In the morning the sun was shining, but only the sparrows were shouting loudly - sure sign to the blizzard. At dusk, heavy snow began to fall, and when the wind rose, it became so powdery that you couldn’t even see an outstretched hand. It raged all night, and the next day the storm did not lose strength. The hut was swept up to the top of the basement, there are snowdrifts the size of a man on the street - you can’t even get through to your neighbors, and you can’t get out of the village outskirts at all, but you don’t really need to go anywhere, except maybe to get some firewood from the woodshed. There will be enough supplies in the hut for the whole winter.

In the basement- barrels and tubs with pickled cucumbers, cabbage, mushrooms and lingonberries, bags of flour, grain and bran for poultry and other livestock, lard and sausages on hooks, dried fish; in the cellar Potatoes and other vegetables are poured into the piles. And there is order in the barnyard: two cows are chewing hay, with which the tier above them is piled up to the roof, pigs are grunting behind a fence, a bird is dozing on a perch in a chicken coop fenced off in the corner. It's cool here, but there's no frost. Constructed from thick logs, the carefully caulked walls do not allow drafts to pass through and retain the warmth of animals, rotting manure and straw.

And in the hut itself there is no memory of frost at all - the hot stove takes a long time to cool down. It’s just that the kids are bored: until the storm ends, you won’t be able to leave the house to play or run around. The kids are lying on the beds, listening to fairy tales that grandfather tells...

The most ancient Russian huts - until the 13th century - were built without a foundation, burying almost a third of it in the ground - it was easier to save heat this way. They dug a hole in which they began to collect log crowns. Plank floors were still a long way off, and they were left earthen. On a carefully compacted floor a hearth was made of stones. In such a half-dugout, people spent winters together with domestic animals, which were kept closer to the entrance. Yes, there were no doors, and the small entrance hole - just to squeeze through - was covered from the winds and cold with a shield made of half-logs and a fabric canopy.

Centuries passed, and the Russian hut emerged from the ground. Now it was placed on a stone foundation. And if on pillars, then the corners were supported on massive decks. Those who are richer They made roofs from planks, and poorer villagers covered their huts with shingles. And doors appeared on forged hinges, and windows were cut, and the size of peasant buildings increased noticeably.

We are best known traditional huts, how they have been preserved in the villages of Russia from the western to the eastern borders. This a five-walled hut, consisting of two rooms - a vestibule and a living room, or a six-walled hut, when the living space itself is divided into two by another transverse wall. Such huts were erected in villages until very recently.

The peasant hut of the Russian North was built differently.

Essentially the northern hut is not just a house, but a module for the complete life support of a family of several people during the long, harsh winter and cold spring. A sort of laid up spaceship, ark, traveling not in space, but in time - from heat to heat, from harvest to harvest. Human housing, housing for livestock and poultry, storage facilities for supplies - everything is under one roof, everything is protected by powerful walls. Perhaps a wood shed and a barn-hayloft separately. So they are right there, in the fence, and it’s not difficult to make a path to them in the snow.

Northern hut was built in two tiers. Lower - economic, there is a barnyard and a storehouse for supplies - basement with cellar. Upper - people’s housing, upper room, from the word upper, that is, high, because at the top. The heat of a barnyard rises, people have known this since time immemorial. To get into the room from the street, the porch was made high. And, climbing it, you had to climb a whole flight of stairs. But no matter how the snowstorm piles up the snowdrifts, they will not cover the entrance to the house.
From the porch the door leads to the vestibule - a spacious vestibule, it is also a transition to other rooms. Various peasant utensils are stored here, and in the summer, when it gets warm, people sleep in the hallway. Because it's cool. Through the canopy you can go down to the barnyard, from here - door to the upper room. You just need to enter the upper room carefully. To conserve heat, the door was made low and the threshold high. Raise your legs higher and don’t forget to bend down - at an uneven hour you’ll hit a bump on the ceiling.

The spacious basement is located under the upper room, the entrance to it is from the barnyard. They made basements with a height of six, eight, or even ten rows of logs - crowns. And having started to engage in trade, the owner turned the basement not only into storage, but also into a village trading shop - he cut a window-counter for customers onto the street.

However, they were built differently. In the museum "Vitoslavlitsy" in Veliky Novgorod there is a hut inside, like an ocean ship: for street door passages and transitions to different compartments begin, and in order to get into the room, you need to climb up the ladder-ladder to the very roof.

You can’t build such a house alone, so in northern rural communities a hut for young people is new family- put the whole world. All the villagers built: they cut down together and they transported timber, sawed huge logs, placed crown after crown under the roof, and together rejoiced at what they had built. Only when itinerant artels of master carpenters appeared did they begin to hire them to build housing.

