Dwellings of the peoples of the world: booth, wigwam, Russian hut, igloo, hut, hut. Traditional dwellings of different peoples

From time immemorial Slavic peoples (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Serbs, Poles, etc.) were treated as an important and significant event. At the same time, our ancestors sought to solve not only a practical problem, that is, to provide overhead, but also to organize the living space so that it was filled with peace, warmth, love and other blessings of life. And this, according to the ancient Slavs, could only be built by following ancient traditions and covenants. In the previous article we talked about , and today we will talk about ground-based - huts, huts and huts.

Izba - the first above-ground dwelling of the Northern Slavs

The first land-based ones appeared among the Slavs approximately in the 9th-10th centuries, and the name “izba” itself was recorded in ancient Russian chronicles dating back to the 10th century. Initially, log huts appeared in the northern regions of Slavic settlements, where the ground was very damp, swampy or deeply frozen. All these factors did not make it possible to equip warm semi-underground and underground ones.

First Slavic huts, as a rule, consisted of one insulated room-cage, to which in some cases there was an entryway. The wooden hut was equipped with a door and a small window up to 40 cm in size, which was closed with a wooden plank and was most often used for.

In winter, the main part of the family’s life took place in the hut; young cattle were kept here. If the stove did not have a pipe, then it was called "chicken hut", and the house with a chimney stove was called "white hut". The hut could have a lower floor (basement) or do without it. The internal layout of the room depended on the position of the stove: diagonally from it there was a “red” or front corner, below there was a wooden box, and on the side under the ceiling there were floors.

Mostly, the walls of the hut were built from logs, the roof could be thatched or wooden, the windows could be slanted (with frames) or woven (cut into the logs). For this purpose they usually used okhlupen (carved skate); the façade was decorated with window frames, towels and pedestals; walls, doors, ceiling and stoves are characteristic Slavic ornaments in the form of animals, birds, plants and geometric patterns.

By the way, the carved ridge on the roof was not used by the Slavs for beauty. The fact is that, thus, the Slavs brought a “construction sacrifice” to the Gods in the form of a hut in the shape of a horse: the four corners are the legs, the house is the body, the horse is the head. Such a sacrifice symbolized the creation of something intelligently organized from primeval chaos (wood). Often, a tail made of bast was also tied to the back of the horse - in this case, the dwelling, according to the Slavs, was completely likened to a horse. In addition, archaeological excavations have shown that the very first huts were decorated not with carved skates, but with real horse skulls.

Over time, the size of the hut increased: in addition to the hut itself, there was also an upper room, which was separated from the main housing by a wall. These were called “five-walled”. In the northern regions, six-walled and double huts began to appear, representing two independent log cabins, having a common canopy and covered with a common roof. Often, light galleries were adjacent to the huts, which connected residential buildings, storerooms and workshops, which made it possible to move from one room to another without going outside.

Slavic houses could have several options for blocking the utility part from. This could be a single-row connection, which was called "under one horse"(that is, the household and living quarters were under one roof); two-row communication - "two horses"(the utility yard and the hut were covered with separate roofs with parallel ridges); three-row connection - "for three horses"(the hut, outbuilding and yard stood side by side and were covered with separate roofs with three parallel ridges). most often they were gable, but hip or hip-shaped roofs could also be found.

Hut - traditional dwelling of the South Slavic peoples

To some extent, a hut is akin to a hut, with the difference that more solid and insulated huts were built mainly in the northern regions of Slavic settlements, while in the southern regions (in Ukraine, Belarus and partly in Poland) huts - lighter types - predominated . The huts could be made of wicker, logs, adobe, etc. Inside and outside, they were usually coated with clay and whitewashed. Like the hut, the hut usually had a living room with a stove, a canopy and a utility block.

The main difference between a hut and a hut is that it is built not from whole, but from half or other lumber, which is then coated with adobe - a mixture of straw, horse manure and clay. It should be noted here that adobe is not at all mandatory element huts: in more prosperous villages and in later times, huts could be upholstered with roofing iron and painted in bright colors(most often a combination of blue and white). The traditional adobe hut was coated with white clay or whitewashed with chalk outside and inside.

It is curious that by the word “hut” the Slavs meant not only the hut itself, but also its parts - there were such concepts as back and front hut. The back hut was half of the house, the windows of which overlooked the courtyard. The front hut had windows facing the street. The back and front huts were usually separated from each other using either a simpler and rougher Ukrainian stove, which stood in the middle of the room, and/or a wall partition in the form of a wicker or wooden frame coated with clay. At the same time, the front hut played the role of a ceremonial room, intended for meeting guests, relaxing and placing icons, and the back one carried the economic load - food was prepared here, and in severe frosts young livestock could be warmed up. In some cases, the part of the back hut adjacent to the stove was fenced off with a separate partition and got something similar to a separate kitchen.

