In the old days, huts were built by men. How houses were built in the past. Old Russian measures of length. Foundation and fastening of a wooden structure

Since ancient times, Russia has been famous for its rich coniferous and deciduous forests. Therefore, the tree acted as the leading building material in those days. Everything was built from wood, from huts for the common people and baths, to mansions for rulers, as well as churches.

An interesting fact is that the secrets of ancient Russian architecture are still applied today. There was a time when wood faded into the background, and stone, concrete and brick were used instead. However, now in the 21st century, wood, as a building material, has gained a second life.

Wood is a traditional material of Russian architecture

All houses in Russia were built from a log house. A log cabin is logs connected to each other. For the construction of huts, pine and larch logs were used, in more rare cases - oak or birch. For the construction of the roof, spruce wood was taken, since it is lighter.

Endless forests are just one of the many reasons why our ancestors preferred wood. Here are a few more factors that influenced the popularity of this building material:

1. For a Russian person wooden houses- this is not just a place to live, but a kind of continuation of the forest, nature. In such a house, a person feels calm and comfortable.
2. Giles Fletcher, the author of On the Russian State, argues in his book that for Russians, a wooden building is much more convenient than a stone one because the stone is cold and damp, and the houses made of dry wood are warm. And this, according to the author, is extremely important for the harsh climate of some regions of Russia.
3. Our ancestors understood that, as in the forest, in such a house one can breathe easily and freely. The windows in those days were small and narrow, and in the cold season they were completely covered with boards. Therefore, a wooden dwelling is the best option.

Respect for wood has come to Christian Russia since pagan times. People believed that if you turn to the tree, hug it, then all diseases and problems will go away, because a “good spirit” came from the tree.

You say that all this is a fairy tale? Far from it. After all, in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth. Wood, especially conifers, emits a pleasant aroma, the inhalation of which is a kind of healing inhalation. This is an excellent prevention of colds. And those who suffer chronic bronchitis after a year of living in such a house, they will forget about their illness. Such aromatherapy calms and relaxes a person. Therefore, our ancestors were not storytellers at all, it was just that people at that time expressed themselves in slightly different words.

What instruments were used in Russia?

The name "log" is not accidental. It came from the expression "cut down a hut." What does this mean? Logs for the log cabin were harvested exclusively with the help of an ax, although saws already existed at that time. Unlike a saw, an ax “smoothes” the wood fibers when cutting, making the ends of the logs smooth.

Nails were used extremely rarely, because when in contact with their surface, the tree began to rot over time. And in those days there was no special impregnations protecting the surface from moisture and insects. Sharpened wooden pegs were used as a fastener.

How were timber harvested for construction?

They approached the choice of a tree for a log house very responsibly, because not every trunk will turn out good stuff. Pine should be flat and not eaten by insects. Having chosen suitable trees, the craftsmen made special marks on the trunks - notches. The bark was removed in narrow strips towards the root.

A whole piece of bark was needed to allow the resin to run off. After that, the trees were left to stand in the forest, sometimes even for several years. During this time, resin was abundantly released from the tree, lubricating the trunk.

The felling of selected pines began in late autumn or early winter when the tree is already sleeping. If cutting is done in summer or spring, the pine tree will start to rot.

Unlike conifers, deciduous trees were cut down during the warm season.

For the huts they chose small trees, and for temples and churches - centuries-old pines.

Construction of houses

Traditionally, the construction of a house began in the spring with the erection of a special stone sole - the prototype of the modern foundation. If they built a shack (a barn for storing supplies), then they often did without a foundation, i.e. logs were laid on the ground.

A series of logs connected with each other was called a "crown", this name is used to this day.

The buildings of that time can be conditionally divided into several groups:

• crate;
• hut;
• mansions.

A crate is a quadrangular room without windows with a thatched roof, not intended for heating. The cage was rarely used as a dwelling, mainly food was stored in it. The hut is a crate a little bigger size with oven installed. Often the hut was connected to the cage, and the covered passage between them was called the canopy.

Mansions were a combination of several rooms. They included chambers, a basement, a room, a room, etc. The upper floors of the choir were intended for the nobility, and the lower ones for the servants.

In those days, several technologies for building houses were used. For the construction of shacks and cages, a log house was used "in cut", while the logs were stacked in pairs on top of each other. Often they were not even fastened together with stakes.

For the huts, a technology with a funny name “in the paw” was used, and all because the hewn ends of the logs really looked like paws. The fastening was made in such a way that the ends did not go out. This was done to prevent drafts.

With the “in oblo” technology, the ends slightly went beyond the line of the walls and remained round. At the same time, the craftsmen tied logs and crowns together with the help of pegs, and moss was lined between the crowns. This technology was considered the most reliable. The house could stand for more than a century. And the room itself was always warm.

A lot of time has passed since then. However, some ancient Russian secrets of architecture are still relevant. Today's architects and designers successfully apply them in combination with the latest technologies.

In northern Russia, wooden houses were always built, and not because they did not know how to build stone ones, but because a wooden house is warmer, the microclimate in it is better than in a stone one, and also because there was enough forest in Russia. It's all about the thermal conductivity of wood and stone. The tree at one end can burn (the temperature of this area will be about +300 degrees Celsius), and at the other end of the log you can freely hold on to your hand. With a stone, this is impossible: if the stone is heated to +200 degrees from one end, then you will not be able to touch the other end. Brick, in terms of thermal conductivity, is also not far from stone.

If our ancestors lived in stone castles, like the Angles and Saxons, then you and I would not exist in the world, since the ancestors in our climate would simply die - they caught a cold and died out. Consequently, a wooden house is a condition of life in the Russian North. You can, of course, live in the north in a yaranga made of skins or in a plague, but then you will not be Russian, it will be a completely different culture. To live in a yaranga, it is necessary that the herd of deer (the source of skins) be very large - at least 30 deer per person.

So, Russia is wooden houses, wooden architecture, wooden culture. It is no coincidence that we also call our monetary unit the ruble wooden. From wood in Russia they made houses and ships, carts, plows, harrows, tubs, cups, spoons, toys, ... God's temples were also built from wood. It is no coincidence that carpentry and blacksmithing were considered the most honorable professions in Russia, and only in third place was the craft of potters - pottery.

In different parts of our vast homeland, different styles wooden construction. In my previous articles, I showed that the Great Russian ethnic group was formed in the XIV-XVII centuries from several "parent" ethnic groups - the Varangians of Russia, Slovenes, Krivichi, Ugrofins (Merya, All, Kostroma, etc.). Each of these ethnic groups probably had its own way of building houses, its own tradition. Folk traditions are very stable: they, like the language, have been preserved for centuries and even millennia. Traditions are what unite generations of people into one people, into one ethnic group. In some cases, traditions are due to the peculiarities of the climate and topography of the country of residence, and in some cases they are simply a manifestation of fashion, habit, and are not directly related to living conditions. The tradition of weaving Vologda lace, for example, is not connected with the climate of the Vologda region. Lace could be woven in the Oryol region*, but they don't do it.

* Grekov Vyacheslav Petrovich recently told me that in the Oryol region lace is woven, though not from Vologda.

"Mtsensk lace is one of the oldest in Russia:

Back in the 23rd century, the landowner Protasova opened a manufactory for the production of lace near Mtsensk. She invited two teachers from Belgium, and they taught local girls. Russian girls studied with interest, but adopted foreign art creatively. Very soon the motifs of their weaving became so unique that the whole world started talking about Russian lace. It was the largest lace production in Russia. All year round 1200 craftswomen worked on bobbins. The products were supplied to the royal court, exported to England and Turkey.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Princess Anna Dmitrievna Tenisheva did a lot for the inhabitants of Mtsensk. She opened schools and hospitals for the poor in the city, surrounding villages and villages. In 1899, she opened a lace school for girls aged 8-12 in Mtsensk. Girls were taught not only the craft, but also literacy and the basics of drawing, and as the number of students grew, a boarding school was created at the school for the most capable residents of the surrounding villages. The girls lived there on a full board basis.