The northern hut seems huge from the outside, and There is only one living space in it - a room with an area of ​​about twenty meters, or even less. Everyone lives there together, both old and young. There is a red corner in the hut where icons and a lamp hang. The owner of the house sits here, and guests of honor are invited here.

The main place of the housewife is opposite the stove, called the kut. And the narrow space behind the stove there is a nook. This is where the expression “ huddle in a nook"- in a cramped corner or tiny room.

“It’s light in my upper room...”- is sung in a popular song not so long ago. Alas, for a long time this was not the case at all. To preserve heat, the windows in the upper room were cut small and covered with a bull or fish bladder or oiled canvas, which hardly allowed light to pass through. Only in rich houses could one see mica windows. The plates of this layered mineral were fixed in figured bindings, which made the window look like a stained glass window. By the way, even the windows in Peter I’s carriage, which is kept in the Hermitage collection, were made of mica. In winter, ice sheets were inserted into the windows. They were carved on the frozen river or frozen into shapes right in the yard. It came out lighter. True, it was often necessary to prepare new “ice glasses” to replace melting ones. Glass appeared in the Middle Ages, but the Russian village only discovered it as a building material in the 19th century.

For a long time in rural, yes, and urban stoves were installed in huts without pipes. Not because they couldn’t or didn’t think of it, but all for the same reasons - as if It's better to save heat. No matter how you close the pipe with dampers, frosty air still penetrates from outside, cooling the hut, and the stove has to be fired up much more often. The smoke from the stove entered the room and came out into the street only through small smoke windows right under the ceiling, which opened the fireboxes for a while. Although the stove was heated with well-dried “smokeless” logs, there was enough smoke in the upper room. That is why the huts were called black or chicken huts.

Chimneys on the roofs of rural houses appeared only in the 15th-16th centuries, yes, and then where the winters were not too severe. Huts with a chimney were called white. But at first the pipes were made not of stone, but of wood, which often became the cause of fire. Only at the beginning 18th century Peter I by special decree ordered to install in the city houses of the new capital - St. Petersburg, stone or wooden stoves with stone pipes.

Later, in the huts of wealthy peasants, except Russian stoves, in which food was prepared, those brought to Russia by Peter I began to appear Dutch ovens, comfortable with their small in size and very high heat transfer. Nevertheless, stoves without pipes continued to be installed in northern villages until the end of the 19th century.

The stove is the warmest sleeping place - a bed, which traditionally belongs to the eldest and youngest in the family. Between the wall and the stove there is a wide shelf - a shelf. It’s also warm there, so they put it on the floor sleep children. Parents sat on benches, or even on the floor; The time for beds has not yet come.

Why were children in Rus' punished in a corner?

What did the angle itself mean in Rus'? In the old days, each house was a small church, which had its own Red Corner (Front Corner, Holy Corner, Goddess), with icons.
Exactly at this Red Corner parents asked their children to pray to God for their misdeeds and in the hope that the Lord would be able to reason with the disobedient child.

Russian hut architecture gradually changed and became more complex. There were more living quarters. In addition to the entryway and the upper room appeared in the house Svetlitsa is a really bright room with two or three large windows already with real glass. Now most of the family’s life took place in the room, and the upper room served as a kitchen. The room was heated from the back wall of the stove.

And wealthy peasants shared a vast a residential log hut with two walls crosswise, thus partitioning off four rooms. Even a large Russian stove could not heat the entire room, so it was necessary to install an additional one in the room farthest from it Dutch oven.

The bad weather rages for a week, but under the roof of the hut it is almost inaudible. Everything is going as usual. The housewife has the most trouble: early in the morning she milks the cows and pours grain for the birds. Then steam the bran for the pigs. Bring water from the village well - two buckets on a rocker, one and a half pounds in total weight, yes, and you have to cook food and feed your family! The kids, of course, help as much as they can, that’s how it has always been.

Men have fewer worries in winter than in spring, summer and autumn. The owner of the house is the breadwinner- works tirelessly all summer from dawn to dusk. He plows, mows, reaps, threshes in the field, chops, saws in the forest, builds houses, catches fish and forest animals. As the owner of the house works, so will his family live all winter until the next warm season, because winter for men is a time of rest. Of course, without male hands V rural house you can’t get by: fixing what needs fixing, chopping and bringing firewood into the house, cleaning the barn, making a sleigh, and arranging dressage for the horses, taking the family to the fair. Yes, in a village hut there are many tasks that require strong men’s hands and ingenuity, which neither a woman nor children can do.

felled with skillful hands the northern huts have stood for centuries. Generations passed, and the ark houses still remained a reliable refuge in harsh natural conditions. Only the mighty logs darkened with time.

