The hut was the main living quarters of the Russian house. Its interior was distinguished by strict, long-established forms, simplicity and expedient arrangement of objects. Its walls, ceiling and floor, as a rule, were not painted or glued with anything, had a pleasant warm color of wood, light in new houses, dark in old ones.

The main place in the hut was occupied by a Russian stove. Depending on the local tradition, it stood to the right or left of the entrance, with its mouth to the side or front wall. This was convenient for the inhabitants of the house, since a warm stove blocked the way for cold air penetrating from the entrance hall (only in the southern, central black earth zone of European Russia, the stove was located in the corner farthest from the entrance).

Diagonally from the stove was a table, over which hung a goddess with icons. Along the walls were motionless benches, and above them were cut into the walls of the same width of the shelf - the benches. In the back of the hut, from the stove to the side wall, under the ceiling, they arranged a wooden flooring - a bed. In the southern Russian regions, behind the side wall of the stove there could be a wooden flooring for sleeping - a floor (platform). All this immovable atmosphere of the hut was built by carpenters along with the house and was called a mansion outfit.

The space of the Russian hut was divided into parts that had their specific purpose. The front corner with a goddess and a table was also called a large, red, holy one: family meals were arranged here, prayer books, the Gospel, and the Psalter were read aloud. Here on the shelves stood beautiful tableware. In houses where there was no room, the front corner was considered the front part of the hut, a place for receiving guests.

The space near the door and the stove was called the woman's corner, the stove corner, the middle corner, the middle, the middle. It was a place where women cooked food and did various jobs. There were pots and bowls on the shelves, tongs, a poker, a pomelo near the stove. The mythological consciousness of the people defined the stove corner as a dark, unclean place. In the hut there were, as it were, two sacred centers located diagonally: a Christian center and a pagan center, equally important for a peasant family.

The rather limited space of the Russian hut was organized in such a way that a family of seven to eight people was accommodated in it with more or less convenience. This was achieved due to the fact that each family member knew his place in the common space. Men usually worked and rested during the day on the men's half of the hut, which included a front corner with icons and a bench near the entrance. Women and children were in the women's quarters near the stove during the day.

Places for sleeping were also strictly distributed: children, boys and girls slept on the beds; the owner with the hostess of the house - under the beds on a special flooring or bench, to which a wide bench moved; old people on the stove or golbets. It was not supposed to break the order in the house unless it was absolutely necessary. A person who violates it was considered not to know the commandments of the fathers. The organization of the interior space of the hut is reflected in the wedding song:

Will I enter my parent's bright room,
I will pray for everything on four sides,
Another first bow to the front corner,
I ask the Lord for a blessing
In a white body - health,
In the head of the mind-mind,
In the white hands of the clever,
To be able to please someone else's family.
I will give another bow to the middle corner,
For bread to him for salt,
For sleeping, for feeding,
For warm clothes.
And I will give the third bow to the warm corner
For his warming
For hot coals,
Hot bricks.
And in the last bow
Kutnoy corner
For his soft bed,
Downy behind the head,
For a dream, for a sweet nap.

The hut was kept as clean as possible, which was most typical for northern and Siberian villages. The floors in the hut were washed once a week, and on Easter, Christmas and the patronal holidays, not only the floor, but also the walls, ceiling, and benches were scraped bare with sand. Russian peasants tried to decorate their hut. On weekdays, her decoration was rather modest: a towel on the shrine, homespun rugs on the floor.

On a holiday, the Russian hut was transformed, especially if the house did not have a room: the table was covered with a white tablecloth; on the walls, closer to the front corner, and on the windows hung towels embroidered or woven with colored patterns; benches and chests standing in the house were covered with elegant paths. The interior of the chamber was somewhat different from the interior of the hut.

The upper room was the front room of the house and was not intended for permanent residence of the family. Accordingly, its interior space was decided differently - there were no floorboards and a platform for sleeping in it, instead of a Russian stove there was a Dutch woman lined with tiles, adapted only for heating the room, the benches were covered with beautiful beds, ceremonial table utensils were placed on the benches, popular prints were hung on the walls near the shrine. pictures of religious and secular content and towels. For the rest, the mansion attire of the chamber repeated the motionless attire of the hut: in the corner farthest from the door there was a shrine with icons, along the walls of the shop, above them shelves, shelves, many chests, sometimes placed one on top of the other.

It is difficult to imagine a peasant house without numerous utensils that have accumulated for decades, if not centuries, and literally filled its space. Utensils are utensils for preparing, preparing and storing food, serving it to the table - pots, patches, pelvises, pots, bowls, dishes, valleys, ladles2, crusts, etc .; all kinds of containers for picking berries and mushrooms - baskets, bodies, tuesas, etc .; various chests, caskets, caskets for storing household items, clothes and cosmetic accessories; items for kindling a fire and interior lighting at home - fire flint, lights, candlesticks and more. etc. All these items necessary for housekeeping were available in more or less quantity in every peasant family.

Household utensils were relatively the same type throughout the entire area of ​​the settlement of the Russian people, which is explained by the commonality of the domestic way of life of Russian peasants. Local variants of utensils were practically absent or, in any case, were less obvious than in clothing and food. Differences were manifested only in the utensils served on the table on holidays. At the same time, local originality found its expression not so much in the form of tableware, but in its decorative design.

