ETERNAL MOMENTS

Who of us, especially in childhood or adolescence, was not terrified and not despairing at the sight of a woefully immense pile of wood that should be sawed first and then chopped and put in the woodpile? Or a vast field, which you must plow? Or a dozen fat wool tows, which must be spun by the holiday? My heart sank at how much had to be done. But, as always, there is a consoling and encouraging proverb. It is like this: "The eyes dread, but the hands do."
 
 One of the elders mentions it, and behold- it is not so scary to begin a task which has no end in sight. So much for the material power of the word…
 
"The initiative is more valuable than the whole affair," - recalls another, no less critical, saying later: "It should be a beginning, and an end will come." If, however, you undertook to do something, you can see how much is done and how quietly the result grows and grows. And suddenly, you'll be surprised to see what has not yet been made has departed, though not by much, it became less!
 
You did half, and the second half has its half. The eyes dread, but the hands do ... But this proverb is accurate in terms of volume, the quantity of work, and its quality, that is, on the skill, ingenuity, creativity, and - not afraid to say - art.
 
The young beginner could be afraid, and the other not-so-young could be frightened, even having natural talent. But how do you know whether there is a talent, if not, to start doing something? In art, the risk is necessary for the beginner, even to a certain extent - the folly!
 
It may be one way for the initial identification of gifted people. Need courage and the daring impulse to understand whether you can do something. Try to start, to dare! And there, in the course of work, there is an inspiration and a worker, if nature invested in him a talent, at once or gradually becomes an artist.
 
Of course, you should not try without ending all your life, turning persistence into dull stubbornness. The uniqueness of the Northern peasant labour code was that all tried to do everything, and among these, many were born and original masters.
 
Skills are the basis on which great masters develop. But for a man who already believes in himself, convinced in his ability every time something is done, needs to take the risk of heart, justified, and every second controlled by the mind, he needs boldness, balanced by a careful unhurriedness. Only then would inspiration come to him, and precious moments stood, cast in advanced art forms.
 
It is not true that these moments, this high enthusiasm and inspiration are possible only in certain specified types of work and professional work! Art can live in any profession. Another thing is that, for example, a plowman or a farmer's work is not embodied in art. Because of that, people respected artisans and artists who create art.
 
Peasant artisans and artists from time immemorial have been nameless. They created their art pieces to meet only aesthetic needs. Art of Craft was born on the border between man's aesthetic and economic conditions, when the master begins to create art, not for himself, and not as a gift to friends and family, but by the order and for sale.
 
Art of trade… The combination of words lays a contradiction: trade involves mass, serial, that is, sameness and art is always a unique way, never duplicated. And whatever we come up with for the salvation of artistry in the trade, the trade will always seek to erode it, and art will always resist occupation. The image dies in the multiplicity of identical items, but this does not mean that art objects cannot be created in different ways in their diversity. At least until there is little difference between objects, trade can be called art...?
 
For crafts, it is typical to use traditional technologies and imagery with the obligatory artistic individuality of a craftsman. A master journeyman whose work is identical to his neighbour, a man indifferent to his art, who mastered the traditional techniques and the images but strives for quantity - a man impels artistic craft to degeneration and extinction. With machine production, creative individuality disappears, dissolving into mass production and kitsch. Amid all this, the seemingly miraculous existence of crafts overcomes the "gross" mentality.
 Accountants and economists plan not to interfere with beauty and aesthetics in their business. Nothing often exists for their "gross" psychology except the cash payment and the bottom line. Is the survival of beauty in such conditions not remarkable? Nevertheless, some Northern crafts are unwilling to concede the onslaught of gross anonymity and pressure of aesthetic dullness.

KNITTING AND LACE WEAVING

The ability to knit, of course, was part of an unwritten Code of woman, but it was not so popular in the North, like other types of needlework. Cows and sheep's wool was used to knit socks, hats, mittens, gloves, scarves and waistcoats. White or black lace was crocheted: valances, armlets, tablecloths, covers.