In museums of wooden architecture " Vitoslavlitsy" in Veliky Novgorod and " Malye Korely" near Arkhangelsk there are huts whose age has exceeded one and a half centuries. Ethnographers searched for them in abandoned villages and bought them from owners who had moved to the cities.

Then they carefully took it apart, transported to the museum grounds and restored in its original form. This is how they appear to numerous tourists who come to Veliky Novgorod and Arkhangelsk.
***
Cage- a rectangular one-room log house without extensions, most often 2x3 m in size.
Cage with stove- hut.
Podklet (podklet, podzbitsa) - lower building floor, located under the cage and used for economic purposes.

The tradition of decorating houses with carved wooden platbands and others decorative elements originated in Russia not on empty space. Originally wooden carving, like ancient Russian embroidery, had a cult character. The ancient Slavs applied to their homes pagan signs designed to protect home, provide fertility and protection from enemies and natural elements. It’s not for nothing that one can still guess in stylized ornaments signs denoting sun, rain, women raising their hands to the sky, sea ​​waves, depicted animals - horses, swans, ducks, or a bizarre interweaving of plants and strange paradise flowers. In the future, religious meaning wood carving was lost, but the tradition is to give different functional elements house facade artistic look still remains.

In almost every village, town or city you can find amazing examples of wooden lace decorating your home. Moreover, in various areas there were completely various styles wooden carvings for home decoration. In some areas, mostly solid carving is used, in others it is sculptural, but mostly the houses are decorated slotted thread, as well as its variety - a carved decorative wooden invoice.

In the old days, in different regions of Russia, and even in different villages, carvers used certain types carvings and ornamental elements. This is clearly visible if you look at photographs of carved frames made in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In one village, certain elements of carving were traditionally used on all houses; in another village, the motifs of carved platbands could be completely different. The farther these settlements were from each other, the more they differed in appearance carved frames on the windows. The study of ancient house carvings and platbands in particular gives ethnographers a lot of material to study.

In the second half of the 20th century, with the development of transport, printing, television and other means of communication, ornaments and types of carvings that were previously characteristic of one particular region began to be used in neighboring villages. A widespread mixture of wood carving styles began. Looking at photographs of modern carved platbands located in one locality one can be surprised at their diversity. Maybe this isn't so bad? Modern cities and towns are becoming more vibrant and unique. Carved platbands The windows of modern cottages often incorporate elements of the best examples of wooden decor.

Boris Rudenko. For more details, see: http://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/21349/ (Science and life, Russian hut: an ark among the forests)

All photographs are protected by copyright. Any reproduction of photographs without the written permission of the author is prohibited. You can purchase a license to reproduce the photo, order a full-size photo, a photo in RAW format from Andrey Dachnik or purchase it on Shutterstock.
2014-2016 Andrey Dachnik

A hut in the form of a caged wooden frame various configurations is a traditional Russian dwelling for rural areas. The traditions of the hut go back to dugouts and houses with earthen walls, from which purely wooden log cabins without external insulation gradually began to rise.

Russian village hut usually it was not only a house for people to live in, but a whole complex of buildings, which included everything necessary for the autonomous life of a large Russian family: these were living quarters, storage rooms, rooms for livestock and poultry, rooms for food supplies (haylofts) , workshop premises, which were integrated into one fenced and well-protected peasant yard from the weather and strangers. Sometimes part of the premises was integrated under a single roof with the house or was part of a covered courtyard. Only baths, considered a habitat evil spirits(and sources of fires) were built separately from the peasant estate.

For a long time in Russia, huts were built exclusively with the help of an ax. Devices such as saws and drills appeared only in the 19th century, which to some extent reduced the durability of Russian wooden huts, since saws and drills, unlike an ax, left the structure of the tree “open” for the penetration of moisture and microorganisms. The ax “sealed” the tree, crushing its structure. Metal was practically not used in the construction of huts, as it was quite expensive due to its artisanal mining (swamp metal) and production.

Since the fifteenth century, the Russian stove, which could occupy up to one quarter of the area of ​​the living part of the hut, became the central element of the hut's interior. Genetically, the Russian oven goes back to the Byzantine bread oven, which was enclosed in a box and covered with sand to retain heat longer.

The design of the hut, verified over centuries of Russian life, did not undergo major changes from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. To this day, wooden buildings are preserved, which are 100-200-300 years old. Basic Damage wooden house construction Russia was damaged not by nature, but by the human factor: fires, wars, revolutions, regular property limits and the “modern” reconstruction and repair of Russian huts. Therefore, every day there are fewer and fewer unique wooden buildings around, decorating the Russian Land, having their own soul and unique identity.