A characteristic feature of Russian peasant utensils was the abundance of local names for the same item. Vessels of the same shape, of the same purpose, made of the same material, in the same way, were called in their own way in different provinces, counties, volosts and further villages. The name of the object changed depending on its use by a particular hostess: the pot in which porridge was cooked was called “kashnik” in one house, the same pot used in another house for cooking stew was called “puppy”.

Utensils of the same purpose, but made of different materials, were called differently: a vessel made of clay - a pot, made of cast iron - a cast iron, made of copper - a coppersmith. The terminology often changed depending on the method of making the vessel: a cooperage-made vessel for fermenting vegetables - a tub, dugout made of wood - a dugout, made of clay - a trough. The interior decoration of the peasant house began to undergo noticeable changes in the last third of the 19th century. First of all, the changes affected the interior of the chamber, which was perceived by Russians as a symbol of the wealth of a peasant family.

The owners of the upper rooms sought to furnish them with items typical of the urban lifestyle: instead of benches, chairs, stools, canapels appeared - sofas with trellised or blank backs, instead of an old table with a base - an urban-type table covered with a “fillet” tablecloth. An indispensable accessory of the upper room was a chest of drawers with drawers, a slide for festive dishes and a smartly decorated bed with a lot of pillows, and near the sanctuary there were framed photographs of relatives and clock-clocks.

After some time, innovations also affected the hut: a wooden partition separated the stove from the rest of the space, urban household items began to actively replace traditional fixed furniture. So, the bed gradually replaced the bed. In the first decade of the XX century. the decoration of the hut was replenished with cabinets, cupboards, mirrors and small sculptures. The traditional set of utensils lasted much longer, up to the 30s. XX century, which was explained by the stability of the peasant way of life, the functionality of household items. The only exception was the festive dining room, or rather, tea utensils: from the second half of the 19th century. Along with the samovar, porcelain cups, saucers, sugar bowls, vases for jam, milk jugs, and metal teaspoons appeared in the peasant house.

Wealthy families used individual plates, jelly molds, glass glasses, glasses, goblets, bottles, etc. during festive meals. old ideas about the interior decoration of the house and the gradual withering away of traditional household culture.

Objects of national life in Russia A person all his life - from birth to death - is surrounded by household items. What is included in this concept? Furniture, dishes, clothes and more. A huge number of proverbs and sayings are associated with household items. They are discussed in fairy tales, poems are written about them and riddles are invented. What items of folk life in Russia do we know? Have they always been called that? Are there things that have disappeared from our lives? What interesting facts are connected with household items? Let's start with the most important. Russian izba It is impossible to imagine the objects of Russian folk life without the most important thing - their dwellings. In Russia, huts were built on the banks of rivers or lakes, because fishing has been one of the most important industries since ancient times. The place for the construction was chosen very carefully. The new hut was never built on the site of the old one. An interesting fact is that pets served as a guide for selection. The place that they chose to rest was considered the most favorable for building a house. The dwelling was made of wood, most often of larch or birch. It is more correct to say not "build a hut", but "cut down a house". This was done with an ax, and later with a saw. Huts were most often made square or rectangular. Inside the dwelling there was nothing superfluous, only the most necessary for life. The walls and ceilings in the Russian hut were not painted. For wealthy peasants, the house consisted of several rooms: the main dwelling, a canopy, a veranda, a closet, a yard and buildings: a flock or a corral for animals, a hayloft and others. In the hut there were wooden household items - a table, benches, a cradle or cradle for babies, shelves for dishes. Colored rugs or paths could lie on the floor. The table occupied a central place in the house, the corner where it stood was called "red", that is, the most important, honorable. It was covered with a tablecloth, and the whole family gathered behind it. Everyone at the table had his own place, the most convenient, the central one was occupied by the head of the family - the owner. In the red corner there was a place for icons. Good speech, if there is a stove in the hut Without this item, it is impossible to imagine the life of our distant ancestors. The stove was both a nurse and a savior. In extreme cold, only thanks to her, many people managed to keep warm. The Russian stove was a place where food was cooked, and they also slept on it. Her warmth saved from many diseases. Due to the fact that there were various niches and shelves in it, various dishes were stored here. Food cooked in a Russian oven is unusually tasty and fragrant. Here you can cook: delicious and rich soup, crumbly porridge, all kinds of pastries and much more. But the most important thing is that the stove was the place in the house around which people were constantly. It is no coincidence that in Russian fairy tales, the main characters either ride it (Emelya), or sleep (Ilya Muromets). Poker, grip, pomelo These items of folk life were directly related to the Russian stove. The poker was the first assistant at work. When firewood burned out in the stove, the coals were shifted with this object and they looked so that there were no unburned logs. The Russian people have composed a lot of proverbs and sayings about the poker, here are just some of them: No candle to God, no poker to hell. Black conscience and the poker seem like a gallows. The grip is the second assistant when working with the stove. Usually there were several of them, of different sizes. With the help of this item, cast-iron pots or pans with food were put into and removed from the oven. The grips were taken care of and tried to handle them very carefully. Pomelo is a special broom with which they swept excess garbage from the stove, and it was not used for other purposes. The Russian people came up with a characteristic riddle about this subject: "Under the floor, under the middle, a woman with a beard is sitting." Usually pomelo was used before they were going to bake pies. A poker, a fork, a broom - they certainly had to be at hand when food was cooked in a Russian oven. Chest - for storing the most valuable things In every house there had to be a place where the dowry, clothes, towels, tablecloths were put. The chest is an integral part of the items of folk life of the Russian people. They could be both large and small. Most importantly, they had to meet several requirements: spaciousness, strength, decoration. If a girl was born in the family, then the mother began to collect her dowry, which was put into a chest. A girl getting married would take him with her to her husband's house. There were a large number of curious traditions associated with the chest. Here are some of them: Girls were not allowed to give their chest to someone, otherwise they could remain an old maid. During Maslenitsa, it was impossible to open the chest. It was believed that in this way one could unleash one's wealth and good luck. Before marriage, the bride's relatives sat on the chest and demanded a ransom for the dowry. Interesting names of household items Many of us do not even imagine that the usual things that surround us in everyday life were once called in a completely different way. If for a few minutes we imagine that we are in the distant past, then some items of folk life would remain unrecognized by us. We bring to your attention the names of some familiar things: Broom - golik. A closet or small closed room was called a cage. The place where large domestic animals lived is a flock. Towel - rukoternik or utirka. The place where they washed their hands is a washstand. The box where the clothes were stored is a chest. Place to sleep - bed. A wooden bar with a short handle, designed for ironing linen in the old days - a rubel. A large cup for pouring drinks - valley. Folk household items in Russia: interesting facts The city of Tula is considered the birthplace of the samovar. This item was one of the favorites among the Russians, it was difficult to find a hut in which it was not. The samovar was a source of pride, it was protected and passed on by inheritance. The first electric iron appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. Until that time, there were cast-iron irons in which coals were put or heated for a long time over a furnace flame. It was very inconvenient to hold them, they could weigh more than ten kilograms. One of the most prestigious household items was the gramophone. In the villages, you could exchange a cow for him. A large number of folk traditions and rituals are associated with the table. Before the wedding, the bride and groom had to walk around the table, the newborn was carried around the table. These customs, according to popular beliefs, symbolized a long and happy life. Distaffs appeared in Ancient Russia. They were made of wood: birch, linden, aspen. This item was given by the father to his daughter for the wedding. It was customary to decorate and paint spinning wheels, so none of them looked like another. Folk household items for children - home-made rag dolls, bast and wool balls, rattles, clay whistles. Home decoration The decor of folk household items included woodcarving and artistic painting. Many things in the house were decorated with the hands of the owners: chests, spinning wheels, dishes and much more. The design and decoration of household items concerned, first of all, the hut itself. This was done not only for beauty, but also as a talisman against evil spirits and various troubles. Handmade dolls were used to decorate the house. Each of them had its own purpose. One drove away evil spirits, the other brought peace and prosperity, the third did not allow squabbles and scandals in the house. Items that have disappeared from everyday life A chest for storing clothes. Rubel for ironing linen. A bench is an object on which they sat. Samovar. Spinning wheel and spindle. Gramophone. Cast iron iron. A few words in conclusion By studying the objects of folk life, we get acquainted with the life and customs of our distant ancestors. Russian stove, spinning wheel, samovar - without these things it is impossible to imagine a Russian hut. They united families, next to them grief was easier to endure, and any work was argued. Nowadays, special attention is paid to household items. When buying a house or summer cottage, many owners tend to purchase them with a stove.