Usually the hut was equipped with thatch, which protected the home from snow and rain, but at the same time provided natural ventilation of the room. An indispensable element of all huts were shutters that could be closed in hot and sunny weather. In rich dwellings the floor was made of planks (with a high underground), in poorer ones it was earthen. As for the materials for building walls, their choice largely depended on the natural conditions of a particular area. For example, in Ukraine, forest reserves are quite scarce, so when building houses (most often mud huts) they tried to use less wood.

Man has always strived for warmth and comfort, for inner peace. Even the most avid adventurers, who are always attracted by the horizons, sooner or later return to home. People of different nationalities and religions have always created their homes, taking into account the beauty and convenience that they could imagine being in certain natural conditions. Amazing shapes buildings, materials from which the dwelling was built and interior decoration can tell a lot about its owners.

The human home is a pure reflection of nature. Initially, the shape of the house comes from an organic feeling. It has an inner necessity, like a bird's nest, a bee hive, or a clam shell. Every feature of the forms of existence and customs, family and marriage life, in addition, the tribal routine - all this is reflected in the main rooms and plan of the house - in the upper room, vestibule, atrium, megaron, kemenate, courtyard, gyneceum.

BORDEY


Bordei is a traditional half-dugout in Romania and Moldova, covered with a thick layer of straw or reeds. Such a dwelling saved from significant temperature changes during the day, as well as from strong winds. There was a fireplace on the clay floor, but the stove was heated black: the smoke came out through a small door. This is one of the oldest types of housing in this part of Europe.

AIL "WOODEN YURTA"


Ail (“wooden yurt”) is the traditional dwelling of the Telengits, the people of Southern Altai. A log hexagonal structure with an earthen floor and a high roof covered with birch bark or larch bark. There is a fireplace in the middle of the earthen floor.

SHOW


Balagan is the winter home of the Yakuts. Sloping walls made of thin poles coated with clay were strengthened on a log frame. The low, sloping roof was covered with bark and earth. Pieces of ice were inserted into small windows. The entrance is oriented to the east and covered with a canopy. On the western side, a cattle shed was attached to the booth.

VALKARAN


Valkaran (“house of whale jaws” in Chukchi) is a dwelling among the peoples of the Bering Sea coast (Eskimos, Aleuts and Chukchi). A semi-dugout with a frame made of large whale bones, covered with earth and turf. It had two entrances: the summer one - through a hole in the roof, the winter one - through a long semi-underground corridor.

WIGWAM


Wigwam – common name dwellings of the forest Indians of North America. Most often it is a dome-shaped hut with a hole for smoke to escape. The frame of the wigwam was made of curved thin trunks and covered with bark, reed mats, skins or pieces of fabric. From the outside, the covering was additionally pressed with poles. Wigwams can be either round in plan or elongated and have several smoke holes (such structures are called “long houses”). The cone-shaped dwellings of the Great Plains Indians - "teepees" - are often mistakenly called wigwams. The dwelling was not intended to be moved, however, if necessary, it was easily assembled and then erected in a new place.

IGLOO


Truly an amazing invention. It was invented by the Alaskan Eskimos. You understand that in Alaska, not everything is good with building materials, but people have always used what they had at hand and in large quantities. And in Alaska, ice is always at hand. That is why the Eskimos began to build themselves domed houses from ice slabs. Everything inside was covered with skins for warmth. This idea really appealed to the residents of Finland, a northern country where there is also plenty of snow. There are restaurants there built on the principle of igloos, and even competitions are held in which participants assemble igloos from ice blocks as quickly as possible.

KAZHUN


Kazhun is a stone structure traditional for Istria (a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea, in the northern part of Croatia). The cajun is cylindrical in shape with a conical roof. No windows. The construction was carried out using the dry masonry method (without the use of a binding solution). Initially it served as a dwelling, but later began to play the role of an outbuilding.

MINKA


Minka is the traditional home of Japanese peasants, artisans and merchants. The minka was built from readily available materials: bamboo, clay, grass and straw. Instead of internal walls, sliding partitions or screens were used. This allowed the inhabitants of the house to change the layout of the rooms at their discretion. The roofs were made very high so that snow and rain would roll off immediately and the straw would not have time to get wet.
Since many Japanese of simple origin were engaged in raising silkworms, when building a dwelling, it was taken into account that the main space in the room was allocated for silkworming.

KLOČAN


A clochan is a domed stone hut common in the southwest of Ireland. Very thick, up to one and a half meters, walls were laid out “dry”, without a binder mortar. Narrow slits-windows, an entrance and a chimney were left. Such simple huts were built for themselves by monks leading an ascetic lifestyle, so you can’t expect much comfort inside.

PALLASO


Pallasso - type of dwelling in Galicia (northwest Iberian Peninsula). A stone wall was laid out in a circle with a diameter of 10-20 meters, leaving openings for front door and small windows. A cone-shaped straw roof was placed on top of a wooden frame. Sometimes large pallasos had two rooms: one for living, the other for livestock. Pallasos were used as housing in Galicia until the 1970s.