From time immemorial, the peasant hut made of logs has been considered a symbol of Russia. According to archaeologists, the first huts appeared in Rus' 2 thousand years ago BC. For many centuries, the architecture of wooden peasant houses remained virtually unchanged, combining everything that every family needed: a roof over their heads and a place to relax after a hard day's work.

In the 19th century, the most common plan for a Russian hut included a living space (hut), a canopy and a cage. The main room was the hut - a heated living space of a square or rectangular shape. The storage room was a cage, which was connected to the hut by a canopy. In turn, the canopy was a utility room. They were never heated, so they could only be used as living quarters in the summer. Among the poor segments of the population, a two-chamber hut layout, consisting of a hut and a vestibule, was common.

The ceilings in wooden houses were flat, they were often lined with painted planks. The floors were made of oak brick. The walls were decorated using red plank, while in rich houses the decoration was supplemented with red leather (less wealthy people usually used matting). In the 17th century, ceilings, vaults and walls began to be decorated with paintings. Benches were placed around the walls under each window, which were securely attached directly to the structure of the house itself. At approximately the level of human height, long wooden shelves called voronets were installed along the walls above the benches. Kitchen utensils were stored on shelves along the room, and tools for men's work were stored on others.

Initially, the windows in Russian huts were volokova, that is, observation windows that were cut into adjacent logs, half the log down and up. They looked like a small horizontal slit and were sometimes decorated with carvings. The opening was closed (“curtained”) using boards or fish bladders, leaving a valve in the center small hole(“peeping contest”)

After some time, the so-called red windows, with frames framed by jambs, became popular. They had more complex design, rather than volokovye, and were always decorated. The height of the red windows was at least three times the diameter of the log in the log house.

In poor houses, the windows were so small that when they were closed, the room became very dark. In rich houses, the windows on the outside were closed with iron shutters, often using pieces of mica instead of glass. From these pieces it was possible to create various ornaments, painting them with paints with images of grass, birds, flowers, etc.

Interior decoration of a Russian hut

From about the 16th century to the end of the 19th century, the layout of the Russian hut remained virtually unchanged: a Russian stove was located at the back wall of the dwelling, usually in the left or right corner, with its forehead facing the windows. Sleeping place for family members it was arranged on the stove, and under the ceiling from the stove there was a bed (flooring for storing things or bunks for sleeping). Diagonally from the stove was the front, “red” corner, where the table was usually placed. The place opposite the stove was called the oven and was intended for cooking; it was separated, as a rule, using a plank or curtain. Long benches were placed along the walls, and shelves were arranged on the wall above them.

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Layout wooden house

Each corner had its own purpose. The red corner in the Russian hut, where the dining table and iconostasis were located, was considered the most honorable place in the house. The most important holidays and the celebrations were celebrated in the red corner. The female half of the hut was the space from the mouth of the stove to the front wall (it was called “middle”, “upech”, “path”, “closet”). Here they prepared food and stored the necessary utensils. In the northern regions, the Russian stove was often located at a considerable distance from the back and side walls, closing the resulting space with a door and using it to store other household utensils.

A box made of boards was attached to one of the sides of the stove, from where one could climb a ladder into the underground. From side wall to front door there was a wide bench, which was covered with boards on the sides. Very often, its wide side board was carved in the shape of a horse's head, which is why such a bench received the name konik. Konik was intended for the owner of the house, therefore it was considered a men's shop. Carvings decorated not only the bunk, but also many other interior elements.

Standard layout of the residential part of a Russian hut

The back of the hut, which was under the roofs, served as a hallway. During the cold season, livestock (piglets, sheep, calves) were kept in this part of the room. strangers Usually they never came for pay. Between the floors and dining table, as a rule, they installed a loom, which allowed women to engage various types handicrafts. In many Russian huts until the 19th century, there were no beds as such, and their role was played by benches, beds, stoves and other suitable furniture elements.

Complete layout of a Russian hut

Russian folk hut in modern construction

During the construction of Russian houses, techniques that were common in ancient Rus' are often used: cutting corners, methods of attaching floor cuts and ceiling beams, methods of processing and construction of log houses, the sequence of assembly and cutting of timber, etc. When cutting, round logs or logs sawn lengthwise are often used. In addition, in the western regions of the country, logs that are hewn on four sides (plates, beams) are often used. This method was already known to the Kuban and Don Cossacks.

