Basket, basket, box: old baskets in the modern world

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Now designers are using Slavic berry picking baskets as fashion accessories. Not a single fashionista can imagine a summer wardrobe without a wicker bag, and in the last couple of years, accessories resembling old Russian baskets have become a hit. They are good for going to the forest for berries, and for storing food, and for an evening promenade.

Basket - a small basket

Girl with a basket, early 20th century. - Alexey Mazurin / MAMM / MDF

Lyko (bark of deciduous trees) in Russia was the most accessible material, and therefore they often made necessary things in everyday life, from shoes (bast shoes) to dishes. And baskets of various shapes and purposes were an obligatory attribute of any peasant house.

Vitaly Timkiv / Sputnik

A small wicker basket is called a basket - from the word "bast". It was intended for picking berries and mushrooms, as well as for sowing grains and harvesting. A basket is the lightest, almost weightless basket, which was taken literally everywhere.

And if necessary, it could be made from scrap materials right in the forest. Often, such baskets were even placed under the head, like pillows, stuffing them with straw for softness and shape, and covering them with a cloth.

Anatoly Semekhin / TASS

In Russia, the basket was a measure of volumes, although not officially, since they were all of different capacities. For a Russian, it was clear that a "basket of strawberries" is not much, but enough. If you come to any food market in Russia, you will see that berries are still sold in such baskets.

Soviet and modern braids. - Boris Kavashkin; Sergey Bobylev / TASS

And basket-shaped bags have always been popular with girls!

Kuzovok - keeps berries whole

Sergey Kalinin, Sergey Metelitsa; Matytsin / TASS

Another type of Russian basket is called a box. As a rule, it is a birch bark bag-sack in the form of a cylinder with a lid. It was made on purpose so that the berries do not crinkle and do not give juice.

For convenience, a shoulder strap is attached to the box body. By the way, this basket is associated with one of the most famous Russian sayings: “He called himself a load, climb into the box”. It means that you need to understand the responsibility for your words, and if you said something, be kind, do it.

A canteen is an irreplaceable thing in the kitchen

Oleg Lastochkin / Sputnik; Anatoly Semekhin / TASS

But baskets made of birch bark for storing food in the kitchen are called tuesques. They are often closed with lids with handles. Masters of weaving tuesques give free rein to their imaginations in their work, decorating them with various patterns.

Each region had its own traditional murals, from floral ornaments to everyday scenes. Today, such tuesques are still sold in the most common stores and are used to store cereals.