The hut stands, stands without single nail. The windows are patterned, the porch is high, and there is a perky “ridge” on the roof. A hut, it is a house, it is also a work of art, uncomplicated and alien to pretentiousness.
But the hut stands sad, it stands cold and empty...it is no longer needed. The hut became a frozen monument, an example of wooden architecture. But the hut needs life: for the stove to be heated, for the children to fuss under the benches, for the porridge to be cooked and the pies to be cooked...
“I lived, I lived, I wore an ax on my bare feet, I girded myself with an ax.”
Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not build, but cut down: “cutting down a hut” means building a house. Just give an experienced carpenter an ax and he will build the hut from the basement to the roof.
No saw, no nails, no hammer—just one axe. Trees were felled for them, they were cleared of branches, they were hewn, boards were “smoothed” as if using a cord. And why did you drink? If you cut a log, the ends will fray, which means they will quickly absorb moisture and rot. When processed with an axe, on the contrary, the wood fibers are compacted and become waterproof. Yes, and nails were of no use: not only was iron forging always distinguished by its high cost, but experienced craftsman and without it, not a single log will move, firmly attached.
“The corners are chopped into a simple bowl”
A wooden hut did not need a foundation; the frame was laid directly on the ground, sometimes only large stones or stumps of large trees were tucked under the corners of the house. But the Russian hut could not do without a “basement” - an underground floor in which cattle, poultry, and food supplies were kept.
Not a log cabin, but a sight for sore eyes! One log, as if passed through another, is intertwined! How is this possible? Stepping back from the end of the log, the craftsmen made a cut down to the middle, round, like a bowl. A transverse log was placed in this cutting. Four logs, squared together in this way, formed a crown.
On the first crown they placed a second, a third, and so on all the way to the roof. To avoid cracks, the carpenter fitted the logs to each other as tightly as possible, cutting out a longitudinal groove in each upper log, a groove that fit tightly to the lower one. And for thermal insulation, moss was laid between the logs - everything here is simple and, it would seem, rough, rough, but still strong and reliable.
And most importantly: the craftsman carpenters could put together such a hut in just one daylight hours, and, if necessary, dismantle it and transport it to a new place in order to rebuild it again. But it's time to get to work on the roof!
“The chicken is on the chicken, and the little Russian is on the street”
A wooden frame, the future hut, was proudly drawn. He is waiting for triangular log gables, the so-called “tongs,” to be erected over its end walls. They will bear the full weight of the under-roof structures: “beds”, “kokory”, “flows”. And again, without a single nail, using only one ax, the craftsmen manage to create the unimaginable - a roof!
Just look: parallel to the side walls, longitudinal horizontal logs - “legs” - are cut into the logs of the tongs, and across them are laid out “cocors” or “chickens” - thin trunks of young spruce trees with rhizomes sticking out at the end.
As if proud birds, the “hens” look with the outlines of their rhizome heads at the world around them, they are about to fly up and disappear - they were the only ones they saw!
On the ends of the “hens” that bend upward, a long log with a hollowed out tray is laid - a “flow”, also known as a drain, which is also the support of the entire roof. It is against the “flow” that the lower ends of the roofing boards and gorges rest, and the upper ends, at the junction of both roof slopes, are secured with a heavy log – “ohlupnem”.
The “stupid” has climbed high, to the very top, and, as if arching a horse’s head, looks forward with its outer ends. And take a master carpenter and bring the curves of the silhouette to perfection - and then the “horse” that crowns the creation is ready!
“It cheers in the spring, cools in the summer, nourishes in the fall, warms in the winter”
In Rus', rich in endless, dense forests, from ancient times houses were built from wood, but they did not build, but “cut down”, as we have already seen. And after all, apart from an axe, harvested, pre-dried wood and a skilled, handy craftsman, nothing was needed. So it worked out: firstly, it was cheap; secondly, quickly - wood, unlike stone, is easy to process; thirdly, it is hygienic!
A tree, like any other living organism, breathes, which means everyone who is in a wooden house breathes. Breathes easily and freely.