The connection of logs in a log house is carried out using deep recesses located at the corners. From time immemorial, the most common method among the Russians was to cut one log into another, while leaving a small distance from the ends of the logs (into a bowl, into a corner, into an oblo).

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Designations on the evacuation plan

Construction of a log hut

Today, an equally popular method is cutting the corner at the ends of the logs “into the paw”, that is, without leaving any residue. Using this technique allows you to increase the size of the housing (at the same cost of material). In order for the logs to fit closer to each other, it is necessary to cut through longitudinal groove, which is subsequently caulked with dried moss or tow. Less commonly used is the pillar method of wall construction, which involves laying out walls from horizontally laid boards or logs. In this case, their ends are fastened in the grooves of the vertical posts. This technology is most common in the southern regions of the country.

Scheme of connecting logs in a hut without residue

The design and coating material have undergone significant changes. Today, when arranging Russian huts, gable or hipped roof types are often used, truss structures In addition, cornices are common, protecting the walls of the house from the effects of precipitation. Modern roofing materials (slate, tiles, iron) are increasingly being used, although, depending on a particular area, people do not forget about using traditional roofing materials(for example, reeds in the southern regions).

The most significant buildings in Rus' were erected from centuries-old trunks (three centuries or more) up to 18 meters long and more than half a meter in diameter. And there were many such trees in Rus', especially in the European North, which in the old days was called the “Northern Region”. And the forests here, where the “filthy peoples” have lived from time immemorial, were dense. By the way, the word “filthy” is not a curse at all. Simply in Latin paganus means idolatry. And that means that the pagans were called “filthy peoples.” Here, on the banks of the Northern Dvina, Pechora, Onega, those who disagreed with the opinion of the authorities - first the princely, then the royal - had long taken refuge. Here, something ancient and unofficial was firmly kept. That is why unique examples of the art of ancient Russian architects have been preserved here.

All houses in Rus' were traditionally built of wood. Later, already in the 16th-17th centuries, they began to use stone.
Wood has been used as the main building material since ancient times. It was in wooden architecture that Russian architects developed that reasonable combination of beauty and utility, which then passed into structures made of stone, and the shape and design of stone houses were the same as those of wooden buildings.

The properties of wood as a building material largely determined the special shape of wooden structures.
The walls of the huts were covered with tarred pine and larch, and the roof was made of light spruce. And only where these species were rare, strong, heavy oak or birch was used for walls.

And not every tree was cut down, with analysis and preparation. They looked out for a suitable pine tree ahead of time and made cuts (lasas) with an ax - they removed the bark on the trunk in narrow strips from top to bottom, leaving strips of untouched bark between them for sap flow. Then, they left the pine tree standing for another five years. During this time, it thickly secretes resin and saturates the trunk with it. And so, in the cold autumn, before the day began to lengthen and the earth and trees were still sleeping, they cut down this tarred pine. You can’t cut it later - it will start to rot. Aspen, and deciduous forest in general, on the contrary, was harvested in the spring, during sap flow. Then the bark easily comes off the log and, when dried in the sun, it becomes as strong as bone.

The main, and often the only tool of the ancient Russian architect was the ax. The ax, crushing the fibers, seals the ends of the logs. No wonder they still say: “cut down a hut.” And, well known to us now, they tried not to use nails. After all, around a nail, the wood begins to rot faster. As a last resort, wooden crutches were used.

The basis wooden building in Rus' it was a “log house”. These are logs fastened (“tied”) together into a quadrangle. Each row of logs was respectfully called a “crown.” First, lower crown often placed on a stone foundation - a “ryazh”, which was made of powerful boulders. It’s warmer and rots less.

The types of log houses also differed in the type of fastening of logs to each other. For outbuildings, a log house was used “cut” (rarely laid). The logs here were not stacked tightly, but in pairs on top of each other, and often were not fastened at all.

When fastening logs “into the paw”, their ends, whimsically hewn and truly reminiscent of paws, did not extend beyond the outside wall. The crowns here were already tightly adjacent to each other, but in the corners it could still blow in the winter.

The most reliable and warmest was considered to be the fastening of logs “in a clap”, in which the ends of the logs extended slightly beyond the walls. Such a strange name comes from today

comes from the word “obolon” ​​(“oblon”), meaning the outer layers of a tree (cf. “to envelop, envelop, shell”). Back at the beginning of the 20th century. they said: “cut the hut into Obolon” ​​if they wanted to emphasize that inside the hut the logs of the walls were not crowded together. However, more often the outside of the logs remained round, while inside the huts they were hewn to a plane - “scraped into lass” (a smooth strip was called las). Now the term “burst” refers more to the ends of the logs protruding outward from the wall, which remain round, with a chip.