According to the famous scientist Yu. M. Lotman, “life is the usual course of life in its real-practical forms; life is the things that surround us, our habits and everyday behavior. Life surrounds us like air, and like air, it is noticeable only when it is not enough or it deteriorates. We notice the features of someone else's life, but our own life is elusive for us - we tend to consider it "just life", a natural norm of practical life. So, everyday life is always in the sphere of practice, it is the world of things first of all” (Lotman 1994, 10).

The phrase "traditional life" literally means the course of a person's daily life in the forms defined by tradition - in a society where accepted and established rules of behavior, skills, and a system of ideas are passed on from generation to generation. Naturally, traditional life always has an ethnic coloring. That is why the phrase “traditional life” is often replaced by the words “folk life”, “national way of life”, “traditional everyday culture”, etc. terrain. This is due to the fact that in Russia in the XVIII - first quarter of the XIX century. it was the peasantry that was the bearer of traditional forms of culture and life.

The Russian nobility, most of the merchants, workers of large industrial enterprises lived within the framework of European culture, urbanistic at its core and supranational in essence. The way of life of a nobleman and a peasant was so different that it made it possible to speak about the presence of two different civilizations among Russian people: noble and peasant. According to the well-known historian A. A. Zimin, “the divergence between civilizations in the 18th and 19th centuries was so striking that one could get the impression of two worlds, each living its own life” (Zimin 2002, 11). Such a gap in the everyday culture of the Russian people occurred in the Petrine era, at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. Until that time, representatives of all strata of Russian society lived within the framework of traditional culture, the characteristic features of which were static, isolation, and loyalty to antiquity.

The reforms of Peter the Great and his successors in the economic and political spheres of life, the development of industry, trade, the establishment of strong contacts with European countries made a revolution in the cultural consciousness of the country. The renewal of Russian life was associated with an orientation towards the secular culture of Western Europe - the upper strata of Russian society and the townspeople turned out to be ready for its perception and assimilation. The Russian peasantry, on the contrary, for the most part gravitated towards the traditional patriarchal way of life. Archpriest Avvakum in the 17th century expressed this attitude as follows: “I hold it to death, as if I had taken it; I do not lay down the limit of the eternal, it has been laid down before us: lie it like this forever and ever!” The desire to live as fathers and grandfathers lived was supported by faith in the once and for all acquired “truth-truth” of Orthodoxy, adopted by Russia in the 10th century.