And how could it be otherwise: it is always dry and fresh, cool in the midday heat in summer, and warm in winter in severe frost. But wood has irreconcilable enemies: fire, dampness, wood-boring beetles. No matter how you cut it, no matter how you arrange it, no matter how you adjust it, it is useless - the hut cannot withstand the ages.
Do we breathe, hidden in high-rise, multi-apartment reinforced concrete buildings, which are not so afraid of fire and moisture, and, even more so, bugs? It's a hut! You will reach out your hand, touch the rough surface of the logs, and see the unique, hitherto unimaginable pattern of wood fibers. Here is the past, the future, and the present with the thought of the porridge still undercooked in the oven, the difficult winter, the upcoming spring, something else is in store.
The main tool of labor in Rus' for the ancient architect was an ax. Saws became known around the end of the 10th century and were used only in carpentry for interior work. The fact is that the saw tears the wood fibers during operation, leaving them open to water. The ax, crushing the fibers, seems to seal the ends of the logs. No wonder they still say: “cut down a hut.” And, well known to us now, they tried not to use nails. After all, around a nail, the wood begins to rot faster. As a last resort, they used wooden crutches, which modern carpenters call “dowels.”
Foundation and fastening of a wooden structure
And in ancient Rus' and in modern Russia The basis of a wooden house or bathhouse has always been and is a log house. A log house is logs fastened (“tied”) together into a quadrangle. Each row of logs in a log house, fastened together, was (and is) called a “crown.” The first row of logs that rests on the foundation is called the “uterine crown”. The uterine crown was often placed on stone shafts - a kind of foundation, which was called “ryazh”; such a foundation did not allow the house to come into contact with the ground, i.e. The log house lasted longer and did not rot.
Log houses differed from each other in the type of fastening. For outbuildings, a log frame was used (rarely laid). The logs here were not stacked tightly, but in pairs on top of each other, and often were not fastened at all.
When the logs were fastened “into a paw”, their ends did not extend beyond the walls to the outside, the corners of the log house were even. This method of cutting corners has been preserved by carpenters to this day. But it is usually used if the house will be sheathed with something on the outside (lining, siding, blockhouse, etc.) and the corners are tightly insulated, because this method of cutting corners has a slight drawback - they retain heat less than corners “ into the bowl."
Corners “into the bowl” (in the modern way) or “into the oblo” in the old fashioned way were considered the warmest and most reliable. With this method of fastening the walls, the logs extended beyond the wall and had a cross-shaped shape if you look at the frame from above. The strange name "oblo" comes from the word "obolon" ("oblon"), meaning the outer layers of a tree (cf. "to envelop, envelop, shell"). Back at the beginning of the 20th century. they said: “cut the hut into Obolon” if they wanted to emphasize that inside the hut the logs of the walls were not crowded together. However, more often the outside of the logs remained round, while inside the huts they were hewn to a plane - “scraped into lass” (a smooth strip was called las). Now the term “burst” refers more to the ends of the logs protruding outward from the wall, which remain round, with a chip.
The rows of logs themselves (crowns) were connected to each other using internal spikes. Moss was laid between the crowns in the log house and then final assembly The log house was caulked with flax tow in the cracks. Attics were often filled with the same moss to preserve heat in winter. I will write about red moss - inter-crown insulation - later, in another article.
In plan, the log houses were made in the form of a quadrangle (“chetverik”), or in the form of an octagon (“octagon”). From several adjacent quadrangles, huts were mainly made, and octagons were used for the construction of wooden churches (after all, an octagon allows you to increase the area of the room almost six times without changing the length of the logs). Often, by placing quadrangles and octets on top of each other, the ancient Russian architect built the pyramidal structure of a church or rich mansions.
A simple covered rectangular wooden frame without any extensions was called a “cage”. "Cage by cage, lead by story", - they said in the old days, trying to emphasize the reliability of the log house in comparison with the open canopy - povet. Usually the log house was placed on the “basement” - the lower auxiliary floor, which was used for storing supplies and household equipment. And the upper crowns of the log house expanded upward, forming a cornice - a “fall”. This interesting word, derived from the verb “to fall,” was often used in Rus'. So, for example, the upper cold ones were called “povalusha” shared bedrooms in a house or mansion, where the whole family went to sleep (lay down) in the summer from a flooded hut.