The quality of Mtsensk lace grew. At the World Exhibition in Paris, it was awarded a silver medal, and at an exhibition in Glasgow - an honorary diploma. And now the school of lacemakers is working in Mtsensk again. Children study here for three years. During this time, they must learn how to weave measured lace, make copies of old patterns. Best works young lacemakers can be seen in the lace museum, as well as the work of their teachers. The studio "Mtsensk Patterns" was opened.

Distinctive feature Mtsensk lace is the active use of geometric motifs, while in Yelets lace, floral ornaments are more often used. If compared with Vologda lace, then there is a denser, richer pattern, background gratings are almost never used, but in Yelets and Mtsensk very often, because the pattern is more airy.

But it is, of course, better to roll and wear felt boots in the North (somehow I can’t imagine a resident of the Crimea in felt boots). When an ethnic group is forced to change its place of residence as a result of the invasion of stronger opponents, or when these conditions change due to climate change, traditions change. In a stable state, traditions are preserved for thousands of years.

My ancestors on my mother's side were carpenters and blacksmiths, on my father's side they were carpenters and masons. So the subject, which will be discussed below, is to a certain extent familiar to me by inheritance. As a child and youth, I helped my father build our new house in the village of Vsekhsvyatskoye, Yaroslavl region, and today my brother is engaged in carpentry quite professionally: he created a small construction company in Vsekhsvyatskoye. Our great-grandfather once had such a company, only it was then called a carpenter's artel. I say this to the fact that traditions are very tenacious: in addition to genes, there are some other carriers of information that transmit information from generation to generation, even sometimes after 2-3 generations, as in the case of my brother.

As a child, I noticed that the roofs of houses in our village and neighboring villages are of two types: gable (horse) and three-slope. Gables come with a log (pediment) log or plank, three-slope - with or without a light room. In the pediment on the back of the house they always made two round holes with a diameter of 10-15 cm so that pigeons can enter the attic. In addition to the difference in the type of roofs, there were differences in construction: the houses were either small four-walled or large five-walled. The third important parameter by which the houses in my village differed was the number of storeys. Some five-walls were two-story. As my grandmother Anna told me in the early 50s, those who had two-story five-wall buildings were dispossessed and exiled to Siberia in the 30s of the last century, and their houses were confiscated and offices ("offices" in the present) were placed in them. The owners of one-story five-wall buildings were also dispossessed, but not all, but only the richer and, of course, hardworking and smart. Those who lived in four walls were not dispossessed. Fortunately, my grandfather and grandmother lived in a four-wall building that my grandfather built in the 1920s. In this four-walled building in 1947 I was born, my grandmother took delivery of my mother. There was simply no maternity hospital then in our area, even in the regional center.

But back to the types of houses and roofs. In my life I had a chance to travel all over Russia far and wide. Observing the types and styles of houses, I noticed that each type and style has its own geography, its own area of ​​distribution. This is also written about in the ethnographic literature: in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions, the houses are large, five-walled, tall with gable roofs, to the south there are smaller houses, and in the very south, adobe and adobe huts with four-slope roofs. But this information did not give any clear picture of the distribution of house types. But, while studying the history of the emergence of the Russian ethnos, I noticed that the types of houses in Russia carry information about those ethnic groups from which the Russian nation was formed. I strained my memory and remembered which houses and where I saw, turned to the Internet services and looked through hundreds of sites, looking for photos of old (traditional) rural houses, including the Google portal, which now has many photos attached to satellite images. I express my gratitude to all the authors of the photographs.

And here's what I found...

We can talk about the traditional Russian type of house, which, in all likelihood, is associated with the ethnic group of the Varangians of Russia. This type is common in the form wide band from the coast of the White Sea along the rivers Onega, Vaga, Northern Dvina, Sukhona, Sogozha, Kostroma, Volga from Uglich to Nizhny Novgorod. To the south, this type reaches the latitude of Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod.

The second, let's call it the Uro-Finnish type, is common in the Komi Republic (Vychegda river basin), partly in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions, and also in Karelia. In ethnographic literature, this type of houses is called Northern Russian.

The third I conditionally call the Slovenian type. These are houses with a gable roof, four-walled or five-walled, but if they are five-walled, then the cut (fifth wall) is located not along the house, but across, and the cut is not visible on the facade of the house. This type of houses is common in the Novgorod, Pskov and western parts of the Tver regions, as well as in the Smolensk region, in the south of Karelia and in a narrow strip a little south of Moscow.

The fourth type of houses, according to the nature of the roof, I call the Polovtsian or Kypchak type. These are most often adobe, adobe, and in the northern part, wooden four-walled houses with a four-pitched roof. In this type, two subtypes can be distinguished: 1 - a four-pitched roof without a ridge and 2 - a four-pitched roof with a ridge. Houses of the second subtype are larger in area, and probably richer people lived in them.

On the left on the map, I tried to highlight the zones with the distribution of houses different type. It turned out to be a very interesting scheme. On it we see that the central Russian type of rural house in Russia is a five-walled building with a three-slope roof, with a wooden cornice and with a light room in the attic. In the west, east and south of it there are zones with Finno-Ugric, Slovene and Polovtsian types. If we take into account that the zone with Polovtsian (Kypchak) types of houses was annexed to Russia only in the 16th-17th centuries, then the origin of the symbol of power in ancient Russian state in the form of a trident. Now this symbol of power ancient Russia borrowed by Ukraine.

Russian house in the north of the Arkhangelsk region. A typical three-slope roof with a light. This is a five-wall, but the cut was made not along, but across. The house is abandoned, the owners moved to the city

These examples, I think, are quite enough to prove that this type of houses really exists and that it is widespread in the traditionally Russian regions. It was somewhat unexpected for me that this type of house prevailed until recently on the coast of the White Sea. Even if we admit that I am wrong, and this style of houses came to the north from the central regions of Russia, and not vice versa, it turns out that the Slovenes from Lake Ilmen have nothing to do with the colonization of the White Sea coast. There are no houses of this type in the Novgorod region and along the Volkhov River. Strange, isn't it? And what kind of houses did Novgorod Slovenes build from time immemorial? Below I give examples of such houses.

A typical ancient estate of a poor Slovene. Four-wall house with gable roof, a small porch, a closed yard fenced off with a blank fence, a bathhouse and a cattle shed. Novgorod region

Borovichi, Novgorod region. Five-wall with a gable roof, sheathed with boards. Please note that the rafters on this house were not placed according to the Slovenian type (on the wall), but in Russian - on the logs of the upper crown specially extended in both directions, which is why the roof has become wider than the walls, it does not hang over the walls. Therefore, the house has a hemmed eaves of boards

A typical modern house in the Novgorod region. Double pitched roof, front and side windows

Slovenian style can be refined, with a canopy in front of the house, under which there are benches where you can relax and get some fresh air. But the roof is still gable, and the rafters are attached to the upper crown of the wall. On the side, they are not moved away from the wall and hang over it. Carpenters in my homeland contemptuously called this type of fastening of rafters "suitable only for sheds"

A typical Slovenian-type hut in the vicinity of Novgorod on Ilmen. And the architraves are rather poor compared to typical Russian-type huts ...

In my opinion, these examples of houses of the Slovenian type are enough. Those interested in this issue can find a lot of evidence for this hypothesis. The essence of the hypothesis is that real Slovenian houses (huts) differed from Russian huts in a number of ways. It is probably stupid to talk about which type is better, which is worse. The main thing is that they are different from each other. The rafters are set differently, there is no cut along the house at the five-walls, the houses, as a rule, are narrower - 3 or 4 windows along the front, the platbands and lining of the houses of the Slovenian type, as a rule, are not sawn (not openwork) and therefore do not look like lace . Of course, meet at home mixed type buildings somewhat similar to Russian-type houses in the setting of rafters and the presence of cornices. The most important thing is that both Russian and Slovenian types of houses have their own areas. Houses of the Russian type in the territory of the Novgorod region and the west of the Tver region are not found or are practically not found. I didn't find them there.

The Finno-Ugric type of houses is, as a rule, five-walled with a longitudinal cut and a significantly larger number of windows than houses of the Slovenian type. It has a log pediment, in the attic there is a room with log walls and a large window, which makes the house seem to be two-story. The rafters are attached directly to the wall, and the roof hangs over the walls, so this type of house does not have a cornice. Often houses of this type consist of two joined log cabins under one roof.