The appearance of any innovations was considered as a rollback to the side, a violation of the world order established by God. The closedness of the Russian medieval consciousness, unwillingness to communicate with other cultures grew out of faith in the special mission of Russia, in the chosenness of the Orthodox people. In the peasant environment, a gradual departure from traditions began in the middle - second half of the 19th century. New trends that originated in trade and craft villages, whose population had strong contacts with the city, then reached many villages, including the most remote from large industrial centers. Today, the way of life of Russian peasants is built according to the urban model, but they also have many “remnants of sweet antiquity” that have irretrievably disappeared from the life of the townspeople.

The world of the Russian village is presented in the book through a description of the peasant dwelling and things that people used in their daily practice. This approach is entirely legitimate. Both the house and any household item are endowed with “memory”, and therefore, by studying them, one can learn a lot about the social, religious, and economic aspects of the life of their owners. The house was the focus of a person's vitality, here he was protected from bad weather and enemies, from the dangers of the outside world. Here, generations of ancestors succeeded each other, here he continued his family, here for centuries Russian traditional life was formed, which included many items necessary for a person to live and work.

First of all, these were tools of labor: arable and for harrowing the soil, harvesting and further processing the crop, with the help of which daily bread was obtained; livestock care equipment; tools used in crafts and trades. Of considerable importance was the winter and summer transport. Life was spent in the house, the interior decoration of which was organized for work and leisure. The house was filled with things used to decorate it, give it comfort, objects of religious worship, as well as various utensils. A person could not do without clothes: everyday and festive, without shoes, hats, etc. All these items of folk life were created either by the peasants themselves, or by village or city artisans, who took into account the needs and tastes of their customers.

The things that came out of the hands of the master were well thought out and often struck with amazing beauty. V. S. Voronov, a well-known specialist in the field of Russian folk decorative art, wrote: “All the diverse abundance of everyday monuments - from a powerful carved casing and painted sleighs to a carved pointer, colored clay toys and a top-inch copper figured castle - amazes with the richness of mature creative imagination, wit, invention, observation, decorative flair, constructive courage, technical dexterity - all the fullness of artistic talent, in which it was easy and simple for a peasant artist to design in a variety of ways and richly decorate any household item, turning everyday life into a deep and quiet celebration of living beauty "( Voronov 1972, 32-33).

The objective world of the Russian peasants was comparatively uniform throughout the space they occupied in Russia. This is especially true for agricultural, handicraft tools, vehicles, furnishings and home decoration, which, with rare exceptions, were the same everywhere, due to similar natural and climatic conditions, the agricultural type of peasant economy. Local originality was distinguished by objects that had little to do with the production activities of people, such as, for example, clothing or festive utensils. So, the costume of a married peasant woman from the Vologda province was not similar to the costume of a woman from the Kursk province; the vessels for serving beer from the Vyatka province were not the same as in the villages of the Voronezh province.

Local differences were due to the vast expanses of Russia, the disunity of its individual territories, the influence of neighboring peoples, etc. A characteristic feature of the objective world of the Russian peasant was its relative immutability and stability. In the XVIII - early XX century. it was basically the same as in the 12th-13th centuries: the plow with two coulters and a folding plow, a wooden harrow, a sickle, a scythe, a bucket, a yoke, an earthen pot, a bowl, a spoon, a shirt, boots, a table , a shop and many other things that a person needs. This is due to the age-old stability of the living conditions of the Russian peasants, the immutability of their main occupation - agriculture, which determined material needs. At the same time, the objective world of peasant farmers was not once formed and frozen.

Over the centuries, new things were gradually included in it, the need for which was determined by technological progress and, as a result of this, an inevitable, albeit relatively slow, change in lifestyle. So, at the beginning of the XV-XVI centuries. appeared spit-Lithuanian, in the XVII-XVIII centuries. in peasant everyday life, such an arable tool as a roe deer began to be used in the 19th century. peasants began to drink tea from a samovar, cook food in a cast-iron pan, women began to tie their heads instead of an old ubrus with a square scarf, put on a couple instead of a shirt and sundress - a skirt with a blouse. What once seemed alien, gradually took root, became our own, traditional. In parallel with this, things that had become obsolete left out of use.

In the first half of the XIX century. stopped using chests-headrests for storing money and valuables on the road. At the end of the XIX century. the stapler disappeared from festive use, which from the 12th century. served to serve beer on the table. The change of objects took place imperceptibly; some things were parted without regret, others, losing their functionality, turned into ritual ones, others were left “for a wake” of people who left this world. Each item of Russian traditional life had a dual nature: in everyday practice, things were used for their direct, utilitarian purpose, in ritual practice they showed the meanings of symbols.

For example, a hut was swept with a broom, on Good Thursday a broom was used to protect the house from evil spirits: a woman sat on her horseback and circled her house with certain spells. In a mortar, cereal grains were crushed with a pestle; in the hands of a matchmaker, a mortar with a pestle turned into a symbol of male and female intercourse. A fur coat was worn in the cold season - a fur coat spread out for the newlyweds on a bench became a sign of their fertility in marriage. The pot was an indispensable attribute of wedding and funeral rituals; it was broken as a sign of a change in the status of a person. After the wedding night, it was broken by a friend on the threshold of the newlyweds' room, thereby, as it were, showing those present that the night went well. In the funeral ritual, the pot was broken when the deceased was taken out of the house so that the deceased could not return to the world of the living. The kokoshnik remained a women's festive headdress and a symbol of marriage. "Thingness" and "significance" were present in all objects of folk life.

