extensive and in two floors: downstairs housed a barn and stables. On the top were hayloft, storage rooms and stalls for fodder storage. If there was not enough space, hay was raised, put on poles, and placed on the truss girder. The yard is often built on poles, as sheds from the animal heat and moisture rotted quickly. Huts can be replaced without affecting the whole structure. The broad entrance on the beams was set up to the upper barn, where the horse could enter with a wagon. The size of the yard can be estimated by the fact that the horse carriage could turn around at the top of the barn. The entry was sometimes covered. The bottom of the entrance was made so that the wheels were rolling over the smooth surface, and for the horses' hooves were ledges in the middle, vaguely resembling steps.

 The entrance to the house was carried out by the internal stairs to the bridge connecting the front of the dwelling with a yard and the attic. A ladder often built portable, covered, on supporting poles, with handrails. Many homes had the staircase to the tower, the attic, where the room was cut in a summer mansard for the girls. The third stairs could be made from the top down to the barn. Behind the house, over the cowshed, built extra cold or warm spaces.

 Different types of houses are determined by building the front and the rear of the building. Often the winter quarters were portable, but the front part was divided with the fifth structural wall. The entrance from the bridge was into both halves of the front, or in one and into the second room. Sometimes the fifth wall was made not in the middle, and then a smaller room was usually cold: in the summer, there slept and stored edibles and other goodies in winter. Widely represented is a house with two identical buildings, standing back to back together under one roof. If they are not placed back to back, then the gap between the facade was equipped with doors and stairs. Exciting in the architectural sense was the union of two separated log houses into a coherent whole at the level of the tower and the second floor. In addition to the two basements and two large spaces of the second floor, in the front-on, as already mentioned, are often cut in another, the uppermost chamber, and then the house becomes, in essence, a three-story house. A room with a window usually would make a little balcony with railings, where the whole village was visible, and more ...

 Gulbishche - the porch (a deck with railings), built at the second-floor windows, is also part of ancient Novgorod and maybe even typical Russian architecture. For balconies, stairs and porches were manufactured as single wooden poles. Carved decorations on the facade were called "towels." The windows were framed with wood-carved casings.

 The height and spaciousness of Northern houses strike and raise some thought for everyone who wants an honest and sober look at the Russian past.

 But the building tradition, like the song tradition, is also interrupted. At the end of the XIX century was born the custom of covering the house's living quarters with boards. A house covered with wooden boards and painted lost something that connected it with the most ancient buildings like the old Novgorod architecture.

 Under the influence of urban, aristocratic, bourgeois and merchant styles, the interior of the peasant houses also changes. In the homes appeared wallpaper and people started to paint furniture and floors. Of course, such a mixture of domestic and aesthetic needs doesn't benefit a unified Northern style. Yet the Northern local architecture for a long time, we can say to this day, has retained its own characteristics, its astonishing originality.