Probably enough examples of houses of the Finno-Ugric type. Of course, at present, the traditions of building houses are largely lost, and in modern villages and towns they build houses that differ from the ancient ones. traditional types. Everywhere in the vicinity of our cities today we see ridiculous cottage development, testifying to the complete loss of our national and ethnic traditions. As can be understood from these photographs, borrowed by me from many dozens of sites, our ancestors did not live cramped, in environmentally friendly spacious, beautiful and comfortable houses. They worked happily, with songs and jokes, they were friendly and not greedy, there are no blank fences near houses anywhere in the Russian North. If someone's house burned down in the village, then the whole world built a new house for him. I note once again that there were no Russian and Finno-Ugric houses near and today there are no deaf high fences, and this says a lot.

The house where Sergei Yesenin was born in the Ryazan region. The roof of the house is hipped, thatched, the rafters are fixed directly on the walls, and the roof hangs over them. The house has no cornice

I hope that these examples of houses built in the Polovtsian (Kypchak) style are quite enough to prove that such a style really exists and has a certain distribution area, including not only the south of Russia, but also a significant part of Ukraine. I think that each type of house is adapted to certain climatic conditions. There are many forests in the north, it is cold there, so the inhabitants build huge houses in the Russian or Finno-Ugric style, in which people live, livestock, and belongings are stored. There is enough forest for both walls and firewood. There is no forest in the steppe, there is little of it in the forest-steppe, so the inhabitants have to make adobe, small houses. Big house is not needed here. Livestock can be kept in a paddock in summer and winter, inventory can also be stored outdoors under a canopy. A person in the steppe zone spends more time outdoors than in a hut. That's how it is, but in the floodplain of the Don, and especially the Khopra, there is a forest from which it would be possible to build a hut and stronger and bigger, and make a roof for a horse, and arrange a light room in the attic. But no, the roof is made in the traditional style - four-pitched, so the eye is more familiar. Why? And such a roof is more resistant to winds, and winds in the steppe are much stronger. The roof will be easily blown away by a horse during the next snowstorm. Besides hipped roof it is more convenient to cover with straw, and straw in the south of Russia and Ukraine is a traditional and inexpensive roofing material. True, the poor also covered their houses with straw in central Russia, even in the north of the Yaroslavl region in my homeland. As a child, I still saw old thatched houses in All Saints. But those who were richer covered their houses with shingles or boards, and the richest - with roofing iron. I myself had a chance, under the guidance of my father, to cover our new house and the house of an old neighbor with shingles. Today, this technology is no longer used in the villages, everyone has switched to slate, ondulin, metal tiles and other new technologies.

By analyzing the traditional types of houses that were common in Russia quite recently, I was able to identify four main ethno-cultural roots from which the Great Russian ethnos grew. There were probably more daughter ethnic groups that merged into the ethnic group of Great Russians, since we see that the same type of houses was characteristic of two, and sometimes even three related ethnic groups living in similar natural conditions. Surely, in each type of traditional houses, subtypes can be distinguished and associated with specific ethnic groups. Houses in Karelia, for example, are somewhat different from houses in Komi. And the houses of the Russian type in the Yaroslavl region were built a little differently than the houses of the same type on the Northern Dvina. People have always strived to express their individuality, including in the arrangement and decoration of their homes. At all times there were those who tried to change or denigrate traditions. But exceptions only underline the rules - everyone knows this well.

I will consider that I wrote this article not in vain if in Russia they build fewer ridiculous cottages in any style, if someone wants to build their new house in one of the traditional styles: Russian, Slovenian, Finno-Ugric or Polovtsian. All of them have now become all-Russian, and we are obliged to preserve them. An ethno-cultural invariant is the basis of any ethnic group, perhaps more important than a language. If we destroy it, our ethnic group will degrade and disappear. I saw how our compatriots who emigrated to the USA cling to ethno-cultural traditions. For them, even the production of cutlets turns into a kind of ritual that helps them feel that they are Russians. Patriots are not only those who lie under the tanks with bundles of grenades, but also those who prefer the Russian style of houses, Russian felt boots, cabbage soup and borscht, kvass, etc.

In the book of a team of authors edited by I.V. Vlasov and V.A. Tishkov "Russians: history and ethnography", published in 1997 by the publishing house "Nauka", there is a very interesting chapter on rural residential and economic development in Russia in the 12th - 17th centuries. But the authors of the chapter L.N. Chizhikov and O.R. Rudin, for some reason, paid very little attention to Russian-type houses with a gable roof and a light room in the attic. They consider them in the same group as Slovenian-type houses with a gable roof hanging over the side walls.

However, it is impossible to explain how Russian-type houses appeared on the shores of the White Sea and why they are not in the vicinity of Novgorod on Ilmen, based on the traditional concept (stating that the Belomorie was controlled by Novgorodians from Ilmen). This is probably why historians and ethnographers do not pay attention to Russian-type houses - there are none in Novgorod. The book by M. Semenova "We are Slavs!", published in 2008 in St. Petersburg by the Azbuka-classika publishing house, contains good material on the evolution of the Slovenian-type house.

According to the concept of M. Semenova, the original dwelling of the Ilmen Slovenes was a semi-dugout, almost completely buried in the ground. Only a slightly gable roof rose above the surface, covered with poles, on which a thick layer of turf was laid. The walls of such a dugout were log. Inside there were benches, a table, a lounger for sleeping. Later, an adobe stove appeared in the semi-dugout, which was heated in a black way - the smoke went into the dugout and went out through the door. After the invention of the stove, it became warm in the dwelling even in winter, it was possible not to dig into the ground. The Slovenian house "began to crawl out" from the ground to the surface. A floor appeared from hewn logs or from blocks. In such a house it became cleaner and brighter. Earth did not fall from the walls and from the ceiling, it was not necessary to bend into three deaths, it was possible to make a higher door.

I think that the process of turning a semi-dugout into a house with a gable roof took many centuries. But even today, the Slovenian hut bears some features of the ancient semi-dugout, at least the shape of the roof has remained gable.

I suppose that the most ancient type of house, undoubtedly developed in the north, was the Russian type. Houses of this type are more complex in terms of roof structure: it is three-sloped, with a cornice, with a very stable position of the rafters, with a chimney-heated room. In such houses, the chimney in the attic made a bend about two meters long. This bend of the pipe is figuratively and accurately called "boar", on such a hog in our house in Vsekhsvyatsky, for example, cats warmed themselves in winter, and it was warm in the attic from it. In a Russian-type house, there is no connection with a semi-dugout. Most likely, such houses were invented by the Celts, who penetrated the White Sea at least 2 thousand years ago. It is possible that on the White Sea and in the basin of the Northern Dvina, Sukhona, Vaga, Onega and the upper Volga lived the descendants of those Aryans, some of whom went to India, Iran and Tibet. This question remains open, and this question is about who we Russians are - newcomers or real natives? When a connoisseur of the ancient language of India, Sanskrit, got into a Vologda hotel and listened to the dialect of women, he was very surprised that the Vologda women spoke some kind of spoiled Sanskrit - the Russian language turned out to be so similar to Sanskrit.

Houses of the Slovene type arose as a result of the transformation of the semi-dugout as the Ilmen Slovenes moved north. At the same time, the Slovenes adopted a lot (including some methods of building houses) from the Karelians and Vepsians, with whom they inevitably came into contact. But the Varangians Rus came from the north, pushed apart the Finno-Ugric tribes and created their own state: first North-Eastern Russia, and then Kievan Rus, moving the capital to warmer climes, while pushing the Khazars.

But those ancient states in the 8th - 13th centuries had no clear boundaries: those who paid tribute to the prince were considered to belong to this state. The princes and their squads fed by robbing the population. By our standards, they were ordinary racketeers. I think that the population often passed from one such racketeer-sovereign to another, and in some cases the population "fed" several such "sovereigns" at once. Constant skirmishes between princes and chieftains, constant robbery of the population in those days were the most common thing. The most progressive phenomenon in that era was the subjugation of all the petty princes and chieftains by one sovereign, the suppression of their freedom and the imposition of a hard tax on the population. Such a salvation for the Russians, Finno-Ugric peoples, Krivichi and Slovenes was their inclusion in the Golden Horde. Unfortunately, our official history is based on chronicles and written documents compiled by the princes or under their direct supervision. And for them - the princes - to obey the supreme authority of the Golden Horde king was "worse than a bitter radish." So they called this time a yoke.