Some objects had a greater semiotic status, while others had a lesser one. For example, towels were endowed with a high degree of symbolism - panels of ornamented fabric, designed to decorate the interior. In the native-baptismal, wedding, funeral and memorial rites, they acted mainly as signs of a person's belonging to a certain family - "clan-tribe". In some situations, some objects, turning into symbols, completely lost their material nature.

So,. Yu. M. Lotman in the same book gave examples when bread from the usual sphere of use for us passes into the sphere of meaning: in the words of the famous Christian prayer “Give us our daily bread today”, bread turns into food needed to sustain life; in the words of Jesus Christ given in the Gospel of John: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will not hunger” (John 6:35), bread and the word denoting it form a complex symbolic combination. Traditional Russian life is so rich and vibrant that it is virtually impossible to present it in its entirety in one book. This encyclopedic dictionary combines articles about the arrangement of a peasant dwelling, about transport, about tools of labor and about the main items of peasant use, which make it possible to tell about the life of many generations of people who have gone into the past.

Goals:

• introduce children to antiques;
• to attach to the national culture and traditions of the Russian people;
• in the course of the lesson, to consolidate and deepen the knowledge of children about objects of ancient life;
• develop the creative potential of each child;
• develop speech activity, memory.

Equipment: poster “We remember the old days, we honor the old times”, items of ancient life: a chest of drawers, towels, jugs, a pot, a samovar, a spinning wheel, a rubel, a spindle, a coal iron, a comb, a flail;

Course progress.

Teacher:

Long time ago in the village
One family lived
Left us a legacy
Big Chest of Good.
Let's open it now
And let's tell a story
How did our ancestors live?
Just a century ago.

Leading:

Iron in front of you
This is my grandmother's old friend.
He was basking at that time
on the coals
which was in all
yards.

Student 1:

In our family, a coal iron appeared thanks to my grandmother. Many years ago, when there were no electric irons yet, people used coal irons, since an iron is an irreplaceable thing in a person’s life. Once upon a time, my grandmother ironed things for her family with them. It was not easy to handle it due to its heavy weight. Therefore, later, with the advent of the electric iron, the coal iron became a thing of the past, becoming a historical rarity in our family.

The history of the appearance of a coal iron and other devices for ironing linen is looking for its beginning in the 9th century. History has not preserved reliable information about the exact time of the appearance of the first iron and its inventor. In the distant past, people came up with various ways so that things would not be wrinkled after washing. One of these methods was that the wet fabric was stretched and left to dry in this form.

In ancient Rome, flat heated stones were used for smoothing. But the immediate predecessors of the iron were probably a rubel with a roller and a frying pan with hot coals. A roll was a round thick stick, on which dry linen or clothes were wound, and then rolled with a rubel - a board corrugated on one side with a handle at the end. While the fabric for clothes was made by hand, it was so rough that it had to be softened rather than smoothed out. Rubel with a roller, as well as a frying pan with hot coals, coped well with this task. With the advent of thinner fabrics, it became necessary to carefully smooth them. Perhaps this was the impetus for the invention of the iron.

The first written mention of the iron in Russia dates back to 1936. On January 31 of this year, an entry was made in the book of the queen's expenses that the blacksmith Ivashka Trofimov was paid 5 altyns for "making an iron iron in the Tsarina's chamber."

In the 18th century in Russia, irons were made at Demidov and other foundries. An iron in those days was an expensive purchase - for example, a pound iron weighing a whole ruble.

The most popular for a long time was the flame iron, or, as we called it, the wind iron. It had a heavy iron hull and a hinged lid for loading coal. There were cutouts in the lid for air extraction, and holes for blowing in the body. It was necessary to blow into these holes from time to time so that the dying coals would flare up again. The wooden handle was fixed on the lid on high racks. The handle itself was made smooth, and sometimes figured, so that the hand of the ironer would not slip off. The side surfaces of the irons were often decorated with patterns, as well as images of flowers, birds and animals. The most expensive irons were inlaid with silver on iron, sometimes they put the date of manufacture of the iron and the name of the master.

There were also irons with replaceable cast-iron liners that were heated in the oven. After heating, the liners were inserted into the hollow body of the iron. Then they guessed to attach a handle to the insert, and it turned out to be a solid cast iron, which was heated on the stove.

Iron, cast iron and bronze irons came into our life in the era of Peter the Great. They were cast or forged, at the will of the master giving them the shape of a lion, whale, ship, decorating with curlicues, but more often - without decorating anything. An all-metal iron existed until 1967, along with its shortcomings - a hot handle and the ability to cool quickly.

Coal irons disappeared from the city simply because there was nowhere to get coal from, stoves were replaced by a heating plant. But there were cast iron ones. The irons were heavy, solid cast, with the same hot handle, which was taken with a rag-tack - God forbid to grab it with your bare hand. The readiness of such an iron for work was checked by drooling on a finger: it hisses - it means it has become hot. The degree of the desired incandescence was calculated using bitter experience.
There were few things, and they were all crumpled. Before, everything was fluffy. And wool, and cotton, and flannel, and linen. There was not a single synthetic thread in any of the fabrics. Every crease and frill wrinkled. The morning of every woman did not begin with a cup of coffee - it began with an iron.
Cuffs and collars were starched to prolong their appearance. They starched sheets and pillowcases, tablecloths and curtains, so as not to iron them longer. The over-starched linen was tightly glued to the iron, the over-dried one did not give in to ironing. While ironing a pile of sheets, endlessly heating the iron on the stove, half a life will pass.