The doors in the cage were made lower, and the windows were placed higher, keeping the hut more heat. Both the house and the temple were built in the same way - both were the house (of man and of god). Therefore, the simplest and most ancient form of a wooden temple, like a house, was the “kletskaya”. This is how churches and chapels were built. These are two or three log buildings connected to each other from west to east. There were three log cabins in the church (the refectory, the temple and the altar), and two in the chapel (the refectory and the temple). A modest dome was placed over a simple gable roof.
Small chapels were erected in large numbers in remote villages, at crossroads, above large stone crosses, above springs. There is no priest in the chapel; no altar was made here. And the services were performed by the peasants themselves, who baptized and performed funeral services themselves. Such unpretentious services, held like the first Christians with the singing of short prayers at the first, third, sixth and ninth hours after sunrise, were called “hours” in Rus'. This is where the building itself got its name. Both the state and the church looked upon such chapels with disdain. That’s why the builders here could give free rein to their imagination. That is why these modest chapels amaze the modern city dweller today with their extreme simplicity, sophistication and special atmosphere of Russian solitude.
Roof
In ancient times, the roof over the log house was built without nails - “male”.
To complete this, the two end walls were made from shrinking stumps of logs, which were called “males.” Long longitudinal poles were placed on them in steps - “dolniki”, “lay down” (cf. “lay down, lie down”). Sometimes, however, the ends of the legs cut into the walls were also called males. One way or another, the entire roof got its name from them.
Thin tree trunks, cut down from one of the branches of the root, were cut into the beds from top to bottom. Such trunks with roots were called “chickens” (apparently due to the similarity of the left root with chicken paw). These upward-pointing root branches supported a hollowed-out log—the “stream.” It collected water flowing from the roof. And already on top of the hens and beds they laid wide roof boards, resting their lower edges on the hollowed-out groove of the stream. The upper joint of the boards - the “ridge” (as it is called to this day) - was especially carefully blocked from rain. A thick “ridge ridge” was laid under it, and on top the joint of the boards, like a cap, was covered with a log hollowed out from below - a “shell” or “skull”. However, more often this log was called “ohlupnem” - something that covers.
What not to cover the roof with? wooden huts in Rus'! Then the straw was tied into sheaves (bundles) and laid along the slope of the roof, pressing with poles; Then they split aspen logs onto planks (shingles) and covered the hut with them, like scales, in several layers. And in ancient times they even covered it with turf, turning it upside down and laying it under birch bark.
The most expensive coating was considered "tes" (boards). The word “tes” itself well reflects the process of its manufacture. A smooth, knot-free log was split lengthwise in several places and wedges were driven into the cracks. The log split in this way was split lengthwise several more times. Irregularities of the resulting wide boards they were trimmed with a special ax with a very wide blade.
The roof was usually covered in two layers - “undercut” and “red”. The bottom layer of planks on the roof was also called the under-skalnik, since it was often covered with “rock” (birch bark, which was chipped from birch trees) for tightness. Sometimes they installed a kinked roof. Then the lower, flatter part was called “police” (from the old word "gender"- half).
The entire pediment of the hut was importantly called “chelo” and was richly decorated with magical protective carvings. The outer ends of the under-roof slabs were covered from rain with long boards - “rails”. And the upper joint of the piers was covered with a patterned hanging board - a “towel”.
The roof is the most important part of a wooden building. "If only I had a roof over my head"- people still say. That is why, over time, its “top” became a symbol of any temple, house and even economic structure.
“Riding” in ancient times was the name for any completion. These tops, depending on the wealth of the building, could be very diverse. The simplest was the “cage” top - simple gable roof on the cage. Temples were usually decorated with a “tent” top in the form of a high octagonal pyramid. The “cubic top”, reminiscent of a massive tetrahedral onion, was intricate. The towers were decorated with such a top. The “barrel” was quite difficult to work with - a gable roof with smooth curvilinear outlines, ending with a sharp ridge. But they also made a “crossed barrel” - two intersecting simple barrels. Tent churches, cube-shaped, tiered, multi-domed - all this is named after the completion of the temple, after its top.