IKUKWANE


Ikukwane is a large domed reed house of the Zulus (South Africa). They built it from long thin twigs, tall grass, and reeds. All this was intertwined and strengthened with ropes. The entrance to the hut was closed with a special shield. Travelers believe that Ikukwane fits perfectly into the surrounding landscape.

RONDAVEL


Rondavel – round house Bantu peoples (southern Africa). The walls were made of stone. The cementing composition consisted of sand, earth and manure. The roof was made of poles made of branches, to which bundles of reeds were tied with grass ropes.

SMOKE


Kuren (from the word “to smoke,” which means “to smoke”) is the home of the Cossacks, the “free troops” of the Russian kingdom in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Don, Yaik, and Volga. The first Cossack settlements arose in plavny (river reed thickets). The houses stood on stilts, the walls were made of wicker, filled with earth and coated with clay, the roof was reed with a hole for smoke to escape. The features of these first Cossack dwellings can be traced in modern kurens.

SAKLYA


Stone dwelling of the Caucasian highlanders. Built from clay and ceramic bricks, the roof is flat, narrow windows, similar to loopholes. It was both a dwelling and a kind of fortress. It could be multi-story, or it could be built of clay and have no windows. An earthen floor and a fireplace in the middle are the modest decoration of such a house.

PUEBLITO


Pueblito is a small fortified house in the northwestern US state of New Mexico. 300 years ago they were allegedly built by the Navajo and Pueblo tribes, who defended themselves from the Spaniards, as well as from the Ute and Comanche tribes. The walls are made of boulders and cobblestones and held together with clay. Interior also covered with clay coating. The ceilings are made of pine or juniper beams, on top of which rods are laid. Pueblitos were located on high places within sight of each other to enable long-distance communication.

TRULLO


Trullo – original house with a conical roof in the Italian region of Apulia. The walls of the trullo are very thick, so it is cool there in hot weather, but not so cold in winter. The trullo is two-tiered; one ascends to the second floor by ladder. Often a trullo had several cone roofs, under each of which there was a separate room.


An Italian dwelling, now classified as a monument. The house is notable for the fact that it was built using the “dry masonry” method, that is, simply from stones. This was not done by accident. This construction was not very reliable. If one stone was pulled out, it could completely fall apart. And all because in certain areas the houses were built illegally and could be easily liquidated in case of any claims from the authorities.

LEPA - LEPA


Lepa-lepa - boat-house of the Badjao people South-East Asia. The Badjao, "sea gypsies" as they are called, spend their entire lives on boats in the Pacific Ocean's "Coral Triangle" - between Borneo, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands. In one part of the boat they cook food and store gear, and in the other they sleep. They go to land only to sell fish, buy rice, water and fishing gear, and also to bury the dead.

TYPI


Dwellings of Native Americans. This structure was portable and was built from poles, which were covered with reindeer skins on top. In the center there was a fireplace, around which the sleeping places were concentrated. A hole for smoke was always left in the roof. It’s hard to believe, but even now people who support the traditions of the indigenous population of America still live in such huts.

DIAOLOU


Diaolou - fortified multi-storey building in Guangdong province in southern China. The first diaolou were built during the Ming Dynasty, when gangs of robbers operated in Southern China. In later and relatively safe times such fortified houses were built simply following tradition.

HOGAN


Hogan – ancient dwelling Navajo Indians, one of the largest Indian peoples in North America. A frame of poles placed at an angle of 45° to the ground was intertwined with branches and thickly coated with clay. Often a “hallway” was added to this simple structure. The entrance was curtained with a blanket. After the first railroad passed through Navajo territory, the design of the hogan changed: the Indians found it very convenient to build their houses from sleepers.

YURT


Housing for nomads - Mongols, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz. Why is it convenient in conditions of steppes and deserts? Assembling and disassembling such a house takes a couple of hours. The base is built from poles and covered with mats on top. Shepherds still use such buildings to this day. Maybe, many years of experience suggests that good is not sought from good.

SLAVIC IZBA


Log house, Slavic construction. The hut was assembled from logs (the so-called log house), the logs were laid according to a certain principle. The stove was being fired up in the house. The hut was heated in black. They began to install a chimney on the roof later, and then the smoke was removed from the house through it. The log houses could be dismantled, sold and laid out again, erecting new house from an old log house. This method is still used by summer residents.

NORTH RUSSIAN IZBA


The hut in the Russian North was built on two floors. The upper floor is residential, the lower (“basement”) is utility. Servants, children, and yard workers lived in the basement; there were also rooms for livestock and storage of supplies. The basement was built with blank walls, without windows or doors. External staircase led directly to the second floor. This saved us from being covered with snow: in the North there are snowdrifts several meters deep! A covered courtyard was attached to such a hut. Long cold winters forced residential and outbuildings to be combined into a single whole.