The rows of logs themselves (crowns) were connected to each other using internal spikes - dowels or dowels.

Moss was laid between the crowns in the log house and then final assembly the log house was caulked flax tow cracks. Attics were often filled with the same moss to preserve heat in winter.

In terms of plan, the log houses were made in the form of a quadrangle (“chetverik”), or in the form of an octagon (“octagon”). Mostly huts were made from several adjacent quadrangles, and octagons were used for the construction of a mansion. Often, by placing fours and eights on top of each other, the ancient Russian architect built rich mansions.

Simple indoor rectangular wooden frame without any extensions it was called a “cage”. “Cage by cage, veg by vet,” they said in the old days, trying to emphasize the reliability of the log house in comparison with the open canopy - vet. Usually the log house was placed on the “basement” - the lower auxiliary floor, which was used for storing supplies and household equipment. And the upper crowns of the log house expanded upward, forming a cornice - a “fall”.

This interesting word, derived from the verb “to fall,” was often used in Rus'. So, for example, the upper cold ones were called “povalusha” shared bedrooms in a house or mansion, where the whole family went to sleep (lay down) in the summer from a flooded hut.

The doors in the cage were made as low as possible, and the windows were placed higher. This way, less heat escaped from the hut.

In ancient times, the roof over the log house was made without nails - “male”. To complete this, the two end walls were made from shrinking stumps of logs, which were called “males.” Long longitudinal poles were placed on them in steps - “dolniki”, “lay down” (cf. “lay down, lie down”). Sometimes, however, the ends of the legs cut into the walls were also called males. One way or another, the entire roof got its name from them.

Roof structure diagram: 1 - gutter; 2 - stupefied; 3 - stamic; 4 - slightly; 5 - flint; 6 - prince's slega (“knes”); 7 - widespread illness; 8 - male; 9 - fall; 10 - pier; 11 - chicken; 12 - pass; 13 - bull; 14 - oppression.

Thin tree trunks, cut down from one of the branches of the root, were cut into the beds from top to bottom. Such trunks with roots were called “chickens” (apparently due to the resemblance of the left root to a chicken paw). These upward-pointing root branches supported a hollowed-out log—the “stream.” It collected water flowing from the roof. And already on top of the hens and beds they laid wide roof boards, resting their lower edges on the hollowed-out groove of the stream. Particular care was taken to block off the rain from the upper joint of the boards - the “ridge” (“princeling”). A thick “ridge ridge” was laid under it, and on top the joint of the boards, like a cap, was covered with a log hollowed out from below - a “shell” or “skull”. However, more often this log was called “ohlupnem” - something that covers.

What was used to cover the roofs of wooden huts in Rus'! Then the straw was tied into sheaves (bundles) and laid along the slope of the roof, pressing with poles; Then they split aspen logs onto planks (shingles) and covered the hut with them, like scales, in several layers. And in ancient times they even covered it with turf, turning it upside down and laying it under birch bark.

The most expensive coating was considered “tes” (boards). The word “tes” itself well reflects the process of its manufacture. A smooth, knot-free log was split lengthwise in several places, and wedges were driven into the cracks. The log split in this way was split lengthwise several more times. Irregularities of the resulting wide boards they were trimmed with a special ax with a very wide blade.

The roof was usually covered in two layers - “cutting” and “red striping”. The bottom layer of planks on the roof was also called the under-skalnik, since it was often covered with “rock” (birch bark, which was chipped from birch trees) for tightness. Sometimes they installed a kinked roof. Then the lower, flatter part was called “police” (from the old word “floor” - half).

The entire pediment of the hut was importantly called “chelo” and was richly decorated with magical protective carvings.

The outer ends of the under-roof slabs were covered from rain with long boards - “rails”. And the upper joint of the piers was covered with a patterned hanging board - a “towel”.

The roof is the most important part of a wooden building. “If only there was a roof over your head,” people still say. That is why, over time, its “top” became a symbol of any house and even an economic structure.

“Riding” in ancient times was the name for any completion. These tops, depending on the wealth of the building, could be very diverse. The simplest was the “cage” top - simple gable roof on the cage. The “cubic top”, reminiscent of a massive tetrahedral onion, was intricate. The towers were decorated with such a top. The “barrel” was quite difficult to work with - a gable roof with smooth curvilinear outlines, ending with a sharp ridge. But they also made a “crossed barrel” - two intersecting simple barrels.

The ceiling was not always arranged. When firing stoves “black”, it is not needed - the smoke will only accumulate under it. Therefore, in a living room it was done only with a “white” fire (through a pipe in the stove). In this case, the ceiling boards were laid on thick beams - “matitsa”.