  Lace, created by way of knitting, is possible to dissolve and re-thread again on the ball, which never happens in lace weaving. Lace weaving combines the elements of knitting and weaving. But if for fabrics weaving used only two threads (main and clarifying), for lace knitting - only one thread, then for lace weaving are numerous threads.
 Each thread winds on a separate stick – a bobbin. A woman twists a group of threads, throws them over each other, and creates a new group, fastens with the woven pin. But the pins are stuck in the exact locations of the paper blueprint, presuppose a lace pattern. The bobbin, pins, pattern and a pillow stuffed with straw with the stand for it - that's all tools for lace weaving. The weaver rattles bobbins on the face of disorder, turns pad on one side, then another. The threads intersect, intertwine, clung and crawl that way and then this way. And suddenly, all this randomness disappears, and the lace is created.
The human soul is embedded in white, black, combined patterns. Through seamless graphics, the Northern Russian lace still pours the refreshing warmth of folk art.
Late Natalya Samsonova wove an excellent, hi-art headscarf; otherwise - women lace scarves. Once upon a time, a rare girl did not dream of having such a scarf. But as fruitless dreams for the Northern farmer were not a priority, a unique girl did not seek how to lace. The girls, since childhood, learned the skill of lacing. They created their beauty. If she got a scarf through the inheritance from the mother or grandmother, she could lace another scarf and sell and use the money to buy silver earrings, a dozen spindles, and maybe even a couple of good combs.
The talent of artist weaves together the economic foundation, prosperity of the peasant families with the weft of festive beauty. It was common not only at the looms but everywhere else, where started a flame of creativity. Talent always manifested itself in many other ways, such as folklore. Natalya Samsonova told fairy tales during weaving on the way to inventing new adventures. She sang even better at festivals...
 A lace woven for themselves or as a gift does not imply any financial benefit, its creator was not throwing a hook-like crazy from side to side, did not rush in pursuit of quantity. Beauty has never been a sister to haste

BLACKENING ON SILVER

Like the city of Novgorod, the City of Ustug the Great was the center of Russian culture, commerce and industry for a few centuries. Ustyug could do everything: fight, trade, and farm...
    Many of its citizens came to Alaska and California and settled there, while others travelled through Siberia and traded with India, China, and other countries. But those who did not like to travel and stayed at home did not sit idly by.
The people of Ustug town knew almost all the trades that had flourished in Russia and medieval Europe.
A man with the divine spark in the soul could take on all kinds of available crafts, but it was impossible to do a little of everything and nothing for real. Usually, one would choose an ancestral trade, building and perfecting a tradition or ignoring it. In both cases, the craftsman or the artist could manifest himself fully as a person. But in the second case, the craft would go down quickly, and skills and professional taste for beauty would disappear. It was enough for one generation that a canon of high beauty and a particular aesthetic "ceiling" would be lowered to the extreme. This would destroy the craft's artistic and aesthetic foundation, which is the primary condition of its scale, fame, and economic survival. A craft perishes…
 On the approach to the XX century and early XX century, blackening on silver would suffer the same fate if a few enthusiasts' patience and energy had exhausted. Therefore, we should be thankful for preserving the city of Ustug's magnificent art.
    Its essence is that the artist initially engraves silver and then fills the engraving with a special compound - blackening. This "tattoo," so to speak, is fixed by high temperature, i.e. the usual fire.
Ustuyg's plant "Severnaya Chern" produces good products in high demand at home and abroad. This compels our economists to increase the output to promote uniformity. The danger for artistry lies in mass production. Previously, the artist worked by himself from beginning to end (trusting no one, even his tool, not only products), and now the product is touched by many indifferent hands. For art to survive in such circumstances is incredibly difficult. Yet it survives.

SHEMOGODSK CARVING ON BIRCH BARK

Only to the national genius belong such traits as optimism, the ability to express itself under many life's conditions that would seem entirely unsuitable. There is no doubt that a talented Kholmogor's bone carver, finding himself by fate somewhere in the wilderness, did not expect to get from someone walrus tusks but would find something else to work with. For example, with clay… Earth has always kept something in reserve for the artist. 

Just a potter wizard did not feel right to stand idly by if there is no clay in the ground, but he is surrounded by birch or spruce thickets. Birch bark is probably the oldest and most widespread North raw material used by all possible masters. They produced shoes, toys, festive masks, dishes, and utensils from it. 

Birch bark has a bilateral structure, and colour properties are easily extracted and are easy to work with. It is decorative by itself. Lightness, strength and accessibility made it a favourite, indeed the people's material. Carved birch-bark baskets, salt shakers, edging for baskets made in the North all over the place, but this artistic craft, based on the carving in the bark, created by people from Velikiy Ustyug. Trade still exists in our time. 

BONE CARVING

Kholmogor's bone carvers do not have such spacious workshops, as Ustuyg's silversmiths, who now became labourers, not artisans. But the essence of trade remains the same. ...

It changes from fundamental moves, such as replacing ivory with cow bones. Material has always dictated, rather, prompting the artist what to do, which tool to use an,d how to begin. What was telling to the artist a silent ivory monolith? Before starting the work, the artist went to the bathhouse, fasted, cleansed of all small and petty. He carefully prepared himself for the inner soul soaring.

 Only in this state to a person would come a completely unexpected revelation when a work of art is born. Even a cow bone, cut and processed, causes the heart's desire to make out of it something extraordinary.

Polishing of the surface gives it  an identity, it reveals itself, becomes milky opaque. The master's soul itself reaches for the tool. And then it would have been a blasphemy to drop the chisel! A human soul through the mediation of hands and various tools breathes in life, beauty, into the dormant, but always ready to be revived timber of granite, wood or bone. No need to disturb the artist in such moments! Let him finish the work intended.

