A person's entire 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 talked about in fairy tales, they write poems about them and come up with riddles.
What household items 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 thing.
Russian hut
It is impossible to imagine the objects 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 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 we althy 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 room for icons in the red corner.
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 it had various niches and shelves, various dishes were stored here.
Food cooked in a Russian oven is extremely tasty and fragrant. Here you can cook: delicious andrich 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 there were always people. 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 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 put together a lot of 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.
Grip - 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. We took care of the grips and tried to handle them very carefully.
Pomelo is a special broom used to sweep away 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.
Kocherga, fork, broom - should have been at hand when cooking in the Russian oven.
Chest -to store 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 took him with her to her husband's house.
There were a lot of curious traditions associated with the chest. Here are some of them:
- Girls were not allowed to give their chest to someone else, otherwise you 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 we alth and good fortune.
- Before marriage, the bride's relatives sat on the chest and demanded a dowry ransom.
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 things familiar to us:
Broom - golik.
A closet or small closed room was called a cage.
The place where large domestic animals lived - a flock.
Towel - rukoternik or utirka.
The place where they washed their hands is a washstand.
The box where the clothes were stored - the chest.
Place to sleep - half.
A wooden block with a short handle, designed for ironing linen in the old days - rubel.
Big cup for pouring drinks - valley.
Folk household items of 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 in the early 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 uncomfortable 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 folk beliefs, symbolized a long and happy life.
- Spinning wheels 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 on the otherlike.
- Folk household items for children - homemade 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.
Do-it-yourself 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 disappeared from everyday life
- Chest for storing clothes.
- Rouble for ironing linen.
- Shop - the object on which they sat.
- Samovar.
- Spinning wheel and spindle.
- Gramophone.
- Cast iron iron.
A few words in conclusion
Studying household items, 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.