The Russian hut was either a “four-walled” (simple cage) or a “five-walled” (a cage partitioned inside with a wall - a “cut”). During the construction of the hut, utility rooms were added to the main volume of the cage (“porch”, “canopy”, “yard”, “bridge” between the hut and the yard, etc.). In Russian lands, not spoiled by heat, they tried to put the entire complex of buildings together, pressed against each other.

There were three types of organization of the complex of buildings that made up the courtyard. Single big two-story house holding several related families under one roof was called a “koshel”. If utility rooms were added to the side and the whole house took on the shape of the letter “G”, then it was called “verb”. If the outbuildings were built from the end of the main frame and the whole complex was stretched out in a line, then they said that it was a “timber”.

A “porch” led into the house, which was often built on “supports” (“outlets”) - the ends of long logs released from the wall. This type of porch was called a “hanging” porch.

The porch was usually followed by a “canopy” (canopy - shadow, shaded place). They were installed so that the door did not open directly onto the street, and the heat in winter time did not leave the hut. The front part of the building, together with the porch and entryway, was called in ancient times “the sunrise.”

If the hut was two-story, then the second floor was called “povet” in outbuildings and “upper room” in living quarters.
Especially in outbuildings, the second floor was often reached by an “import” - an inclined log platform. A horse and cart loaded with hay could climb up it. If the porch led directly to the second floor, then the porch area itself (especially if there was an entrance to the first floor under it) was called a “locker.”

There have always been many carvers and carpenters in Rus', and it was not difficult for them to carve a complex floral ornament or reproduce a scene from pagan mythology. The roofs were decorated with carved towels, cockerels, and skates.

Terem

(from the Greek shelter, dwelling) the upper residential tier of ancient Russian mansions or chambers, built above the upper room, or a separate high residential building on the basement. The epithet “high” has always been applied to the tower.
The Russian tower is special, unique phenomenon centuries-old folk culture.

In folklore and literature, the word terem often meant a rich house. In epics and fairy tales, Russian beauties lived in high chambers.

The mansion usually contained a light room, a bright room with several windows, where women did their handicrafts.

In the old days, the tower towering over the house was richly decorated. The roof was sometimes covered with real gilding. Hence the name Golden-Domed Tower.

Around the towers there were walkways - parapets and balconies fenced with railings or bars.

The Terem Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye.

The original wooden palace, Terem, was built in 1667–1672 and amazed with its splendor. Unfortunately, 100 years after the start of its construction, due to dilapidation, the palace was dismantled, and only thanks to the command of Empress Catherine II, before its dismantling, all measurements, sketches were first made and created wooden mockup The tower, which made its restoration possible today.

During the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the palace was not only a place of rest, but also the main country residence of the Russian sovereign. Meetings of the Boyar Duma, councils with heads of orders (prototypes of ministries), diplomatic receptions and military reviews were held here. The timber for the construction of the new tower was brought from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, then processed by craftsmen near Vladimir, and then delivered to Moscow.

Izmailovo Royal Tower.
Made in the classic Old Russian style and incorporating architectural solutions and all the most beautiful things of that era. Now it is a beautiful historical symbol of architecture.

The Izmailovo Kremlin appeared quite recently (construction was completed in 2007), but immediately became a prominent landmark of the capital.

The architectural ensemble of the Izmailovo Kremlin was created according to the drawings and engravings of the royal residence of the 16th - 17th centuries, which was located in Izmailovo.

Native penates, in which our ancestors were born, in which the life of the family took place, in which they died...

The name of the original Russian wooden house comes from the Old Russian "isba", which means "house, bathhouse" or "source" from "The Tale of Bygone Years...". The Old Russian name for a wooden dwelling is rooted in the Proto-Slavic "jьstъba" and is considered to be borrowed from Germanic "stubа". In Old German "stubа" meant " warm room, bathhouse."

Back in "Tales of Bygone Years..." The chronicler Nestor writes that the Slavs lived in clans, each clan in its place. The way of life was patriarchal. The clan was the residence of several families under one roof, connected by blood ties and the authority of a single ancestor - the head of the family. As a rule, the clan consisted of older parents - father and mother and their numerous sons with their wives and grandchildren, who lived in one hut with a single hearth, all worked together and obeyed the elder brother to the younger, the son to the father, and the father to the grandfather. If the clan was too large, there was not enough space for everyone, then the hut with a warm fireplace grew with additional extensions - cages. A cage is an unheated room, a cold hut without a stove, a log house extension to the main, warm dwelling. Young families lived in the cages, but the hearth remained the same for everyone; food common to the whole family was prepared on it - lunch or dinner. The fire that was kindled in the hearth was a symbol of the clan, as a source of family warmth, as a place where the whole family, the whole clan gathered to resolve the most important issues of life.

