Wisdom, secrets and secrets of the Russian hut

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

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

It is generally accepted that the most environmentally friendly and human-friendly 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, air humidity is always optimal for human life. The unique structure of the wood mass, consisting of capillaries, absorbs excess moisture from the air, and in case of excessive dryness, gives it to the room.

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

Anyone who has ever visited a real Russian hut will never forget its enchanting 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.

The durability of wood has proven itself for centuries, because the log cabins built by our great-great-grandfathers back in the 16-17 century stand to this day.

And it’s not without reason that interest in wood construction arises again and grows with incredible speed, gaining more and more popularity.

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

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

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When building a new hut, our ancestors followed the rules developed over the centuries, because the construction of a new house is a significant event in the life of a peasant family and all traditions were observed 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 a place where there was once a cemetery, a road or a bathhouse. But at the same time, it was desirable that the place for the new house was already habitable, where people lived in complete well-being, in a bright and dry place.

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The main tool in the construction of all Russian wooden structures was an ax. Hence they say not to build, but to cut down the 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.

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

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Initially, there was no door, it was replaced by a small entrance opening, about 0.9 meters by 1 meter, covered by a pair of log halves tied together and a canopy.

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The main requirement for the building material was customary - the log house was either cut from pine, spruce or larch. The trunk of conifers was tall, slender, amenable to processing with an ax and at the same time was strong, walls made of pine, spruce or larch kept warm well in the house in winter and did not heat up in summer, in the heat, keeping pleasant coolness. At the same time, the choice of a tree in the forest was governed by several rules. For example, it was impossible to cut down sick, old and dry trees that were considered dead and could, according to legends, bring illness into the house. It was impossible to cut down the trees that grew on the road and along the roads. Such trees were considered "violent" and in a frame such logs, according to legend, can fall out of the walls and crush the owners of the house.

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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 paper bill was placed under each corner, a piece of wool from a sheep or a small skein of woolen yarn was placed in another piece of wool, 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 signified its wealth, family warmth, well-fed life and holiness in later life.

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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 a characteristic feature of the people's dwelling.

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

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The Russian hut was either a "four-walled" (simple cage), or "five-walled" (a cage partitioned off by a wall inside - a "cut"). During the construction of the hut, auxiliary rooms were added to the main volume of the cage ("porch", "canopy", "yard", "bridge" between the hut and the yard, etc.). In Russian lands, not spoiled by heat, they tried to put the whole complex of buildings together, to press them together.

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There were three types of organization of the complex of buildings that made up the courtyard. A single large two-story house for several related families under one roof was called a "purse". If the utility rooms were attached to the side and the whole house took the form of the letter "G", then it was called a "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 it was a "timber".

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The porch of the hut was usually followed by a "canopy" (canopy - a shadow, a shaded place). They were arranged so that the door did not open directly to the street, and the heat did not come out of the hut in winter. The front part of the building, together with the porch and the entryway, was called in ancient times "sprout".

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

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The house was rarely built by everyone for himself. Usually the whole world ("society") was invited to the construction. The forest was harvested back in winter, while there is no sap flow in the trees, and construction began in early spring. After the laying of the first crown of the log house, the first meal "pomochanam" ("salary meal") was arranged. Such treats are an echo of ancient ritual feasts, which were often held with sacrifices.

After the "salary treat" they began to arrange a log house. At the beginning of summer, after the laying of the ceiling mats, a new ritual treat for the pomochans followed. Then they proceeded to the installation of the roof. Having reached the top, having laid down the skate, they arranged a new, "ridge" meal. And after the completion of construction at the very beginning of autumn - a feast.

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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, a hole for a cat has been made in the thick doors in the canopy at the bottom.

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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 was released 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 substances that cause cancer.

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The floors in the huts were earthen. Only with the spread in Russia of saws and sawmills in cities and in the houses of landowners began to appear wooden floors. Initially, the floors were laid from planks made from logs split in half, or from a massive thick floorboard. However, plank floors began to spread en masse only in the 18th century, since sawmill production 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 Peter's decree "On the training of woodcutters to cut firewood" in 1748. Until the twentieth century, the floors in the peasant hut were earthen, that is, the leveled land was simply trampled down. Sometimes the top layer was smeared with clay mixed with manure, which prevented the formation of cracks.

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Logs for Russian huts were prepared from November-December, chopping down tree trunks in a circle and letting them dry on the vine (standing up) over the winter. The trees were chopped up and the logs were taken out even in the snow before the spring thaw. When cutting the cages, the logs were laid with the northern, denser side outward, so that the wood cracked less and better withstood the effects of the atmosphere. Coins, wool and incense were placed in the corners of the house along the construction so that its inhabitants lived healthy, prosperity and warmth.

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

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

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In the old days, the 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 heaped up with heaps of straw.

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Numerous patterns of the Russian hut served (and serve) not so much decoration 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, heavenly abyss (various wavy lines), weaving and knots.

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The hut was installed directly on the ground or on poles. Oak logs, large stones or stumps, on which the frame stood, were brought under the corners. 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, the embankment or embankment was dug in some places to create ventilation.

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

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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 off roots to protect the tree from decay. In the dictionary of V. I. Dal it is said that "kur" is the rafters on peasant huts. In swampy places, huts were built on such rafters. In Moscow, one of the ancient wooden churches was called "Nikola on Chicken Legs", because because of the swampy area it stood on stumps.

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

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

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

Chicken legs are just a "translation mistake".

The Slavs called the hemp "chicken (chicken) legs", on which the hut was placed, that is, the house of Baba Yaga originally stood only on smoked hemp. 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 were found even 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 heating. In other settlements, they continued to be built until the 19th century.

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