One grandmother said: “I didn’t want to go to a strange village to get married, and my mother persuaded me: “Go daughter, there is a coal iron in that house!” Kind of like a late-model Mercedes. This clear sign of prosperity and well-being was put in a prominent place next to the samovar, so that everyone would look and envy. And another old woman said that in a large village of 400 households, only one house had a coal iron. Charcoal iron is more difficult to manufacture and more expensive than cast iron. Over time, it improved, acquired a pipe, grates began to resemble a miniature stove in which birch embers were laid. It was necessary to handle the coal iron very carefully. Open the lid, pour coals into the inside with a scoop, close the lid and at the same time not put a speck of soot on clothes.

Leading:

Here is the rubel - in the name is wonderful,
It is easy to use.
Ironed linen with ease,
Chopped from wood.

Student 2:

Last week, my grandmother Anya was sorting through great-grandmother's things in an old chest and took out one old instrument. I asked: "What is it?" My grandmother told me that it was a rubel. It was made by my great-grandfather with his own hands from a birch board. Rubel (rebrak, pralnik) is a household item that in the old days Russian women used to iron clothes after washing. Hand-wrung linen was wound on a roller or rolling pin and rolled out with a rubel, so much so that even poorly washed linen became snow-white, as if all the “juices” had been squeezed out of it. Hence the proverb " Not by washing, but by rolling". Such a set of a rubel and a wheelchair has been known in Russia for about 700 years. It was used at least until the middle of the last century.

Rubel, like spoons, is an everyday item of the Russian people. In the old days, when there was no iron yet, linen was ironed by winding it on a rolling pin when wet, and then for a long time, rolling and tamping with a rubel.

The rubel was a plate of hardwood with a handle at one end. On one side of the plate, transverse rounded scars were cut, the second remained smooth, and sometimes was decorated with intricate carvings. In different regions, rubels could differ either in shape features or in a peculiar decor. So, in the Vladimir province, the rubel, decorated with geometric carvings, was distinguished by its extraordinary length, on the Mezen River, the rubel became wide, slightly expanding towards the end, and in the Yaroslavl province, in addition to the geometric carving, the rubel was sometimes decorated with three-dimensional sculpture, which, protruding above the carved surface, served in the same time and very comfortable second handle.

Sometimes the handle of the rubel was made hollow and peas or other small objects were placed inside so that they rattled when rolled out. The sound was similar to the sound of a baby rattle.

Rubel is used in conjunction with a wheelchair. The fabric to be ironed is folded so many times that the width of the folded fabric is less than the length of the wheelchair. The edge of the fabric is moved to the edge of the table, a gurney is placed on the edge of the fabric and the fabric is rolled onto it by hand. The resulting roll is placed at the edge of the table. With the help of a rubel, the roll is rolled over the table. After that, the roll is again moved to the edge of the table and the operation is repeated. In this way, it is possible to achieve a strong tension of the fabric on the gurney. After all the fabric is rolled onto the gurney, the resulting roll is rolled with a ruble from the edge of the table and back until the fabric is smoothed out.

The rubel was also used as a musical instrument. Unlike household rubels, musical ones had a drilled resonator cavity (not a through one) in one of the side ends. In addition, the musical rubel is less long, and its scars have sharper edges.

When playing, the rubel is held with one hand by the handle, and the other is driven back and forth along its scars with a wooden spoon or stick. It produces a characteristic "crackling" sound.

Rubels are still sometimes used by folk instrument orchestras or folklore groups. The instrument does not have a wide variety of sounds, so frequent use is impractical.

Leading:

And here is an old samovar,
Grandfather drank tea from him.
It was made in Tula,
And stood at the grandmother on a chair.
We close the box
We prolong the memory of ancestors.
Turning back time
We'll meet again soon.

Student 3:

The samovar is the soul of Russia, it is the warmth of the soul of a Russian person. The samovar is not just a device, it is the center of the table, holiday, festivities. In the old days, every family had a samovar. Not a single holiday passed without this Russian miracle. And despite its high cost (it cost more than a cow), the samovar was in every house. Now the samovar has become more of a legend, a kind of reality, a thing of the past. At the moment there are only 3 types of samovars:

• Electric samovar, where water is heated by means of a heating element (boiler);
• Zharova. it is also called a coal-fired samovar or a wood-fired samovar. Heating of water in it occurs with the help of solid fuel (cones, coal, firewood). This is the very first and most ancient species;
• The combined samovar is a combination of electric and fire samovars.