Both the house and the chapel are all made of wood.

Russia has long been considered a country of wood: there were plenty of vast, mighty forests around. Rusichi, as historians note, lived for centuries in the "wooden age". Frames and residential buildings, baths and barns, bridges and fences, gates and wells were built from wood. And the most common name of the Russian settlement - the village - said that the houses and buildings here were made of wood. Almost universal availability, simplicity and ease of processing, relative cheapness, strength, good thermal properties, as well as the rich artistic and expressive possibilities of wood brought this natural material to the forefront in the construction of residential buildings. Far from the last role was played here by the fact that wooden buildings could be erected in quite short time. High-speed wood construction in Russia was generally highly developed, which indicates a high level of organization of carpentry. It is known, for example, that even churches, the largest buildings in Russian villages, were sometimes erected "in one day", which is why they were called ordinary.

In addition, log houses could be easily dismantled, transported over a considerable distance and put back in a new place. In the cities there were even special markets where prefabricated log cabins and entire wooden houses with all interior decoration were sold "for export". In winter, such houses were shipped straight "from the sleigh" disassembled, and it took no more than two days to assemble and caulk. By the way, all the necessary building elements and details of log houses were sold right there, on the market here you could buy pine logs for a residential log house (the so-called "mansion logs"), and beams hewn into four edges, and solid roofing boards, and various boards"dining rooms", "shops", for sheathing the "inside" of the hut, as well as "beams", piles, door decks. There were also household items on the market, with which the interior of a peasant hut was usually saturated: simple rustic furniture, tubs, boxes, small "wood chips" up to the smallest wooden spoon.

However, with all the positive qualities of wood, one of its very serious drawbacks - susceptibility to decay - made wooden structures relatively short-lived. Together with fires, a real scourge of wooden buildings, it significantly reduced the life of a log house - a rare hut stood for more than a hundred years. That is why coniferous species pine and spruce have found the greatest use in housing construction, the resinousness and density of wood of which provided the necessary resistance to decay. At the same time, in the North, larch was also used to build a house, and in a number of regions of Siberia, a log house was assembled from durable and dense larch, while all the interior decoration was made from Siberian cedar.

And yet, the most common material for housing construction was pine, in particular, upland pine or, as it was also called, "kondovaya". The log from it is heavy, straight, almost without knots and, according to the assurances of master carpenters, "does not hold damp." In one of the orderly records for the construction of housing, concluded in the old days between the owner-customer and the carpenters (and the word "orderly" comes from the Old Russian "row" agreement), it was quite clearly emphasized: "... carve a forest of pine, kind, vigorous , smooth, not knotty ... "

Timber was usually harvested in winter or early spring, while "the tree is sleeping and excess water has gone into the ground", while it is still possible to take out the logs by sledge. Interestingly, even now experts recommend logging for log houses in winter, when the wood is less susceptible to shrinkage, decay and warping. The material for the construction of housing was prepared either by the future owners themselves, or by hired master carpenters in accordance with the necessary need "as much as needed", as noted in one of the orders. In the case of "self-procurement" this was done with the involvement of relatives and neighbors. Such a custom, which has existed since ancient times in Russian villages, was called "help" ("cleaning"). The whole village usually gathered for the cleaning. This was reflected in the proverb: "Whoever called for help, he himself go."

They selected the trees very carefully, in a row, indiscriminately, they did not cut down, they took care of the forest. There was even such a sign: if you did not like three forests from the arrival in the forest, do not cut at all that day. There were also specific bans on logging associated with folk beliefs. For example, it was considered a sin to cut down trees in "sacred" groves, usually associated with a church or a cemetery; it was impossible to cut down old trees - they had to die their own, natural death. In addition, trees grown by man were not suitable for construction, it was impossible to use a tree that fell during felling "at midnight", that is, to the north, or hung in the crowns of other trees - it was believed that serious troubles and illnesses awaited residents in such a house and even death.

Logs for the construction of a log house were usually selected with a thickness of about eight inches in diameter (35 cm), and for the lower crowns of a log house - even thicker ones, up to ten inches (44 cm). Often the contract stated: "but do not put less than seven inches." We note in passing that today the recommended diameter of a log for a chopped wall is 22 cm. The logs were taken to the village and stacked in "bonfires", where they lay until spring, after which the trunks were sanded, that is, removed, scraped off the thawed bark with a plow or a long scraper, which was an arcuate blade with two handles.

Tools of Russian carpenters:

1 - wood ax,
2 - potyos,
3 - carpenter's ax.

When processing construction timber, they used different kinds axes. So, when felling trees, a special wood-cutting ax with a narrow blade was used, for further work, a carpenter's ax with a wide oval blade and the so-called "potes". In general, possession of an ax was mandatory for every peasant. "The ax is the head of the whole thing," they said among the people. Without an ax, wonderful monuments of folk architecture would not have been created: wooden churches, bell towers, mills, huts. Without this simple and versatile tool, many tools of peasant labor, details of rural life, and familiar household items would not have appeared. The ability to carpentry (that is, to "rally" logs in a building) from a ubiquitous and necessary craft in Russia turned into a true art - carpentry.

In the Russian chronicles we find not quite usual combinations - "cut down the church", "cut down the mansions". Yes, and carpenters were often called "cutters". And the point here is that in the old days they did not build houses, but "chopped", doing without saws and nails. Although the saw has been known in Russia since ancient times, it was usually not used in the construction of a house - sawn logs and boards absorb moisture much more quickly and easily than chopped and hewn ones. The master builders did not sawn, but chopped off the ends of the logs with an ax, because the sawn logs are “pulled by the wind” - they crack, which means they break down faster. In addition, when processing with an ax, the log from the ends seems to be "clogged" and rots less. The boards were made by hand from logs - at the end of the log and along its entire length, notches were marked, wedges were driven into them and split into two halves, from which wide boards were hewn - "tesnitsa". For this, a special ax with a wide blade and a one-sided cut was used - "potes". In general, the carpentry tools were quite extensive - here, along with axes and staples, there were special "adzes" for choosing grooves, chisels and clearings for punching holes in logs and beams, "features" for drawing parallel lines.

When hiring carpenters to build a house, the owners specified in detail the most important requirements for future construction, which was scrupulously noted in the contract. First of all, the necessary qualities of the scaffolding, its diameter, processing methods, as well as the timing of the start of construction were recorded here. Then a detailed description of the house to be built was given, the space-planning structure of the dwelling was highlighted, and the dimensions of the main premises were regulated. “Put me a new hut,” it is written in an old order, four fathoms without an elbow and with corners, that is, about six and a quarter meters, chopped “in the oblo”, with the rest. Since no drawings were made during the construction of the house, in the construction contracts the vertical dimensions of the dwelling and its individual parts were determined by the number of logs-crowns laid in the log house - "and twenty-three rows up to the chickens." The horizontal dimensions were regulated by the most commonly used long log - usually it was about three fathoms "between the corners" - about six and a half meters. Often in order, information was even given about individual architectural and structural elements and details: "to make doors on the jambs and windows on the jambs, as much as the owner orders to do." Sometimes samples, analogues, examples from the immediate environment were directly named, focusing on which the masters had to do their work: ".. and make those upper rooms and the hallway, and the porch, like Ivan Olferyev's small upper rooms were made at the gate." The entire document often ended with a recommendation of a disciplinary order, instructing the craftsmen not to quit work until it was completely completed, not to postpone or delay the construction that had begun: "And do not leave until the completion of that good work."

The beginning of the construction of a dwelling in Russia was associated with certain terms regulated by special rules. It was considered best to start building a house during Great Lent ( in early spring) and so that the construction process includes the Trinity holiday in time, let's remember the proverb: "Without the Trinity, the house is not built." It was impossible to start construction on the so-called "hard days" - on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and also on Sunday. Favorable for the start of construction was considered the time, "when the month is filled" after the new moon.