VARDO


Vardo is a gypsy tent, a real one-room house on wheels. It has a door and windows, a stove for cooking and heating, a bed, and drawers for things. At the back, under the folding side, there is a drawer for storing kitchen utensils. Below, between the wheels, there is luggage, removable steps and even a chicken coop! The entire cart is light enough that it could be pulled by one horse. Vardo was decorated with skillful carvings and painted with bright colors. Vardo flourished at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

YAODONG


Yaodong is a cave house of the Loess Plateau of the northern provinces of China. Loess is a soft, easy-to-work rock. Local residents discovered this long ago and from time immemorial have dug their homes right into the hillside. The inside of such a house is comfortable in any weather.

TRADITIONAL HOUSING OF THE BONGU PEOPLE

SODD HOUSE


The turf house has been a traditional building in Iceland since the days of the Vikings. Its design was determined by the harsh climate and the shortage of wood. Large flat stones were laid out on the site of the future house. It was placed on them wooden frame, which was covered with turf in several layers. They lived in one half of such a house, and kept livestock in the other.

No matter how ridiculous the structure may seem, it is a home for the one who built it. People lived in these strange buildings: they loved, created families, suffered and died. Life flowed through the houses of these people, history with all its features, events and miracles.

The Slavs took the construction of a new house very seriously, because they had to live in it for many years. The location for the future home and the trees for construction were selected in advance. The best wood pine or spruce was considered: the house made from it was strong, the logs gave off a pleasant pine smell, and people in such a house got sick less often. If there was no coniferous forest nearby, then oak or larch was cut down. Construction began late autumn. Men from all over the village felled the forest and built it right on the edge of the forest. log house without windows and doors, which remained standing until early spring. This was done so that the logs would “settle down” over the winter and get used to each other.

In early spring, the log house was dismantled and moved to the chosen location. The perimeter of the future house was marked directly on the ground using a rope. For the foundation, a hole 20-25 cm deep was dug around the perimeter of the house, filled with sand, and covered with stone blocks or tarred logs. Later they began to use a brick foundation. Birch bark layers were laid on top in a dense layer; they did not allow water to pass through and protected the house from dampness. Sometimes a quadrangular log crown was used as a foundation, installed around the perimeter of the house, and log walls were laid on top of it. According to old pagan customs, which even today Russian people coexist with the true Christian faith, a piece of wool (for warmth), coins (for wealth and prosperity), and incense (for holiness) were placed under each corner of the crown.

When building a house, even the number of logs in the walls mattered; it varied depending on the customs accepted in the area. There were many ways to fasten logs at the corners, but the most common were two - the log house “in the claw” and “in the paw”. The first method left uneven projections in the corners of the house, which were called residue. We are familiar with such houses from childhood from illustrations to Russian folk tales. But the protruding parts of the logs in the huts had a special meaning - they protected the corners of the house from freezing in the frosty winter. But the log house “in the paw” made it possible to expand the space of the house. With this method, the logs were connected to each other at the very ends, it was much more difficult, so this method was used less often. In any case, the logs fit very tightly to each other, and for greater thermal insulation, the cracks were pierced with moss and caulked.

The sloping roof was lined with wood chips, straw, and aspen planks. No matter how strange it may be, the most durable was the thatched roof, because it was filled with liquid clay, dried in the sun and became strong. A log was laid along the roof, decorated with skillful carvings on the facade, most often it was a horse or a rooster. It was a kind of amulet that protected the house from harm. Before you start finishing works, a small hole was left in the roof of the house for several days; it was believed that through it the evil spirits should fly out of the house. The floor was covered with halves of logs from the door to the window. Between the foundation and the floor there was a space that served as a subfloor for storing food (basement); here the owner could set up a workshop, and in winter the cattle were kept in the basement. The room itself was called a cage, it could be entered through a low door with a high threshold; the windows in a Russian hut were small, usually there were three on the front side and one on the side.

A Russian hut usually had one room. The main place in it was occupied by the stove. The larger the stove, the more heat it provided; in addition, food was cooked in the stove, and old people and children slept on it. Many rituals and beliefs were associated with the stove. It was believed that a brownie lived behind the stove. It was impossible to wash dirty linen in public, and it was burned in the oven.
When matchmakers came to the house, the girl climbed onto the stove and from there watched the conversation between her parents and the guests. When they called her, she got off the stove, and this meant that she agreed to get married, and the wedding invariably ended with an empty pot being thrown into the stove: the number of shards that broke, the number of children the young people would have.

Next to the stove there was the so-called “woman’s corner”. Here women prepared food, did handicrafts, and stored dishes. It was separated from the room by a curtain and was called “kut” or “zakut”. The opposite corner was called “red”, holy, there was an icon and a lamp hanging here. In the same corner there was a dining table with benches. Wide shelves were nailed along the walls under the ceiling; on them were festive dishes and boxes that served as decoration for the house, or to store things needed in the household. In the corner between the stove and the door under the ceiling there was a wide shelf - a shelf.