In ancient times huts were "black" or "chicken". Such huts were heated by stoves without a chimney. The smoke from the fire did not come out through the chimney, but through a window, door or chimney in the roof.

The first blond huts, according to archaeological data, appeared in Rus' in the 12th century. At first, rich, wealthy peasants lived in such huts with a stove and chimney, gradually all peasant classes began to adopt the tradition of building a hut with a stove and chimney, and already in the 19th century it was rarely possible to see a black hut, except perhaps only baths. in Rus' they built in the black way until the twentieth century; just remember the famous song by V. Vysotsky “Bathhouse in the black”:

"...Stomp!
Oh, today I will wash myself white!
Kropi,
The walls of the bathhouse are covered in smoke.
Swamp,
Do you hear? Give me a bathhouse in black! "....

According to the number of walls in the hut, wooden houses were divided into four-walled, five-walled, cross-walled and six-walled.

Four-wall hut- the simplest structure made of logs, a house with four walls. Such huts were sometimes built with canopies, sometimes without them. The roofs in such houses were gable. In the northern territories, canopies or cages were attached to four-walled huts so that frosty air in winter would not immediately enter the warm room and cool it.

Five-wall hut - log house with a fifth main transverse wall inside the log house, the most common type of hut in Rus'. The fifth wall in the frame of the house divided the room into two unequal parts: the larger part was the upper room, the second served either as an entryway or as an additional living area. The upper room served as the main room common to the whole family; there was a stove - the essence family hearth, which heated the hut during harsh winters. The upper room served as both a kitchen and a dining room for the whole family.

Izba-cross- This log house with internal transverse heel and longitudinal sixth walls. The roof in such a house most often had a hipped roof (or, in modern terms, a hip roof), without gables. Of course, they built cross huts larger size than ordinary five-wall buildings, for large families, with separate rooms separated by main walls.

Six-wall hut- this is the same as a five-walled hut, only with two transverse fifth and sixth main walls made of logs, parallel to each other.

Most often, huts in Rus' were built with a courtyard - additional wooden utility rooms. The courtyards in the house were divided into open and closed and were located away from the house or around it. IN middle lane In Russia, open courtyards were most often built - without a common roof. All outbuildings: sheds, sheds, stables, barns, wood sheds, etc. stood at a distance from the hut.

In the north, closed courtyards were built, under common roof, and panels lined with wood on the ground, along which one could move from one outbuilding to another without fear of getting caught in rain or snow, the territory of which was not blown by a draft wind. The courtyards, covered with a single roof, were adjacent to the main residential hut, which made it possible, during harsh winters or rainy autumn-spring days, to get from the warm hut to the woodshed, barn or stable, without the risk of being wetted by rain, covered with snow, or being exposed to street drafts.

When building a new hut, our ancestors followed the rules developed over centuries, because the construction of a new house is a significant event in life peasant family and all traditions were observed to the smallest detail. One of the main behests of the ancestors was the choice of a place for the future hut. A new hut should not be built on a site where there once was a cemetery, road or bathhouse. But at the same time, it was desirable that the place for the new wooden house should already be inhabited, where people lived in complete prosperity, bright and dry.

The main requirement for building material was the same - the log house was cut from: pine, spruce or larch. The future house was built from a log house, in the first year the log house was defended, and the next season it was finished in a new one. wooden house a family moved in with a stove. Trunk coniferous trees he was tall, slender, could be worked well with an ax and at the same time was durable, the walls made of pine, spruce or larch retained heat well in the house in winter and did not heat up in the summer, in the heat, maintaining a pleasant coolness. At the same time, the choice of tree in the forest was regulated by several rules. For example, it was forbidden to cut down sick, old and dried out trees, which were considered dead and could, according to legend, bring illness into the house. It was forbidden to cut down trees that grew on the road or near roads. Such trees were considered “violent” and in a log house, such logs, according to legend, could fall out of the walls and crush the owners of the house.

Details about construction wooden houses in Rus' you can read in a book written at the beginning of the 20th century by the famous Russian architect, historian and researcher of Russian wooden architecture M.V. Krasovsky. His book contains enormous material on the history of wooden architecture in Rus' from ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century. The author of the book studied the development of ancient traditions in the construction of wooden buildings from residential buildings to church temples, and studied the techniques of constructing pagan wooden temples and temples. M.V. Krasovsky wrote about all this in his book, illustrating it with drawings and explanations.