The construction of the house was preceded by special and rather solemnly formalized rituals, in which the most important, most essential for the peasant earthly and heavenly phenomena were reflected, the forces of nature acted in a symbolic form in them, various "local" deities were present. According to an old custom, when laying a house, money was put in the corners "to live richly," and inside the log house, in its middle or in the "red" corner, they put a freshly cut tree (birch, mountain ash or Christmas tree) and often hung an icon on it. This tree personified the "world tree", known to almost all peoples and ritually marking the "center of the world", symbolizing the idea of ​​growth, development, connection of the past (roots), present (trunk) and future (crown). It remained in the log house until the completion of construction. Another interesting custom is connected with the designation of the corners of the future dwelling: in the supposed four corners of the hut, the owner poured four heaps of grain in the evening, and if the next morning the grain turned out to be untouched, the place chosen for building the house was considered good. If someone disturbed the grain, then they were usually wary of building on such a "doubtful" place.

Throughout the construction of the house, another custom, very ruinous for future owners, was strictly observed, which, unfortunately, has not gone into the past and today is quite frequent and plentiful "treat" of master carpenters building a house in order to "appease" them. The construction process was repeatedly interrupted by "hand", "stowing", "mat", "rafter" and other feasts. Otherwise, the carpenters could be offended and do something wrong, or even just "play a joke" - lay out the log house in such a way that "it will buzz in the walls."

The structural basis of the log house was a four-sided log cabin, which consisted of logs - "crowns" horizontally stacked on top of each other. An important feature This design is that during its natural shrinkage and subsequent precipitation, the gaps between the crowns disappeared, the wall became more dense and monolithic. To ensure the horizontality of the log crowns, the logs were stacked in such a way that the butt ends alternated with the top ends, that is, thicker ones with thinner ones. In order for the crowns to fit well to each other, a longitudinal groove was selected in each of the adjacent logs. In the old days, the groove was made in the lower log, on its upper side, but since with this solution water got into the recess and the log quickly rotted, they began to make a groove on the lower side of the log. This technique has been preserved to this day.

a - "in oblo" with cups in the lower logs
b - "in oblo" with cups in the upper logs

In the corners, the log house was connected with special cuts with original log "locks". Experts say that the types and options for cuts in Russian wooden architecture there were several dozen. The most commonly used fellings were "in oblo" and "in the paw". When cutting "into the oblo" (that is, rounded) or "into a simple corner", the logs were connected in such a way that their ends protruded outward, outside the frame, forming the so-called "remainder", which is why this technique was also called cutting with the remainder. The protruding ends well protected the corners of the hut from freezing. This method, one of the most ancient, was also called cutting "into a bowl", or "into a cup", since special recesses of the "cup" were chosen to fasten the logs in them. In the old days, cups, as well as longitudinal grooves in logs, were cut down in the underlying log - this is the so-called "cutting into the lining", but later they began to use a more rational method with cutting in the upper log "in the overlay", or "in the hood", which is not allowed moisture to linger in the "castle" of the log house. Each cup was fitted exactly to the shape of the log it came into contact with. This was necessary to ensure the tightness of the most important and most vulnerable to water and cold nodes of the log house - its corners.

Another common method of cutting "in the paw", without a trace, made it possible to increase horizontal dimensions a log house, and with them the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe hut, in comparison with the cabin "in the oblo", since here the "lock" fastening the crowns was made at the very end of the log. However, it was more complicated in execution, it required highly qualified carpenters, and therefore it was more expensive than traditional felling with the release of the ends of the "corner" logs. For this reason, and also due to the fact that cutting "in the field" took less time, the vast majority of peasant houses in Russia were cut in this way.

The lower, "collar" crown was often placed directly on the ground. In order for this initial crown - "lower" - to be less prone to decay, and also in order to create a solid and reliable foundation for the house, thicker and more resinous logs were selected for it. For example, in Siberia, larch was used for the lower rims - a very dense and fairly durable wood material.

Often, large boulder stones were placed under the corners and middles of the embedded crowns, or scraps of thick logs - “chairs” were dug into the ground, which were treated with resin or burned to protect against decay. Sometimes for this purpose thick chopping blocks or "paws" were used - uprooted stumps placed down by the roots. During the construction of a residential hut, they tried to lay "overhead" logs so that lower crown tightly adjoined the ground, often "for warmth" it was even lightly sprinkled with earth. After the completion of the "hut salary" - laying the first crown, they began to assemble the house "on the moss", in which the grooves of the log house for greater tightness were laid with a "mokryshnik" torn in the lowlands and dried with swamp moss - this was called "suede" log house. It happened that for greater strength, the moss was "twisted" with tows - combed out fibers of flax and hemp. But since, when drying, the moss nevertheless crumbled, at a later time they began to use tow for this purpose. And now, experts recommend caulking the seams between the logs of a log house with tow for the first time during the construction process and then again, in a year and a half, when the final shrinkage of the log house occurs.

Under the residential part of the house, either a low underground was arranged, or the so-called "basement" or "podyzbitsa" - the basement, which differed from the underground in that it was quite high, did not go deep, as a rule, into the ground and had a direct exit to the outside through a low door. Putting the hut on the basement, the owner protected it from the cold coming from the ground, protected the residential part and the entrance to the house from snow drifts in winter and spring floods, created additional utility and utility rooms right under the house. A pantry was usually arranged in the basement, often it served as a cellar. Other utility rooms were also equipped in the basement, for example, in areas where handicrafts were developed, a small workshop could be located in the basement. They also kept small livestock or poultry in the basement. Sometimes the podyzbitsa was also used for housing. There were even two-story, or "double-lived" huts for two "living". But still, in the vast majority of cases, the basement was a non-residential, utility floor, and they lived in a dry and warm "top", raised above the cold, damp earth. The most widespread such method of setting the residential part of the house on a high basement was in northern regions, where very harsh climatic conditions required additional insulation living quarters and reliable and isolation from frozen ground, in the middle lane, a low and convenient underground for storing food was more often arranged.

Having completed the equipment of the basement or underground, work began on the installation of the floor of the hut. To do this, first of all, "crossbeams" were cut into the walls of the house - rather powerful beams on which the floor rested. As a rule, they were made four or less often three, parallel to the main facade of the hut, two near the walls and two or one in the middle. To keep the floor warm and not blown, it was made double. The so-called "black" floor was laid directly on the beams, collecting it from a thick slab with humps up, or log rolling, and covered "for warmth" with a layer of earth. From above, a clean floor was laid from wide boards.

Moreover, such a double, insulated floor was made, as a rule, over a cold basement-basement, a sub-basement, and a regular, single floor was arranged above the underground, which contributed to the penetration of heat from the living quarters into the underground, where vegetables and various products were stored. The boards of the upper, "clean" floor were tightly fitted to each other.

Male Roof Construction:

1 - chill (with a helmet)
2 - towel (anemone)
3 - prichelina
4 - ochelie
5 - red window
6 - drag window
7 - flow
8 - chicken
9 - slightly
10 - tes

Usually the floorboards were laid along the window entrance line, from front door into the dwelling to the main facade of the hut, explaining that with this arrangement, the floor boards are less destroyed, less chipped at the edges and last longer than with a different layout. In addition, according to the peasants, such a floor is more convenient for revenge.

The number of interfloor ceilings - "bridges" in the house being built was determined even in order: "... yes, in the same upper rooms, lay three bridges inside." The laying of the walls of the hut was completed by installation at the height where they were going to make the ceiling of the "skull" or "underpressure" crown, in which they cut ceiling beam- "mother". Her location was also often noted in regular records: "and put that hut on the seventeenth matitsa."

The strength and reliability of the foundation matrix - the foundation of the ceiling - was given very great importance. The people even said: "A thin uterus to everything - a house of confusion." The installation of the mother was very important point in the process of building a house, it ended with the assembly of a log house, after which the construction entered the final phase. Laying the floor and installing the roof. That is why the laying of the mother was accompanied by special rituals and the next "mat" treat for carpenters. Often, the carpenters themselves reminded the "forgetful" owners of this: when setting up the mother, they shouted: "The uterus is cracking, it does not go," and the owners were given to arrange a feast. Sometimes, raising the mother, a pie baked for the occasion was tied to it.