By itself, the word "samovar" speaks for itself, it is a kind of object that brews itself. It was his ability to heat liquids in himself that contributed to the spread throughout the Russian Empire. We have a brass, nickel-plated wood-burning samovar. My great-grandfathers used the samovar. My grandmother found it in an old barn. Grandmother said that she was little, went to school, and remembers what interesting tea parties were behind this samovar. Great-grandfathers lived in the village of the Arkhangelsk region, they had their own bathhouse (there was only one for the whole village) and the villagers bathed in it too. They fired it up one by one. Like Saturday, so one of the villagers carried a bundle of firewood to kindle it. After the bath, they definitely went to their house to cool off. And on the table a samovar stood and rustled, people brought something to the tea party. The samovar gave a lot of emotions and impressions from the preparation of real Russian tea from different herbs. Tea invigorated and caused some lightness in the body. The village was small, people lived together like one family, supported each other in everything, gathered together. And when the grandmother found this old samovar, darkened from time to time, in the shed, she could not throw it away. After all, she remembers those old gatherings of my ancestors for tea. Although we have a new, beautiful electric samovar, this one also “lives” with us.

Currently, many factories continue to produce coal-fired samovars that can run on coal. No electrical appliance can replace the wonderful taste of freshly brewed charcoal tea.

Leading:

Here are the old jugs
They are made from clay.
Cooked food in them for the whole day,
Eat porridge, who is not lazy.

Student 4:

A high ovoid body on a small base with a flat bottom smoothly passes into a wide low throat with a bell upwards. The edge of the throat is trimmed with a rim with rounded edges. A small ring-handle, round in cross section, is attached to the shoulder of the vessel. The spout tapers to the drain hole, round in cross section, located on the shoulder of the vessel. The spout, handle and upper part of the jug are decorated with a "grape" ornament (circles with a bead in the middle) made by engobe. Inside completely and outside from above the jug is covered with green watering. The crock is fine-grained, the surface is slightly rough. It was intended for storage and bottling of milk or kvass.
Deep traditions of folk art can be traced in simple objects of peasant use, different in form, size, volume and purpose. At the heart of the works of folk artists made in the late XIX - early XX century, archaic in form, in the style of traditional folk art. Pot production was associated with the location of high quality pottery clays. Common red clay was common, rarely gray or white. Until very recently, the potter's main tool, in addition to the foot potter's wheel, is a manual, more ancient method. The ornamentation of clay products of the 19th century is quite archaic both in terms of technique and patterns. The basis of simple ornaments, forming single-row or multi-row patterned belts, made on raw clay. Glazed products of the 19th century are distinguished by special elegance, depth, sonority of color, plastic elastic form.

Leading:

Washed with spring water,
Wiped with a towel.
Woven from linen,
embroidery later.

Student 5:

Our family has one wonderful product - a towel. This is an embroidered decorative towel. His history is like this.

My grandmother's mother was very fond of embroidery. She embroidered pillowcases, curtains, tablecloths. This is what imagination you need to have in order to create such miracles from colored threads. And the lace! These are such beautiful and interesting patterns, as if a pattern is painted on glass. I even applied lace to the glass to view this magnificent hand painting in detail.

At present, the ancient Slavic traditions are almost forgotten, but they still decorate the dwelling with towels, they are used in various rituals in some regions of modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Towels remove the red corner of a hut or hut, chapels, door and window openings, and also decorate walls. A special role belonged to the towel in the wedding ceremony. According to legend, embroidery on towels was supposed to protect the newlyweds from damage, the evil eye. The wedding train was decorated with towels - horses, harness, clothes of guests. The bride and groom are standing on the towel during the wedding. Also, the towel was an element of maternity, baptismal and funeral rites. He was tied around the neck of the deceased, the coffin was covered, and he was lowered into the grave on towels. For forty days, the towel was considered the receptacle of the soul of the deceased, a kind of window between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Towels were used to decorate grave crosses, trees, and churches. To this day, the custom has been preserved to meet honored guests with “bread and salt” offered on a towel.

Depending on the ornament that was applied to Russian towels, and it could be a plant, animal, geometric, abstract ornament, its purpose and role in everyday life depended. Currently, towels in Russia are mainly used for wedding ceremonies and decorating icons. Towels are also purchased very often as a souvenir or gift, however, in addition to this, it must be remembered that towels embroidered according to a special pattern and having their own symbols are a kind of link with your ancestors and distant times.

The towel is made of linen or hemp cloth 30-40 centimeters wide and 3 or more meters long. To decorate the towel, they use embroidery, lace, abusive weaving, ribbons.

At the end of the class hour, tea with pies and pancakes, competitions of proverbs and sayings.

A person all his life - from birth to death - is surrounded by household items. What is included in this concept? Furniture, dishes, clothes and more. A huge number of proverbs and sayings are associated with household items. They are discussed in fairy tales, poems are written about them and riddles are invented.

What items of folk life in Russia do we know? Have they always been called that? Are there things that have disappeared from our lives? What interesting facts are connected with household items? Let's start with the most important.

Russian hut

It is impossible to imagine the items of Russian folk life without the most important thing - their homes. In Russia, huts were built on the banks of rivers or lakes, because fishing has been one of the most important industries since ancient times. The place for the construction was chosen very carefully. The new hut was never built on the site of the old one. An interesting fact is that pets served as a guide for selection. The place that they chose to rest was considered the most favorable for building a house.

The dwelling was made of wood, most often of larch or birch. It is more correct to say not "build a hut", but "cut down a house". This was done with an ax, and later with a saw. Huts were most often made square or rectangular. Inside the dwelling there was nothing superfluous, only the most necessary for life. The walls and ceilings in the Russian hut were not painted. For wealthy peasants, the house consisted of several rooms: the main dwelling, a canopy, a veranda, a closet, a yard and buildings: a flock or a corral for animals, a hayloft and others.