IN ancient Russian hut there was not much furniture: the already mentioned table, benches along the walls, on which they not only sat, but also slept, a small open cupboard for dishes, several massive chests lined with iron strips for storing clothes and linen - that, perhaps, was the whole furnishings . The floors were covered with knitted or woven rugs, and outerwear served as blankets.

By old tradition The cat was allowed into the house first, and only then did they enter themselves. In addition, hot coals in a pot were taken from the old house, as a symbol of the hearth, and a brownie in a bast shoe or felt boot, icons and bread were brought.

Simple peasants lived log cabins, and the boyars and princes built larger houses for themselves and decorated them more richly - towers and chambers. A tower was a high and bright living space built above a vestibule or simply on a high basement. A staircase with a high porch, decorated with carvings and resting on carved wooden posts, led to the mansion.
The room itself was often painted and also decorated with carvings, in big windows Forged grilles were inserted, and the high roof was even covered with real gilding. In the mansion there were upper rooms and little rooms, in which, according to folk tales, beautiful maidens lived and spent all their time doing needlework. But there were, of course, other rooms in the mansion, connected by passages and stairs.

Until the 16th century, houses in Ancient Rus' were wooden, they often burned, so that practically nothing remained from the buildings of those times. In the 16th century, stone buildings appeared, and then brick ones. They are built on the same principle as wooden houses, even stone carving repeats the motifs characteristic of wooden architecture, but for several centuries the common people preferred to live in log huts. It was more familiar, healthier, and cheaper.

A lot of time has passed since people used only natural shelters for their lives. Man developed, his way of life changed. The first human dwellings appeared, which he built specifically for his residence.

What were the first houses made of?

Today everyone is accustomed to the fact that it is possible to purchase any material for building a house. You can even order material from the other side of the world. Just pay for the services - they will deliver with pleasure. But it was not always so. Just as there was not always mail, steamships and railways for transporting goods.

In those distant times in question, peoples lived separately from each other. There was practically no trade. And the materials for building the dwelling had to be used from those that were in abundance nearby. Or those that could be adapted for construction without significant effort.

The building material used also influenced the shape of the first dwelling. Therefore, different parts of the planet have formed their own special types of human habitations. Despite their existing diversity, they also have significant similarities. But these similarities are due to the ease of making housing. Why complicate things when you can make them simple?

In steppe, semi-desert, and tundra areas, dwellings appeared that were made like huts. They were made from branches of bushes and trees and covered with grass, animal skins and other materials. They were built in North America, Central Asia, and Siberia. Such housing was called: wigwam, yurt, tent, and so on.

In semi-desert, desert areas, houses were built from materials that were underfoot. There were no others. This is a well-known material – clay. The walls of buildings were erected from it, and vaults were made. If wood could be found, the base of the roof was made from it and covered with reeds, grass or other materials. Such housing was called adobe housing.

If straw was added to the clay, then such houses were called adobe. Usually these were small structures rectangular or round in plan. Their height was small - the height of a person. Such housing was built in Central Asia and Africa.

In mountainous and rocky areas, stone was used for construction. In fact, what else can a house be built from here? Walls were built from it. The roof was made of wood or also of stone. An example of such a structure is the Georgian saklya. In addition, caves continued to be built in the mountains. Only for this purpose cavities were specially cut out in the rocks.

And such caves over time looked more and more like ordinary rooms and apartments. For example, in Italy there are entire ancient cities in the rocks. In some areas, entire secret cities were built in caves to protect against conquerors. In the Turkish region of Cappadocia, well-preserved underground cities were recently discovered, in which thousands of people could hide and live.

In forest and taiga areas, where wood was abundant, houses were built from it. Here we can mention the chopped Russian hut, the Ukrainian hut. In Europe, wood was also used for construction. These are the so-called chalets, which means a shepherd's house. In general, forests in one form or another were used for construction by many peoples of the world in different parts of the world.

Well, where there was no forest, and a thick layer of ice prevented access to the clay, the buildings were made from it. This custom existed in Greenland. There, dwellings were built from dense snow or ice. These houses were called igloos.

On the other side of the globe, where, unlike Greenland, it was necessary to escape not from the cold, but from the heat, light structures were built. In the deserts of Arabia they lived in tents, and in Africa - in buildings woven from branches. It was not hot in such buildings. They were well ventilated around the clock.

Types of human housing depending on lifestyle

The way of life of peoples also had a significant influence on the appearance of his home. In those distant times, there were two ways of life for people. Those who worked agriculture, led a sedentary lifestyle. They lived in their area permanently. And, accordingly, their houses were reliable and massive. Such houses were sometimes even successfully used to protect against uninvited guests.

Unlike farmers, pastoralists and hunters led a nomadic lifestyle. They had no need to build reliable heavy houses. After all, they had to be moved from place to place from time to time. Therefore, lightweight collapsible buildings were built. A little later, some peoples began to use not only collapsible houses, but houses that could be moved on wheels.