The matitsa was a powerful tetrahedral beam, on which "ceilings" of thick boards or "humpbacks" were laid, placed flat down. In order to prevent the matrix from bending under its weight, its lower side was often cut off along a curve. It is curious that this technique is still used today in the construction of log houses - this is called "carve out a building rise". Having finished laying the ceiling - "ceilings", they tied the frame under the roof, laying "cold" or "cool" logs on top of the cranial crown, with which the ceilings were fixed.

In the Russian folk dwelling, functional, practical and artistic issues were closely interconnected, one complemented and followed from the other. The fusion of "utility" and "beauty" in the house, the inseparability of constructive and architectural and artistic solutions manifested themselves with particular force in the organization of the completion of the hut. By the way, it was at the end of the house that folk craftsmen saw the main and main beauty of the entire building. Construction and decoration the roofs of a peasant house still amaze with the unity of practical and aesthetic aspects.

Surprisingly simple, logical and artistically expressive is the design of the so-called nail-free male roof - one of the oldest, most widely used in the northern regions of Russia. It was supported by the log pediments of the end walls of the house - "recesses". After the upper, "thick" crown of the log house, the logs of the main and rear facades of the hut gradually shortened, rising to the very top of the ridge. These logs were called "males" because they stood "on their own". Long log slabs were cut into the triangles of the opposite gables of the house, which were the base of the roof "lattice". The tops of the gables were connected by the main, "princely" slab, which was the completion of the entire gable roof structure.

Natural hooks - "hens" - uprooted and hewn trunks of young spruce trees were attached to the lower slabs. They were called "hens" because the craftsmen gave their bent ends the shape of bird heads. The chickens supported special gutters for draining water "streams", or "water outlets" - logs hollowed out along the entire length. They rested against the clefts of the roof, which were laid on the slabs-purlins. Usually the roof was double, with a lining of birch bark - "rocks", which well protected against moisture penetration.

In the ridge of the roof, on the upper ends of the roofing notches, they “slammed down” with a “shell” - a massive trough-shaped log, the end of which went out onto the main facade, crowning the entire building. This heavy log, also called "okhlupny" (from the ancient name of the roof "okhlup"), pinched the gaps, keeping them from being blown away by the wind. The front, butt end of the okhlupny was usually designed in the form of a horse's head (hence the "horse") or, less often, a bird. In the most northern regions, the helmet was sometimes given the shape of a deer's head, often placing genuine deer antlers on it. Thanks to their developed plasticity, these sculptural images were well "read" against the sky and were visible from afar.

To maintain a wide roof overhang from the side of the main facade of the hut, an interesting and ingenious design technique was used - a consistent lengthening of the ends of the logs of the upper crowns extending beyond the frame. In this case, powerful brackets were obtained, on which the front part of the roof rested. Protruding far ahead of the log wall of the house, such a roof reliably protected the crowns of the log house from rain and snow. The brackets that supported the roof were called "releases", "helps" or "falls". Usually, a porch was arranged on the same outlet brackets, bypass galleries - "amusements" were laid, balconies were equipped. Powerful log outlets, decorated with laconic carvings, enriched the austere appearance of the peasant house, giving it even greater monumentality.

In the new, later type of Russian peasant dwelling, which became widespread mainly in the regions of the middle zone, the roof already had a covering on the rafters, while the log pediment with males was replaced by a plank filling. With such a solution, a sharp transition from the plastically saturated rough-textured surface of a log cabin to a flat and smooth plank pediment, being tectonically quite justified, nevertheless did not look compositionally inexpressive, and master carpenters planted to cover it with a rather wide frontal board, richly decorated with carved ornaments. Subsequently, a frieze developed from this board, which went around the entire building. It should be noted, however, that even in this type of peasant house, for a long time, some of the earlier structures were also preserved with brackets-outlets, decorated with simple carvings, and carved porches with "towels". This determined mainly the repetition of the traditional pattern of distribution of carved decorative decoration on the main facade of the dwelling.

Erecting a log house, creating a traditional hut, Russian master carpenters for centuries discovered, mastered and improved specific woodworking techniques, gradually developed strong, reliable and artistically expressive architectural and structural units, original and unique details. However, they made full use of positive traits wood, skillfully identifying and revealing its unique features in their buildings, emphasizing its natural origin in every possible way. This further contributed to the consistent entry of buildings into the natural environment, the harmonious merging of man-made structures with pristine, untouched nature.

The main elements of the Russian hut are surprisingly simple and organic, their form is logical and beautifully “drawn”, they accurately and fully express the “work” wooden log, log house, roofs of the house. Benefit and beauty merge here into a single and indivisible whole. The expediency, the practical necessity of any made, is clearly expressed in their strict plasticity, laconic decor, in general structural completeness of the entire building.

Ingenuously and truthfully, the general constructive solution of a peasant house is a powerful and reliable log wall; large, solid cuts in the corners; small, decorated with platbands and shutters, windows; a wide roof with an intricate ridge and carved piers, and also a porch and a balcony, it would seem, that's all. But how much hidden tension is in this simple construction, how much strength is in the tight joints of the logs, how tightly they "hold" each other! For centuries, this orderly simplicity has been isolated, crystallized, this only possible structure, reliable and captivating with its skeptical purity of line and forms, harmonious and close to the surrounding nature.

Calm confidence emanates from simple Russian huts, they have firmly and thoroughly settled in their native land. When looking at the buildings of old Russian villages, darkened from time to time, the feeling does not leave the feeling that they, once created by man and for man, live at the same time some kind of their own, separate life, closely connected with the life of the nature surrounding them - they are so akin to that place where they were born. The living warmth of their walls, the laconic silhouette, the strict monumentality of proportional relations, some kind of "unartificiality" of their whole appearance make these buildings an integral and organic part of the surrounding forests and fields, of everything that we call Russia.

The secrets of the Russian hut and its mysteries, little wisdom and traditions, the basic rules in the construction of the Russian hut, signs, facts and the history of the "hut on chicken legs" - everything is very brief.

It is a generally accepted fact that the most environmentally friendly and suitable for human habitation houses can only be built from wood. Wood is the most ancient building material, presented to us by the most perfect laboratory on Earth - Nature.

In the premises of a wooden structure, the humidity of the air is always optimal for human life. The unique structure of the wood massif, consisting of capillaries, absorbs excess moisture from the air, and in case of excessive dryness, it releases it into the room.

Log cabins have natural energy, create a special microclimate in the hut, and provide natural ventilation. From wooden walls breathes homeliness and peace, they protect in summer from heat, and in winter from frost. Wood retains heat very well. Even in the bitter cold, the walls of a wooden log house are warm inside.

Anyone who has ever been in a real Russian hut will never forget her bewitching benevolent spirit: subtle notes of wood resin, the aroma of freshly baked bread from a Russian oven, the spice of medicinal herbs. Due to its properties, wood neutralizes heavy odors by ozonizing the air.

And it is not without reason that interest in wooden construction reappears and grows with incredible speed, gaining more and more popularity.

So, little wisdom, secrets and secrets of the Russian hut!

The name of the Russian house "hut" comes from the old Russian "istba", which means "house, bath" or "source" from "The Tale of Bygone Years ...". The Old Russian name of a wooden dwelling is rooted in the Proto-Slavic "jüstba" and is considered borrowed from the German "stuba". In ancient German, "stuba" meant "a warm room, a bathhouse."

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

The main tool in the construction of all Russian wooden structures was an ax. From here they say not to build, but to cut down a house. The saw began to be used at the end of the 18th century, and in some places from the middle of the 19th century.

Initially (until the 10th century), the hut was a log building, partially (up to a third) going into the ground. That is, a recess was dug out and over it was completed in 3-4 rows of thick logs. Thus, the hut itself was a semi-dugout.

There was no door originally, it was replaced by a small inlet, about 0.9 meters by 1 meter, covered by a pair of log halves tied together and a canopy.

The main requirement for building material it was customary - the log house was cut either from pine, spruce or larch. The trunk of coniferous trees was tall, slender, well axed and at the same time was durable, the walls of pine, spruce or larch retained heat well in the house in winter and did not heat up in summer, in the heat, keeping a pleasant coolness. At the same time, the choice of a tree in the forest was regulated by several rules. For example, it was forbidden to cut down diseased, old and withered trees, which were considered dead and could, according to legend, bring illness to the house. It was forbidden to cut down the trees that grew on the road and along the roads. Such trees were considered "violent" and in a log house such logs, according to legend, can fall out of the walls and crush the owners of the house.