However, most of all they loved the tent. When the scribal books indicated that the church "wooden on top", then this meant that it was tented.
Even after Nikon’s ban on tents in 1656, as demonic and paganism in architecture, they still continued to be built in the Northern Territory. And only in the four corners at the base of the tent small barrels with domes appeared. This technique was called a tent on a cross-barrel.
Particularly difficult times came for the wooden tent in the middle of the 19th century, when the government and the governing Synod set about eradicating schismatics. Northern “schismatic” architecture then also fell into disgrace. And yet, despite all the persecution, the “four-octagon-tent” shape remains typical for the ancient Russian wooden church. There are also octagons “from the ground” (from the ground) without a quadrangle, especially in bell towers. But these are already variations of the main type.
Traditions wooden house construction have survived to this day. On their suburban plots, citizens are happy to build wooden houses and baths with the help of masters from the outback, from the provinces. In turn, in the outback, people also continue to live in wooden houses, because there is no better home than a good-quality, reliable, eco-friendly house made of wood. Do you want to build yourself a house from logs or timber? Contact us - or call: 8-903-899-98-51 (Beeline); 8-930-385-49-16 (Megafon).
In northern Rus', houses have always been built of wood, and not because they did not know how to build stone ones, but because a wooden house is warmer, the microclimate in it is better than in a stone one, and because there was enough forest in Rus'. It's all about the thermal conductivity of wood and stone. The tree at one end can burn (the temperature in this area will be about +300 degrees Celsius), and you can freely hold onto the other end of the log with your hand. This is impossible with a stone: if the stone is heated at one end to +200 degrees, then you will not be able to touch the other end. Brick is also not far from stone in terms of thermal conductivity.
If our ancestors lived in stone castles, like the Angles and Saxons, then you and I would not be in the world, since our ancestors in our climate would simply die - they would catch a cold and die out. Consequently, a wooden house is a condition of life in the Russian North. You can, of course, live in the north in a yaranga made of skins or in a tent, but then you will not be Russian, it will be a completely different culture. To live in a yaranga, it is necessary that the herd of deer (the source of skins) be very large - at least 30 deer per person.
So, Rus' is wooden houses, wooden architecture, wooden culture. It is no coincidence that monetary unit We call the ruble wooden. In Rus', houses and ships, carts, plows, harrows, tubs, cups, spoons, toys were made from wood... God's temples were also built from wood. It is no coincidence that carpentry and blacksmithing were considered the most honorable professions in Rus', and only in third place was the craft of potters - pottery.
IN different parts our vast homeland has developed different styles wood construction. In my previous articles, I showed that the Great Russian ethnic group was formed in the XIV-XVII centuries from several “parent” ethnic groups - the Varangians of Rus', Slovenes, Krivichi, Ugrofins (Merya, Ves, Kostroma, etc.). Each of these ethnic groups probably had its own way of building houses, its own tradition. Folk traditions are very stable: they, like the language, are preserved for centuries and even millennia. Traditions are what unites generations of people into one people, into one ethnic group. In some cases, traditions are determined by the peculiarities of the climate and topography of the country of residence, and in some cases they are simply a manifestation of fashion, habit, and are not directly related to living conditions.
The article is a short essay on the history of construction wooden houses in Rus'.
The history of wooden house construction goes back several thousand years.
In the Polish city of Biskupin, an entire village of log houses. In this village, which was built approximately in the period 550-400 BC, horizontal corner connections The walls were made using the lock cutting method. The gaps between the stacked logs were filled with moss, straw, clay or wool.
Near the famous Stonehenge, scientists found several wooden houses as a result of excavations. The oldest existing wooden structure, Horyuji Temple, located near the ancient Japanese capital of Nara, is about 1,400 years old. Just 400 years younger than him is a stave church in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer.
The biggest role in the construction of wooden houses was, of course, played by the large forest region stretching from Norway through Sweden, Finland and the European part of Russia to Siberia. It was in this region that the first log houses, in which there was no need to use a large amount of insulating materials between the logs stacked on top of each other.
Until the 16th century, the construction of houses made of wood was predominant in Europe. But from this time on, the appearance of a reverse movement should be noted. The reason for this was the variability of fashion, imitating the Mediterranean method of construction with clay and stone - due to the lack of wood there.