The housing stock of modern Russian villages has been developing over a long period of time. In some villages and hamlets there are still dwellings built at the end and even in the middle of the 19th century; Many buildings erected at the beginning of the 20th century have been preserved. In general, in most Russian villages, houses built before the Great October Revolution make up a relatively small percentage. To understand the developmental changes currently taking place traditional forms housing, as well as the process of formation of new features of housing construction, it is necessary to give an idea of ​​the main features of Russian rural housing, traced in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Characteristic features of traditional Russian housing in different areas countries

The diverse nature of Russia, various social, economic and historical conditions contributed to the creation different types Russian housing, assigned to a particular territory by a certain local ethnic tradition. Along with general features, characteristic of all Russian houses, in different areas of Russian settlement there were features that manifested themselves in the position of the house in relation to the street, in the building material, in the covering, in the height and internal layout buildings, in the forms of yard development. Many local features of housing developed back in the feudal era and reflect the cultural characteristics of certain ethnographic groups.

In the middle of the 19th century. In the vast territory of Russian settlement, large areas stood out, distinguished by the characteristics of rural residential buildings. There were also smaller areas with less significant uniqueness of housing, as well as zones of distribution of mixed forms of housing.

In the northern villages of Russia - in Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Olonets, as well as in the northern districts of Tver and Yaroslavl provinces - large log buildings were erected, which included residential and utility premises in one whole, placed with a narrow end facade perpendicular to the street. A characteristic feature of the northern dwelling was the high height of the entire building. Due to the harsh northern climate, the floor of living quarters was raised above the ground to a considerable height. The crosscuts (beams) of the floor were cut into the sixth to tenth crown, depending on the thickness of the logs. The space under the floor was called the basement, or podzbitsa; it reached a considerable height (1.5-3 m) and was used for various household needs: keeping poultry and young livestock, storing vegetables, food, and various utensils. Often the basement was made residential. Directly adjacent to the living quarters was a courtyard, covered with the same roof and forming a single whole with the housing (“house - courtyard”). In the covered courtyard, all utility rooms were combined into one unit under a common roof and were closely adjacent to the housing. The spread of the covered courtyard in the northern and central non-black soil provinces of Russia was due to the harsh climate and long snowy winters, which forced residential and outbuildings to be combined into one whole.

Covered courtyards in the north, as well as living quarters, were built high and arranged on two floors. The lower floor housed cattle sheds, and top floor(poveti) kept feed for livestock, household equipment, means of transportation, and various household items; small unheated log cabins were also built there - cages (gorenki), in which the family's household property was stored, and in the summer they lived married couples. Outside, an inclined log flooring was attached to the poveti - a drive-in (import). The covered courtyard was closely adjacent to the rear wall of the house, and the entire building stretched perpendicular to the street, in one line, forming a “single-row connection”, or “single-row type of development”. In northern buildings there was also a type of “two-row” building, in which the house and the covered courtyard were placed parallel, close to each other. In Zaonezhye, the so-called wallet house was widespread, in which the courtyard, built on the side, was wider than the hut and covered with one of the elongated slopes of its roof. There were also “verb-shaped” buildings, when a courtyard was added to the back and side walls of a house placed perpendicular to the street, as if enveloping the house on both sides.

On a vast territory, which included all the northern, western, eastern and central Russian provinces of the European part of Russia, as well as in the Russian villages of Siberia, housing was covered gable roof. The roof covering material depended on local capabilities. In the northern forest provinces, huts were covered with planks, shingles, and at the beginning of the 20th century, also with wood chips.

The most ancient and characteristic design of a gable roof, which survived especially for a long time in the north, was the male one (roof with a cut, a notch, on bulls, on males). In the design of such a roof, chickens served an important practical purpose - naturally curved spruce rhizomes that supported streams, or water inlets, that is, gutters into which the ends of the roof planks rested. An important constructive role was played by brackets (falls, help, gaps), arranged from the outlets of the upper logs of the longitudinal walls and supporting the corners of the roof, as well as okhlupen (gielom) - a massive log, oppressing the roof shingles with its weight. All these details gave a peculiar beauty and picturesqueness to the peasant building, due to which in a number of places their construction was caused not only by practical, but also by decorative considerations. IN late XIX-beginning of the 20th century The male roof structure is replaced by a rafter roof.

Several windows were cut on the facade of tall log huts in northern villages; The building was enlivened by a porch at the entrance to the house, a balcony on the chopped pediment and a gallery, often encircling the entire house at the window level. Using a knife and an ax, the rounded ends of chickens, streams, fellings, and ohlupnya were given plastic sculptural forms of animals, birds and various geometric shapes; The image of a horse's head was especially characteristic.

The architectural appearance of the northern hut is extremely beautiful and picturesque. The flat plank surfaces of window frames, piers (boards used to cover the protruding ends of the roof), valances (boards running along the eaves), towels (boards covering the joint of the roof), porches, balcony gratings were decorated with flat geometric carvings (with low relief) or a slot. The intricate alternation of all kinds of cutouts with straight and circular lines, rhythmically following each other, made the carved boards of northern huts look like either lace or the ends of a towel made in Russian folk style. The planked surfaces of northern buildings were often painted.