The construction of the house was accompanied by a number of customs. During the laying of the first crown of the log house (mortgage), a coin or a paper bill was placed under each corner, another piece of wool from a sheep or a small skein of woolen yarn was placed in the third, grain was poured into the third, and incense was placed under the fourth. Thus, at the very beginning of the construction of the hut, our ancestors performed such rituals for the future dwelling, which marked its wealth, family warmth, well-fed life and holiness in later life.

In the setting of the hut there is not a single superfluous random object, each thing has its own strictly defined purpose and a place illuminated by tradition, which is feature people's dwelling.

The doors in the hut were made as low as possible, and the windows were placed higher. So less heat left the hut.

The Russian hut was either a “four-wall” (simple cage) or a “five-wall” (a cage partitioned off inside by a wall - “overcut”). During the construction of the hut, utility rooms were attached to the main volume of the cage (“porch”, “canopy”, “yard”, “bridge” between the hut and the yard, etc.). In the Russian lands, not spoiled by heat, they tried to bring the whole complex of buildings together, to press them against each other.

There were three types of organization of the complex of buildings that made up the courtyard. Single big two-storey house for several related families under one roof was called "purse". If the utility rooms were attached to the side and the whole house took on the form of the letter “G”, then it was called the “verb”. If the outbuildings were adjusted from the end of the main frame and the whole complex was pulled into a line, then they said that this was a “beam”.

The porch of the hut was usually followed by "canopy" (canopy - shade, shaded place). They were arranged so that the door did not open directly onto the street, and it was warm in winter time did not come out of the hut. The front part of the building, together with the porch and the hallway, was called in ancient times the "sprout".

If the hut was two-story, then the second floor was called the "tale" in the outbuildings and the "room" in the living quarters. The rooms above the second floor, where the girl's room was usually located, were called "terem".

The house was rarely built by each for himself. Usually the whole world was invited to the construction (“obschestvo”). The forest was harvested in winter, while there was no sap flow in the trees, and they began to build in early spring. After the laying of the first crown of the log house, the first treat was arranged for the “helpers” (“salary treat”). Such treats are an echo of ancient ritual feasts, which often took place with sacrifices.

After the "salary treats" they began to arrange a log house. At the beginning of summer, after laying the ceiling mats, a new ritual treat for the helpers followed. Then proceeded to the device of the roof. Having reached the top, laying the skate, they arranged a new, “skate” treat. And after the completion of construction at the very beginning of autumn - a feast.

Demyanov's ear. Artist Andrey Popov

The cat should be the first to enter the new home. In the North of Russia, the cult of the cat is still preserved. In most northern houses, in the thick doors in the hallway, there is a hole for the cat at the bottom.

In the depths of the hut there was a hearth made of stones. There was no smoke outlet; in order to save heat, the smoke was kept in the room, and the excess went out through the inlet. Chicken huts probably contributed to the short life expectancy in the old days (about 30 years for men): the products of burning wood are cancer-causing substances.

The floors in the huts were earthen. Only with the spread of saws and sawmills in Russia in cities and in the houses of landowners did wooden floors begin to appear. Initially, the floors were laid out from boards made of logs split in half, or from massive thick floorboards. However, flooring from boards began to spread massively only in the 18th century, since sawmilling was not developed. It was only through the efforts of Peter I that saws and sawmills began to spread in Russia with the publication of the Peter the Great decree “On accustoming woodcutters to sawing firewood” in 1748. Until the twentieth century, the floors in the peasant's hut were earthen, that is, the leveled earth was simply trampled down. Sometimes upper layer smeared with clay mixed with manure, which prevented the formation of cracks.

Logs for Russian huts were prepared from November-December, cutting tree trunks in a circle and letting them dry on the vine (upright) over the winter. Trees were cut down and logs were taken out even in the snow before the spring thaw. When cutting the cage of the hut, the logs were laid with the northern, denser side outward, so that the wood cracked less and better tolerated the effects of the atmosphere. Coins, wool and incense were placed in the corners of the house along the building in order for its inhabitants to live healthy in abundance and warmth.

Until the 9th century, there were no windows at all in Russian huts.

Until the 20th century, windows in Russian huts did not open. They ventilated the hut through the door and the chimney (a wooden ventilation pipe on the roof). The shutters protected the huts from bad weather and dashing people. A shuttered window during the day could serve as a "mirror".

In the old days, shutters were single-leaf. There were no double frames in the old days either. In winter, for warmth, the windows were closed from the outside with straw mats or simply covered with heaps of straw.

Numerous patterns of the Russian hut served (and serve) not so much as decoration, but as protection of the house from evil forces. The symbolism of sacred images came from pagan times: solar circles, thunder signs (arrows), fertility signs (a field with dots), horse heads, horseshoes, abysses of heaven (various wavy lines), weaves and knots.

The hut was installed directly on the ground or on poles. Oak logs, large stones or stumps were brought under the corners, on which the log house stood. In summer, the wind blew under the hut, drying the boards of the so-called “black” floor from below. By winter, the house was sprinkled with earth or a mound was made of turf. In the spring, a blockage or embankment was dug up in some places to create ventilation.

The "red" corner in the Russian hut was arranged in the far corner of the hut, on the east side diagonally from the stove. The icons were placed in the deity in the "red" or "holy" corner of the room in such a way that the person entering the house could immediately see them. It was considered an important element in protecting the house from "evil forces". Icons had to stand, not hang, as they were revered as “alive”.

The emergence of the image of the "Hut on chicken legs" is historically associated with wooden log cabins, which in ancient Russia were placed on stumps with chopped roots to protect the tree from decay. In the dictionary of V. I. Dahl it is said that “kur” is the rafters on peasant huts. In swampy places, the huts were built precisely on such rafters. In Moscow, one of the old wooden churches was called "Nikola on chicken legs", because it stood on stumps due to the swampiness of the area.

A hut on chicken legs - in fact, they are CHICKEN, from the word chicken hut. Kurny huts were called huts that were heated "in black", that is, they did not have chimney. A stove without a chimney was used, called a “chicken stove” or “black stove”. The smoke came out through the doors and during the burning hung under the ceiling in a thick layer, which is why the upper parts of the logs in the hut were covered with soot.

In ancient times, there was a funeral rite, which included smoking the legs of a “hut” without windows and doors, in which a corpse was placed.

The hut on chicken legs in folk fantasy was modeled on the image of a Slavic graveyard, a small house of the dead. The house was placed on pillars. In fairy tales, they are presented as chicken legs is also not accidental. The chicken is a sacred animal, an indispensable attribute of many magical rites. In the house of the dead, the Slavs put the ashes of the deceased. The coffin itself, a domina or graveyard-cemetery of such houses was presented as a window, a hole into the world of the dead, a means of passage to the underworld. That's why our fairy tale hero constantly comes to the hut on chicken legs - to get into a different dimension of time and the reality of no longer living people, but wizards. There is no other way to get there.

Chicken legs are just a "translation error".

“Chicken (chicken) legs” the Slavs called stumps, on which the hut was placed, that is, Baba Yaga’s house initially stood only on smoked stumps. From the point of view of supporters of the Slavic (classical) origin of Baba Yaga, an important aspect of this image is that she belongs to two worlds at once - the world of the dead and the world of the living.

Chicken huts existed in Russian villages until the 19th century, they even met at the beginning of the 20th century.

Only in the 18th century and only in St. Petersburg did Tsar Peter I forbid building houses with black-fired heating. In other settlements, they continued to be built until the 19th century.

The main tool of labor in Russia for the ancient architect was an ax. Saws became known around the end of the 10th century and were used only in carpentry when internal works. The fact is that the saw breaks the wood fibers during operation, leaving them open to water. The ax, crushing the fibers, seals the ends of the logs, as it were. Not without reason, they still say: "cut down the hut." And, well known to us now, they tried not to use nails. After all, around the nail, the tree begins to rot faster. In extreme cases, wooden crutches were used, which are called “dowels” by modern carpenters.