A little later, forest reserves in central Europe became scarce. Wood was preferred to be used as fuel and in the construction of ships, as well as in the form charcoal for steel production.
History of wooden house construction in Rus'
The fact that wooden architecture in Russia originated from ancient times is evidenced by many written chronicles. For example, one of the architectural ensembles of the past was mentioned in the 5th century by the Byzantine diplomat Prisca of Pontus, who visited Attila’s headquarters on the Danube, whose palace was built of logs, well-planed boards and surrounded by a wooden fence, not for safety, but for the sake of beauty.
Already in the 10th century, magnificent residential buildings made of wood with various platbands and decorations were erected in Rus'. There is a mention by Saxo Grammar of the temple of Svyatovit, built very skillfully and gracefully and surrounded by a fence with carefully decorated carved images. In chronicles and foreign travel notes, quite a lot of information has been preserved about the picturesque ensembles of mansions, towers with golden towers, which were genuine works of original Russian art. These include the courtyard of Princess Olga, which received the name “terem” because of its towers. This tower looked like a high square two-story tower with a hipped top. In Novgorod, the oak cathedral church of Sophia, built in the 10th century, was famous. In Vyshgorod, by decree of Yaroslav the Wise in 1020-1026. An amazingly beautiful five-domed temple was built.
Wooden construction in Russia has rich traditions, which depend not only on the specific conditions of the harsh climate, but also on the way of life, and on the ability to build a high-quality and beautiful home. The architecture of such houses has always been distinguished by its originality and beauty. The special art of working with wood allowed Russian craftsmen to create magnificent architectural monuments in Kizhi, Kargopolye and other places in the North, Western and Eastern Siberia, many of which have survived to this day, demonstrating high skill and culture of skill in working with an ax. In the Kirov region, for example, there are known wooden buildings built in 1805-1810 without the slightest trace of rot.
For centuries, wood has been the main building material, both in Rus' and throughout the world. And this was due not only to its availability and low cost, but also to the remarkable qualities inherent wooden house. New technologies in construction could not displace wood for a long time. Suffice it to recall the harsh administrative measures of Peter the Great, aimed at at least building the center of St. Petersburg in stone. Only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, with the advent of modern structural materials, wood lost its position in construction.
In Rus', wood has always been the most available material. It was used to build various buildings - from simple huts, mansions, religious buildings to various industrial and military facilities. In Russian conditions, a hut usually served two or three generations, although reliable protection The log house could last up to 100 years. The churches served for up to 400 years.
Russians have a special relationship with wood: they animated it, worshiped it, and pagan Rus' there were rituals associated with cutting and construction. Some of these rituals were borrowed from Orthodox culture.
Everything was built from wood: from a simple wooden fence to churches, royal mansions and fortresses. The simple, laconic forms of historical housing and construction techniques, testifying to the extraordinary skill of Russian architects, have been honed over centuries. The art of house building has been passed down from generation to generation. And now in Russia you can see various wooden buildings that are real works of art. Since housing construction across the vast territory of Russia covers various climatic zones, which largely determine the type of buildings, the architecture of houses varies significantly depending on the region. Settlers from various regions introduced changes to traditional architecture, combining the experiences of various ethnic groups. This made it possible to develop more advanced construction techniques and ensured the most rational ways execution of certain architectural details.
Mostly monuments and examples of traditional housing or documentary materials on these buildings dating back to the end of the 19th century have survived to this day. Unlike peasant housing or monuments of wooden temple architecture, large mansions or palaces, unfortunately, have not reached us, with the exception of the occasional surviving manor buildings, which are in a terrible state today. We draw information about earlier periods of the formation of housing from archaeological materials, paintings by famous artists or historical manuscripts.
The skill of the ancient “cut-cutters” amazes our contemporaries. Wooden houses were assembled from “cages” (log houses) using a nailless method using a wide variety of carpentry techniques. Peasant buildings or entire ensembles of boyar and princely choirs combined the monumentality of log buildings and the light frame extensions, as well as summer rooms with sacramental and picturesque interior and exterior decoration.