Dwellings were built significantly lower and smaller in size in the Upper and Middle Volga regions, in the Moscow province, the southern part of the Novgorod province, the northern districts of the Ryazan and Penza provinces, and partially in the Smolensk and Kaluga provinces. These areas are characterized by a log house on a medium or low basement. In the northern and central parts of this zone, floor cuts were cut mainly into the fourth, sixth and even seventh crown; in the south of Moscow province. and in the Middle Volga region, a low basement predominated in the dwelling: floor cuts were cut into the second or fourth crown. In some houses of the Middle Volga region in the second half of the 19th century. one could find an earthen floor, which, in all likelihood, was a consequence of the influence of housing construction by the peoples of the Volga region, who in the past were characterized by underground housing. In the villages of Nizhny Novgorod province. rich peasants built semi-houses - wooden houses on high brick basements, which were used as a storeroom, store or workshop.

In Central Russian villages, houses were placed mainly perpendicular to the street; two, three, and sometimes more windows were cut into the front facade. The materials used to cover the gable roof were planks, shingles, and straw. Directly to the house, just like in the North, a covered courtyard was attached, but it was lower than the house, consisted of one floor and did not form a single whole with the house. In the northern regions of the Upper Volga region, especially in the Trans-Volga region, higher courtyards were built, located on the same level as the house.

In Central Russian villages, courtyards were built at the back of the house according to the type of single-row building; in rich farms, verb-shaped building was often found; The two-row type of building was especially characteristic of the Upper and Middle Volga regions. At the end of the 19th century. the double-row type of connection was gradually replaced by a more rational single-row type. This was explained by the inconvenience and cumbersomeness of two-row courtyards; Due to the accumulation of moisture at the junction of the house and outbuildings, these courtyards were damp. In more southern regions, in the Volga-Kama interfluve, in the Middle Volga region, in the Penza province. The so-called “quiet courtyard” was common. The quiet building consists of two parallel rows of buildings - a house with outbuildings attached behind it, and opposite it a row of outbuildings, which in the rear part of the yard bent at a right angle and connected with the buildings of the first row. Such a yard has significant open space; this type of development refers to the “open” or “semi-closed” type of courtyard 1.

Semi-closed courtyards constitute a kind of transition zone from an indoor courtyard to an open one (a significant part of the Moscow, Vladimir, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaluga provinces, and the Middle Volga region). To the south of this area, an open courtyard dominated.

The architectural appearance of Central Russian huts is also characterized by the richness and variety of decorations. As in the north, sculptural carvings were used to decorate the rounded ends of streams, chickens, and ohlupnya, but it did not have the bizarre artistic variety as in the northern huts, and was less common. The decoration of the roof of a peasant hut in the Yaroslavl, Kostroma and partly Nizhny Novgorod provinces was unique. two sculptural skates with their muzzles facing in different directions. The facades of Central Russian huts were decorated with flat triangular-recessed carvings with a pattern of rosettes or individual parts circle, which was usually accompanied by patterns of parallel elongated grooves. If in the north the main attention was paid to decorating the roof, then in the middle zone windows were primarily decorated. In the areas adjacent to the Volga (Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Simbirsk provinces), in the second half of the 19th century. More complex carvings with high relief and a convex rich pattern of the design (ship carving, blind carving, or chisel carving) became widespread. The ornament of relief carvings was dominated by plant patterns, as well as images of animals and fantastic creatures. Carved patterns concentrated on the pediment of the hut; they also decorated window shutters, the ends of protruding corner logs, and gates. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. labor-intensive relief and flat carvings were supplanted by sawing carvings, which were easier to execute, spreading along with a new tool - a jigsaw, which made it possible to easily and quickly cut out a variety of end-to-end patterns. The motifs of the saw-cut ornament were very diverse.

In the northeast of Russia, in the Perm and Vyatka provinces, the housing had many features similar to northern Russian and central Russian buildings, which is explained by the settlement of these areas by immigrants from the Novgorod land and the close ties of the northeast with the Volga region and the central provinces in the XIV-XVII centuries ., and similar conditions for the development of these areas. At the same time, in the northeastern dwelling some specific features. The log dwellings of the Vyatka-Perm region stood mostly perpendicular to the street and were covered with a planked gable roof, less often a hipped roof (in houses with more developed plans). In the northwestern districts of the region, taller and larger houses were built on a high basement and floor cuts were cut into the seventh crown; in the southern regions of the region, the height of the underground decreased and floor cuts were more often cut into the fourth and fifth crowns. For the dwellings of the Vyatka and Perm provinces, the most characteristic was the peculiar quiet development of the courtyard. These courtyards were closed, when the free space of the courtyard was covered with a pitched roof, semi-closed and open. In some areas of the Perm province. they arranged a quiet courtyard, called “three horses,” in which the house, the open space of the courtyard and the next row of courtyard buildings were covered with three gable parallel roofs. The external facades of the north-eastern dwelling were relatively poorly decorated.