Foundation and fastening of a wooden structure

Both in ancient Russia and in modern Russia The basis of a wooden house or bath has always been and is a log house. Log cabin - these are logs fastened ("tied") together into a quadrangle. Each row of logs in a log house, fastened together, was called (and is called) a “crown”. The first row of logs, which lies on the foundation, is called the "uterine crown". The uterine crown was often placed on stone ramparts - a kind of foundation, which was called "ryazh", such a foundation did not allow the house to come into contact with the ground, i.e. the log house lasted longer, did not rot.

Log cabins differed from each other by the type of fastening. For outbuildings, a log house "in cut" (rarely laid) was used. The logs here were not stacked tightly, but in pairs on top of each other, and often they were not fastened at all.

When fastening the logs "in the paw", their ends did not go beyond the wall to the outside, the corners of the log house were even. This method of cutting corners has been preserved by carpenters to this day. But it is usually used if the house will be sheathed with something from the outside (lining, siding, blockhouse, etc.) and the corners are additionally insulated tightly, because this method of cutting corners has a small drawback - they retain heat less than corners " into the bowl."

Corners "in the bowl" (in a modern way) or "in the oblo" in the old fashioned way, were considered the warmest and most reliable. With this method of fastening the walls, the logs went beyond the wall, had a cruciform shape, if you look at the log house from above. The strange name "oblo" comes from the word "oblon" ("oblon"), meaning the outer layers of a tree (cf. "envelop, envelop, shell"). As early as the beginning of the 20th century. they said: "cut the hut into sapwood", if they wanted to emphasize that inside the hut the logs of the walls are not cramped. However, more often outside the logs remained round, while inside the hut they were hewn to a plane - "scraped into a las" (a smooth strip was called a las). Now the term "oblo" refers more to the ends of the logs protruding from the wall, which remain round, with a bummer.

The rows of logs themselves (crowns) were connected to each other with the help of internal spikes. Moss was laid between the crowns in the frame, and after the final assembly of the frame, the cracks were caulked with linen tow. Attics were often covered with the same moss to keep warm in winter. About red moss - interventional insulation, I will write later, in another article.

In terms of plan, log cabins were made in the form of a quadrangle ("four"), or in the form of an octagon ("octagon"). Of the several adjacent quarters, mainly huts were made up, and the octagon was used for the construction of wooden churches (after all, the octagon allows you to increase the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe room by almost six times without changing the length of the logs). Often, putting fours and eights on top of each other, the ancient Russian architect folded the pyramidal structure of the church or rich mansions.

simple indoor rectangular wooden frame without any extensions was called a "cage". "Cage with a cage, tell a story", - they said in the old days, trying to emphasize the reliability of a log house in comparison with an open canopy - a story. Usually a log house was placed on the "basement" - the lower auxiliary floor, which was used to store 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 "fall down", was often used in Russia. So, for example, the upper cold common bedrooms in the house or mansions, where the whole family went to sleep (fall down) from a heated hut in the summer, were called "tumblers".

The doors in the cage were made lower, and the windows were placed higher, keeping more heat in the hut. Both the house and the temple were built in the same way - both that and the other - the house (of man and god). Therefore, the simplest and most ancient form of a wooden temple, as well as at home, was "kletskaya". This is how churches and chapels were built. These are two or three log cabins connected to each other from west to east. The church was supposed to have three log cabins (a refectory, a temple and an altar prirub), in a chapel - two (a refectory and a temple). A modest cupola was placed over a simple gable roof.

Many small chapels were set up in remote villages, at crossroads, over large stone crosses, over springs. A priest is not supposed to be in the chapel; they did not make an altar here. And the services were sent by the peasants themselves, they themselves baptized and buried. Such unpretentious services, which were held, as in the case of the first Christians, with the singing of short prayers at the first, third, sixth and ninth hours after sunrise, were called "hours" in Russia. Hence the building itself got its name. Such chapels were looked down upon by both the state and the church. Therefore, the builders here could give free rein to their imagination. That is why today these modest chapels amaze the modern city dweller with their extreme simplicity, sophistication and the special atmosphere of Russian solitude.

Roof

The roof over the log house was arranged in ancient times without nails - “male”.

For this, the completion of the two end walls was made from decreasing stumps of logs, which were called "males". Long longitudinal poles were laid on them in steps - “dolniks”, “lay down” (cf. “lie down, lie down”). Sometimes, however, they were called males, and the ends came down, cut into the walls. One way or another, but the whole roof got its name from them.

From top to bottom, thin tree trunks, cut down with one of the branches of the root, were cut into the slegs. Such trunks with roots were called "hens" (apparently for the similarity of the left root with a chicken paw). These upward branches of the roots supported a hollowed-out log - a "stream". It collected water flowing from the roof. And already on top of the hens and lay down the wide boards of the roof, resting with the lower edges in the hollowed out groove of the flow. Especially carefully they blocked the upper joint of the boards from the rain - the “horse” (as it is still called today). Under it, a thick “ridge slug” was laid, and from above the joint of the boards, like a hat, was covered with a log hollowed out from below - a “helmet” or “skull”. However, more often this log was called "cold" - something that covers.

Why didn’t they just cover the roof of wooden huts in Russia! That straw was tied into sheaves (bundles) and laid along the slope of the roof, pressing with poles; then they chipped aspen logs on planks (shingles) and with them, like scales, they covered the hut in several layers. And in ancient times they even covered with turf, turning it upside down and laying a birch bark.

by the very expensive coating was considered "tes" (boards). The very word "tes" well reflects the process of its manufacture. An even log without knots was split lengthwise in several places and wedges were hammered into the cracks. The log split in this way was split lengthwise several more times. The irregularities of the resulting wide boards were hemmed with a special ax with a very wide blade.

The roof was usually covered in two layers - “undercut” and “red so”. The lower layer of the tess on the roof was also called a rocker, since it was often covered with a “rock” (birch bark, which was chipped from birch trees) for tightness. Sometimes they arranged a roof with a break. Then the lower, flatter part was called the "police" (from the old word "gender"- half).

The entire pediment of the hut was importantly called the “brow” and was richly decorated with magical protective carvings. The outer ends of the under-roofing slabs were covered from the rain with long boards - "prichelina". And the upper joint of the berths was covered with a patterned hanging board - a “towel”.

The roof is the most important part wooden building. "I'd have a roof over my head"- people still say. Therefore, over time, it became a symbol of any temple, house, and even economic structure of its “top”.

"Riding" in ancient times was called any completion. These tops, depending on the wealth of the building, could be very diverse. The simplest was the "cage" top - a simple gable roof on the cage. Temples were usually decorated with a "tent" top in the form of a high octagonal pyramid. The “cubic top” was intricate, resembling a massive tetrahedral onion. Terems were decorated with such a top. The “barrel” was quite difficult to work with - gable cover with smooth curvilinear outlines, ending with a sharp crest. But they also made a “crossed barrel” - two intersecting simple barrels. Tent churches, cube-shaped, tiered, many-domed - all this is named after the completion of the temple, according to its top.

However, most of all loved the tent. When the scribes indicated that the church "wooden top", then this meant that it was hipped.

Even after Nikon's ban on tents in 1656, as demons and paganism in architecture, they still continued to be built in the Northern Territory. And only in the four corners at the base of the tent did small barrels with cupolas appear. This technique was called a tent on a groin barrel.

Particularly difficult times came for the wooden tent in the middle of the 19th century, when the government and the governing Synod set about eradicating schismatics. Northern "schismatic" architecture then also fell into disgrace. And yet, despite all the persecution, the form of "four-eight-tent" remains typical for the ancient Russian wooden church. There are also octals "from the seam" (from the ground) without a quadrangle, especially in bell towers. But these are already variations of the basic type.

The traditions of wooden housing construction have been preserved to this day. In their suburban areas, the townspeople are happy to build wooden houses and baths with the help of craftsmen from the hinterland, from the provinces. In turn, people in the outback also continue to live in wooden houses because there is no better home than a solid, reliable, eco house from wood. Do you want to build your own house out of logs or timber? Contact us - or call by phone: 8-903-899-98-51 (Beeline); 8-930-385-49-16 (Megafon).