In areas rich in forests, mainly coniferous trees were used for housing, less often deciduous trees, among which oak was held in special esteem. Log buildings were dug into the ground, and the roof was covered with soil on top. Such rooms were heated with heater stoves or adobe hearths “on black”, the smoke from which came out through holes in the wall or roof (smokers), windows or doors. The openings in the walls were made low so as not to cut big number logs and minimize heat loss. The fiberglass windows did not violate this connection at all; they were cut down half a log up and down in adjacent logs. The windows were closed from the inside with a wooden shutter (covered), which is where the name came from - portovye. In larger openings, chopped logs were tied together with blocks of beams. Over time, such windows began to be covered with mica, and only in the 18th-19th centuries glass began to be used for this purpose. This is how “red” windows appeared, on the sides of which they were often installed fiberglass windows. Doorways were blocked with sheets of rough boards obtained by splitting logs. The floors in such houses were predominantly clay. But if grain storage was installed under the floor, it was covered with logs, the cracks between which were covered with clay.
Over time, above-ground buildings equipped with upper tiers, attics and mezzanines began to appear more and more often. In regions with long snowy winters, they tried to raise houses as high as possible above the ground, which protected the frame from moisture and gave additional area for storing supplies and keeping livestock.
Over time, construction techniques have improved. More than 50 types of log houses are known in Rus'. The simplest types of buildings include four-wall buildings. To add a yard or utility room, logs were made, to which sheds, barns, etc. were attached. Typically, Russian carpenters did not use lengthwise splicing of logs, but to increase the size of the house they placed several log houses side by side or used polygonal (hexagonal or octagonal) or cruciform building plans. Such techniques were especially often used in the construction of churches. The most common were five-walls - a complicated type of log house, which was a rectangular hut divided by a transverse wall. Thus, there were two parts of the house: a large living room with a stove, well lit, and a smaller one - a vestibule connecting the housing with the utility part. If the canopy was cut down separately, then both parts of the five-wall were used for housing. The six-wall buildings were separated by two walls in different directions, forming four independent rooms. The number of residential premises (and hence the type of log house) depended on the composition of the family and material wealth.
Foundations were not placed under wooden buildings, but the lower crowns were placed directly on the ground. Large stones were placed under the corners and middle of the walls or “chairs” made of thick oak logs were placed. For the chairs, the butt wood of larch or oak was selected, the resistance to decay of which is quite high. To increase this durability, the wood was burned at a fire or coated with tar. Among the wide variety of techniques, the most widespread are the “paw”, “bowl”, “mustache” and “dovetail” cuts, which are successfully used to this day. To cut out the cups, an ax was used, which was the main carpentry tool. It should be noted that our ancestors used an ax masterfully. With the help of this universal tool, almost all work was performed: from cutting wood to carved elements decorating the facades. The secret of such popularity of the ax is simple. The fact is that even in ancient times it was noticed that sawn wood is more susceptible to moisture and rotting. Logs treated with an ax seem to become clogged under its blows and become less hygroscopic. Therefore, despite the fact that the saw was known in Rus' for a long time, it was rarely used.
Since ancient times in Rus', houses were covered with shingles; poor families used straw for roofing. Shingles were made from wood: fir, ash, and especially often spruce. Properly made shingles are called split shingles. To get this roofing material We used smooth parts of the tree trunk, located between individual branches with a minimum number of knots. The shingles were split in a radial direction. To do this, wedge-shaped parts were separated from the logs with an ax and a hammer. Each wedge was processed with a two-handed cutter until a teardrop-shaped part was obtained. A groove was cut out with a special tool—a shingle plow—and the resulting elements were dried for six months. The shingles were first impregnated with anthracene oil, and after the roofing was installed, it was covered with paint.
Since ancient times in Rus', wooden houses were decorated with carvings, turning the houses into a real work of art. The technological effectiveness of wood processing contributed to the emergence of a whole galaxy of famous carvers, among whom the masters of the Russian North, the Urals, Siberia and the Volga region were especially famous. The carvings on the piers, roof valances and window casings were combined with painting, emphasizing the individuality of each house. The carving motifs were flowers, cereals, animals and birds, among which the rooster was especially respected as the herald of the sunrise. The main decorations were concentrated on pediments, ridges, window casings and shutters, and the porch was decorated with carvings. Carving was used not only to decorate the outside of the house, but also in its interior. Refectory pillars were equipped with cuts in the form of strands and “melons”, emphasizing the beauty of wood and its unique properties. The carver's art has been passed down from generation to generation and has preserved the traditions of Russian wooden architecture to this day.