WORLD

"His life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life. It had meaning only as a part of the whole, which he constantly felt." Leo Tolstoy

 In Russian, the word "Mir" means the entire universe. "Mir" means the universe, the temporal and spatial infinity. The same word is for peace, stable life and friendship, harmony and tranquillity. The coincidence is not accidental. But open a textbook on the ancient and medieval world (again, "Mir"!). Just flip, and you get tired of endless wars, skirmishes, conquest, and murder. Well, is it true that humanity before us was engaged only in this kind of activity? Fortunately, the peoples of the Earth ("MIR" again) not only fought but worked and lived in peace ("Mir").
 Or how would they have grown grains, raised cattle, forged the instruments of labour and life, and built canals, ships, temples and huts?
We are more attentive to the international antagonism of the past for some reason than to the testimony of friendship and peaceful cooperation among the peoples, without which the world would have been destroyed.
The Earth, even in ancient times, was not so vast. Viking's ships sailed across the Atlantic. Herodotus knew how our distant ancestors whipped themselves in a bath by the birch twigs. Thor Heyerdahl proved to all that the possibility of crossing the Pacific Ocean had existed long before Magellan's travel. Athanasius Nikitin travelled to India from Tver, Russia, on the horse and without visas.
Russian Pomors (Russians living on the shores of the White Sea) knew about the great Northern Sea Route for many centuries before the "Krasin" and "Chelyuskin" ice-breakers went that route. And why, at the ancient bazaars of Samarkand and Bukhara, were all the major languages of the world heard, and people got along just fine? Languages were heard but were mixed.
People of different nationalities have only sometimes sorted out their relationship with the ringing of swords and daggers. Proofs of this are countless. And if anyone had seriously investigated the history of trade and navigation, then even a general view of the past could be much brighter. However, inter-tribal communication was carried out not only through the exchange.
     In most nations, there is curiosity and aesthetic interest in other people, unlike them. To continue to be yourself is not necessarily to destroy the neighbour's house that is quite unlike yours by fire and sword. Quite the contrary. How did you understand yourself, stand out among the others, if all the houses were identical if food and clothing had the same taste?
Moving to the east and north, ancient Novgorodians were not inherently conquerors. Stephen of Perm, the Zyryan's Alphabet creator, showed a high example of unselfishness in dealing with the natives. Russian and Zyryan's settlements still stand side by side; military skirmishes between Novgorodians and Finn-Ugric tribes were sporadic. In any case, rarer than with the blood brothers: the Muscovites and Suzdalians...
Hospitality, whose remnants are still preserved in many places of the immense North in ancient times, had apparently reached a cult level. Marrying people of different nationalities was not considered a sin by the Russians - neither by Pagans nor Christians, though it was not encouraged, so to speak, by public opinion.
    The same public opinion made possible a light mockery over the antics of the people of another nation but did not allow them to grow into antagonism. What for? If you need more land, take the axe and go in any direction, uproot stumps, burning forest.
 Invader, carpetbagger, bloody villain, and trickster did to his tribe neither honour nor advantage. Respect for other people's rights and national traditions originated primarily from self-preservation. But this does not mean that the Russian people quickly parted with their lands and customs. Even three centuries of domination of the nomads have not taught them, for example, to eat horse meat or to kidnap other men's wives. The world ("Mir") for the Russian people is not so good that it is immense, but also because there is a lot of variety; it always has something to marvel at.

REGION

Nature burns on the soul a print that does not wash off; it leaves its mark on the outer and inner appearance of the people. Even the language, though to a lesser extent, is also prone to such influence.
For example, many words related to the forest and snow are unknown to a Russian living in the southern part of the country. The psychological identity of an ethnic group mainly depends on the natural environment, landscape, and seasonal features. A Southern man cannot live without the vast steppes; a treeless vastness seems bare and uncomfortable to a Northerner.
The white nights at Solovki Island confuse even citizens of Central Russia.
    Perhaps because of that, they are so strong in the Russian folklore images of foreign and native landscapes. Interestingly, the alien side was always substantial and multifaceted in the popular imagination. When a girl got married, even a neighbouring village seemed to her at first foreign. More "foreign" becomes a faraway place when people leave to work as haulers. Soldiers' "foreign place" was always harsh and distant.
    Leaving for a faraway place, you must grudgingly fasten the heart; otherwise, you perish. "When visiting, be like people, but at home, as you wish," - says the proverb.
At home, the faraway place doesn't look so scary. However, when in a foreign land where "the birds sing differently, flowers bloom differently," the previous one, a little "foreign" place, a man will not call it a "foreign," but native.
An insult or ridicule suffered in a foreign land will not always be forgotten soon after the comeback. Good-natured mockery of the people's rumour is often manifested in such nicknames as "Permians - salty-ears," "Yaroslavsky waterslurpers," "Vologdian calves," and "Chud white-eyed." Yet mockery could reach only a specific target group, usually a travelling posse of workers, while a stranger was treated with reverence.