In the western provinces of Russia - in Smolensk, Vitebsk, in the southern districts of Pskov, in the southwestern districts of Novgorod province - log huts were placed on a low (Smolensk, Vitebsk province) or middle (Pskov province) basement and covered with gable thatch, less often plank roofs. Distinctive feature appearance Western Russian hut had only one window on the front facade of the house, located perpendicular to the street, and poor decoration front facade of the hut. Carved decorations were more common in the northwestern regions (Pskov, northern districts of Novgorod province), where the huts were taller and larger in size. In the western regions (Pskov and Vitebsk provinces) a unique type of three-row estate development was common, which can simultaneously be classified as an indoor and an open type of courtyard. In a three-row building, a covered courtyard was closely adjacent to the blank side wall of the house (similar to a type of double-row connection), while on the other side of the house, at some distance from it (6-8 m), a number of outbuildings were built parallel to the house. The open space between the house and outbuildings was enclosed by a log fence. In the housing of the western provinces, features similar to the housing of the Belarusians and the peoples of the eastern Baltic regions can be traced (planizba, the presence of a hanging boiler near the stove, the construction of a log house from beams, terminology, etc.), which was a consequence of ancient historical and ethnocultural ties of the population of these areas with their western neighbors . For almost four centuries (XIV-XVII centuries) the Smolensk lands were under the rule of Lithuania, and then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

A unique type of Russian housing developed in the southern black earth provinces - Kaluga, Oryol, Kursk, Voronezh, Tambov, Tula, and in the southern districts of Ryazan and Penza provinces. Here small log huts, often coated on the outside with clay, and later adobe, arched and brick low huts without a basement with a wooden, and more often adobe or earthen floor, were built. The houses were placed with the long side along the street and covered with a hipped thatched roof truss structure. Low southern Russian huts were less picturesque and poorer in architectural decoration. One or two windows were cut through on the front facade of the hut. To protect against the summer heat and strong steppe winds, shutters were almost always installed at the windows. Brick houses often decorated with complex, bright patterns made from bricks painted in different colors, as well as relief patterns laid out from turned bricks.

In the southern provinces of Russia, an open type of courtyard was common. The courtyard buildings were located behind the house and formed a closed, open space in the center. In Ryazan, Penza, Tula, a significant part of Oryol, Kursk, Voronezh, and also in Smolensk provinces. A closed “round” courtyard was common, which differed from the resting one mainly in the longitudinal position of the house to the street. In the southern part steppe zone- in the southern districts of Kursk, Voronezh, and partly Saratov provinces, as well as in the region of the Don Army, in the Kuban and Terek regions, in the Stavropol province, among the Russians of Central Asia, an open, unenclosed courtyard was common. The open space in this courtyard occupied a significant area, on which various outbuildings were located in no particular order, not always adjacent to each other, separately from the house. The entire space of the yard was usually enclosed by a fence. The characteristic features of the dwelling are low underground huts, free development of residential and outbuildings, an abundance of straw as building material and a significantly lower value of the tree - arose in the conditions of the forest-steppe and steppe zone with dry soils and a relatively warm climate.

The residential buildings of the prosperous lower Don Cossacks presented a sharp contrast to the low southern Russian housing. Already in the middle of the 19th century. Two-story multi-room houses on a high basement were common here. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Two types of houses were built there - a “round house” (close to a square in plan), multi-room under a hipped roof, and an “outbuilding” - a rectangular house under a gable roof. The houses were made from tetrahedral beams, sheathed on the outside with planks and covered with iron or plank roofs. Cossack houses were characterized by a large number of large windows with paneled shutters and a variety architectural details. Open galleries, porches, balconies and terraces, decorated with openwork saw carvings, gave the buildings a specifically southern flavor. In the same villages most of The non-resident population and the poorest layers of the Cossacks lived in small oblong adobe and turret houses under hipped thatch or reed roofs.

Among the Kuban and Terek Cossacks and among the peasants of the Stavropol region in the middle of the 19th century. the predominant buildings were reminiscent of low Ukrainian huts - adobe and turluch, whitewashed on the outside, oblong in plan, without a basement, with an adobe floor, under a hipped thatch or reed roof. A similar type of dwelling, brought to Kuban at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. immigrants from Ukraine, influenced everything people's construction Kuban, Terek and Stavropol. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In the eastern and to a lesser extent in the western regions of Kuban, wealthy Cossack households also began to build “round”, multi-room houses, which were slightly lower and smaller than the houses of the lower Cossacks. The spread of a more advanced type of housing occurred both under the influence of developing capitalism and under the direct influence of Don traditions, since the eastern regions of the Kuban were populated to a large extent by the Don Cossacks. The housing of the Terek Cossacks developed under a certain influence of neighboring mountain peoples, for example, “mountain sakli” - huts - were erected in Cossack estates; carpets, felts and other items of mountain household utensils were used in living quarters.