Arba - what is it?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

What do a medieval leather-wrapped wagon, an elegant 19th-century carriage, and a modern aircraft have in common? All of them are different types of vehicles. For thousands of years, mankind has been inventing new and improving the modes of transport already known to it. One of them is a cart.

What encyclopedias say

Etymological and explanatory dictionaries refer us to the Turkic peoples. It was from them that the Europeans borrowed the word "arba". This happened so long ago that today it has become an integral part of many languages, in particular Russian. But what did the Tatars, Tajiks or Turks mean by it?

It turns out that's what they called a tall two-wheeled cart, and the driver who drove it - an arbakesh. It is noteworthy that such wagons had wheels without spokes. In this design, they resembled the chariots used in Asia as early as the second millennium BC.

Most often donkeys or oxen were harnessed to the cart. Perhaps Pushkin met such a wagon in the Caucasus in 1829, traveling to Arzrum. The body of Alexander, who died in Persia, was transported to Tiflis on this cart. Griboedova.

Not two, but four

Two-wheeled carts in the Caucasus have been in use for quite a long time, until the last century. However, over time, the meaning of the word "arba" has changed somewhat. They began to be called long carts with four, and not with two wheels, and with ordinary spokes. They are still used, for example, in the south of Ukraine.

However, based on the description, we can say that an arba is a cart that can be found in rural areas not only in Asia or Europe, but also in America, whether it be the northern or southern continent. It is noteworthy that such carts come with both two and four wheels. They still harness oxen to transport grain and other agricultural products. True, these wagons are not called arba. Although what does it matter if they are used for the same purpose as the carts of the Turkic peoples of the past.