Log houses successfully competed with stone ones for many centuries. But in the first half of the last century, the devastation caused by the civil war posed a challenge to builders: find a cheaper alternative. And in Leningrad they mastered the production of prefabricated panel wooden houses based on the models of products from Sweden and Finland. The cheapness and short construction time of such houses attracted many fans, and the houses themselves were called “Finnish”.
The image of wooden houses deteriorated in the post-war period. Need, lack building materials, the great need for housing led to cheap construction methods and hastily built housing. Many of the houses built according to these projects have survived to this day, providing shelter for several generations of Russians. The lack and even almost complete absence of thermal insulation, as well as leaky external walls, led to the so-called “barracks climate” - enormous overheating in summer and unbearable cold in winter with unpleasantly low air humidity and cold external walls. Modern wooden houses no longer have anything in common with these barracks, but are forced to confront their notoriety.
In the 20th century, negative attitudes towards the use of wood arose due to a belief in the progressiveness of industrialization. It was discarded as an “obsolete material”, and “modern building materials” - concrete, steel and plastic - began to be used.
The 21st century has presented completely new challenges to housebuilders. The use of highly efficient building materials and structures made it possible to implement the traditional Russian architectural and construction system of wooden housing construction at a higher level: made of solid wood (with walls made of profiled timber and rounded logs); frame and panel.
The technology of wooden house construction, proven over centuries, using modern tools and mechanisms can significantly reduce construction time, and the use of modern protective and decorative compounds can significantly extend the life of a wooden house.
Traditions and modernity of Russian wooden architecture
Rus' has long been considered a country of wood - there were plenty of vast, mighty forests around. Russian life was such that almost everything in Rus' was built from wood. From powerful pines, spruces and larches, Russians of all classes - from peasants to sovereigns - built temples and huts, bathhouses and barns, bridges and fences, gates and wells. As historians note, Russians lived for centuries in wooden age. And the most common name for a Russian settlement - village - indicated that the buildings here were wooden.
Wood is one of the most ancient, traditional and beloved building materials by the Russian people. Why not a stone? After all, we also had a stone!
D. Fletcher answered this question back in the 16th century in his book “On the Russian State”:
“A wooden building is more convenient for Russians than a stone or brick one, because there is a lot of dampness in them, and they are colder than wooden houses, which is important in the harsh climate of Rus'; houses made from dry pine forests provide the most warmth" ...
Since ancient times, trees have been revered in Rus'. They turned to him, as if he were alive, on a variety of occasions: “Holy tree, help.” And the tree, listening to the request and prayer, helped. Great power earth and sky are concentrated in trees. And our ancestors felt this with their pure hearts, and therefore the wooden huts-mansions, built: “as beauty and peace say,” they loved so much.
The spirit of the tree continued to live in the logs of the log house, in the floor and ceiling boards, in the tabletops polished to a shine and in the benches. Therefore, the peasant considered the hut itself, his home, as a part of nature, its spiritual continuation.
Entering such a house, you realize that its space is filled with the measured noise of the forest and streams fresh air; this space breathes peace and serenity. The house always has a subtle “forest” aroma of Siberian pine or larch, cedar, and spruce. The sun reigns here from morning to evening, soft pastel colors look natural, resin flows down the logs like a sunny tear, and from the dark icon the bright face of the Mother of God looks with an all-penetrating gaze...
The house looks truly majestic, like nature itself. It seems that this house has taken root, “taken root” in the environment, and has become an integral part of the surrounding forests and fields, of everything that we call Russia.
Home is a unique place on earth where a person feels confident and calm, where he feels like a full owner. From here he counts all his movements in time and space, he returns here, here his family hearth awaits him, here he raises and educates his children, here his life flows. “Home is where your heart is,” wrote the Roman scholar and historian Pliny the Elder.