In the hut there were wooden household items - a table, benches, a cradle or cradle for babies, shelves for dishes. Colored rugs or paths could lie on the floor. The table occupied a central place in the house, the corner where it stood was called "red", that is, the most important, honorable. It was covered with a tablecloth, and the whole family gathered behind it. Everyone at the table had his own place, the most convenient, the central one was occupied by the head of the family - the owner. There was space for icons.

Good speech, if there is a stove in the hut

Without this subject, it is impossible to imagine the life of our distant ancestors. The stove was both a nurse and a savior. In extreme cold, only thanks to her, many people managed to keep warm. The Russian stove was a place where food was cooked, and they also slept on it. Her warmth saved from many diseases. Due to the fact that there were various niches and shelves in it, various dishes were stored here.

Food cooked in a Russian oven is unusually tasty and fragrant. Here you can cook: delicious and rich soup, crumbly porridge, all kinds of pastries and much more.

But the most important thing is that the stove was the place in the house around which people were constantly. It is no coincidence that in Russian fairy tales, the main characters either ride it (Emelya), or sleep (Ilya Muromets).

Poker, grip, pomelo

These household items were directly related to Kocherga, who was the first assistant at work. When firewood burned out in the stove, the coals were shifted with this object and they looked so that there were no unburned logs. The Russian people have composed many proverbs and sayings about the poker, here are just a few of them:

• In the bath, a broom, gentleman, in the oven, a poker.
• No candle to God, no poker to hell.
• Black conscience and the poker seem like a gallows.

The grip is the second assistant when working with the stove. Usually there were several of them, of different sizes. With the help of this item, cast-iron pots or pans with food were put into and removed from the oven. The grips were taken care of and tried to handle them very carefully.

Pomelo is a special broom with which they swept excess garbage from the stove, and it was not used for other purposes. The Russian people came up with a characteristic riddle about this subject: “Under the floor, under the middle, it sits. Usually, the pomelo was used before they were going to bake pies.

A poker, a fork, a broom - they certainly had to be at hand when food was cooked in a Russian oven.

Chest - for storing the most valuable things

In every house there had to be a place where the dowry, clothes, towels, tablecloths were put. Chest - items of folk life They could be both large and small. Most importantly, they had to meet several requirements: spaciousness, strength, decoration. If a girl was born in the family, then the mother began to collect her dowry, which was put into a chest. A girl getting married would take him with her to her husband's house.

There were a large number of curious traditions associated with the chest. Here are some of them:

• The girls were not allowed to give their chest to someone, otherwise they could remain an old maid.
• During Maslenitsa, it was impossible to open the chest. It was believed that in this way one could unleash one's wealth and good luck.
• Before marriage, the bride's relatives sat on the chest and demanded a ransom for the dowry.

Interesting names of household items

Many of us do not even imagine that the usual things that surround us in everyday life were once called quite differently. If for a few minutes we imagine that we are in the distant past, then some items of folk life would remain unrecognized by us. We bring to your attention the names of some of the things familiar to us:

Broom - naked.

A closet or small closed room was called a cage.

The place where large domestic animals lived is a flock.

Towel - rukoternik or utirka.

The place where they washed their hands is a washstand.

The box where the clothes were stored is a chest.

Place to sleep - bed.

A wooden bar with a short handle, designed for ironing linen in the old days - a rubel.

A large cup for pouring drinks - valley.

Folk household items in Russia: interesting facts

• The city of Tula is considered the birthplace of the samovar. This item was one of the favorites among the Russians, it was difficult to find a hut in which it was not. The samovar was a source of pride, it was protected and passed on by inheritance.
• The first electric iron appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. Until that time, there were cast-iron irons in which coals were put or heated for a long time over a furnace flame. It was very inconvenient to hold them, they could weigh more than ten kilograms.
• One of the most prestigious household items was the gramophone. In the villages, you could exchange a cow for him.
• A large number of folk traditions and rituals are associated with the table. Before the wedding, the bride and groom had to walk around the table, the newborn was carried around the table. These customs, according to popular beliefs, symbolized a long and happy life.
• Distaffs appeared in Ancient Russia. They were made of wood: birch, linden, aspen. This item was given by the father to his daughter for the wedding. It was customary to decorate and paint spinning wheels, so none of them looked like another.
• Folk household items for children - home-made rag dolls, bast and wool balls, rattles, clay whistles.

home decoration

The decor of folk household items included woodcarving and artistic painting. Many things in the house were decorated with the hands of the owners: chests, spinning wheels, dishes and much more. The design and decoration of household items concerned, first of all, the hut itself. This was done not only for beauty, but also as a talisman against evil spirits and various troubles.

Handmade dolls were used to decorate the house. Each of them had its own purpose. One drove away evil spirits, the other brought peace and prosperity, the third did not allow squabbles and scandals in the house.

Items that have disappeared from everyday life

• Chest for storing clothes.
• Rubel for ironing linen.
• A bench is an object on which they sat.
• Samovar.
• Spinning wheel and spindle.
• Gramophone.
• Cast iron iron.

A few words in conclusion

Studying the objects of folk life, we get acquainted with the life and customs of our distant ancestors. Russian stove, spinning wheel, samovar - without these things it is impossible to imagine a Russian hut. They united families, next to them grief was easier to endure, and any work was argued. Nowadays, special attention is paid to household items. When buying a house or summer cottage, many owners tend to purchase them with a stove.