When creating a home for himself and his family, our ancestor entered into very close and very complex connections and relationships with environment. Skillfully using its features, he strove to get used to nature, to merge harmoniously and consistently with it, to fit into its living and easily vulnerable structure. Existing next to and together with nature, developing in constant contact with it, he achieved, at times, amazing results in the most complex and responsible task of creating a full-fledged home, practical and expressive.
Natural observation, the experience of his ancestors, traditions developed over centuries, the ability to perceive and objectively evaluate the features of the natural landscape awakened in the Russian an amazing “sense” - he settled down, settled down in the truly best place, where it was not only convenient, but also beautiful - the beauty of the surrounding nature had for him It has a very great and sometimes decisive significance. It elevated the soul, gave a feeling of freedom and spaciousness.
Russian hut... It envelops you with the wise goodness of children's fairy tales, dissolving you into peace in your heart. For a Russian person, an ordinary village hut is a kind of original monument of his existence; the beginning of the Fatherland is associated with it - the root basis of his life.
Quiet confidence emanates from simple Russian huts; they have settled soundly and thoroughly in their native land. When looking at the buildings of old Russian villages, darkened by time, one cannot leave the feeling that they, once convened by man and for man, at the same time live some kind of their own, separate life, closely connected with the life of the nature surrounding them - so they became akin to that place where they were born.
Ancient North Russian huts tell us about how our ancestors lived during the times of Novgorod the Great and Moscow Rus'. What our ancestor did is practically what he said. Every hut is a story.
| In the old days they built freely, on a daring Russian scale. There was a lot of land, forest at hand, and not enough workers: there was no honor for idle people in Rus', and they simply would not have survived in the harsh northern regions. The huts were built large, well built and comfortable. Sometimes on one floor, more often on two with a light above it, with a large covered courtyard. The volume of some huts is impressive - up to two and a half thousand cubic meters.
The basis of each building is a log frame - always powerful, regardless of its size, plastic, rich in chiaroscuro, playing with many halftones and shades natural wood. Natural beauty log house- unique in its beauty and expediency appears before us in every work of truly folk wooden architecture.
The house served as protection, protected. Its ornaments and details are requests and wishes addressed to the forces of nature and symbolizing the unity of man with it. “A horse on the roof is quieter in the hut,” it says folk proverb. The horse is an allegorical reminder of the endless movement of human life, of the need to choose the righteous path in it. Where the spirit of moral strength reigns, wisdom and silence settle - this is the semantic basis of the proverb.
In the protective and incantatory ornamentation of the Russian hut, a large role was played by the symbolic image of the sun, which was shown three times: rising, at the zenith and leaving - in the places where the roof came into contact with the log house on the (quays) and at the top under the joint roof slopes and moorings.
I Carved towels, on which symbolic suns were usually carved, personified the purity of human thoughts, inextricably linked with the sunny joy of existence, with the victory of light over darkness.
The same symbolic meaning of illumination and illumination was given to the arrangement of a red (beautiful, sunny) corner inside the hut, where icons were placed. The ceiling in the hut represented the firmament, and the wide beam supporting it represented the mother of the Milky Way. “Everything is not accidental in life,” popular wisdom said, you just need to look attentively, as if reading what you see, calling for a deep understanding of this seemingly simple, but endless truth in knowledge. I To understand the architecture of the northern village, we need to take another step towards understanding the nature and essence of ancient Russian wooden architecture, concentrated in its original principle - in the unity of constructive-technical and architectural-artistic forms.
This principle, known in the ancient architecture of many nations, was expressed in the wooden architecture of Russia with the greatest completeness, if not to say with the absolute and utmost possible.
I think it’s worth taking a closer look at the priceless wealth that was intuitively found by the collective people’s mind, which is stored in the memory of the people. Stop, look around to see, remember, consider and understand how our ancestors solved the problems of communication with the outside world, with nature, which were most important for our very existence.
Preference given coniferous species due to its beautiful texture, strength and high resistance to the rather difficult conditions of Siberia. Pine, due to its low thermal conductivity, creates a microclimate inside the house, so in the summer a house built of pine is cool and warm in the winter. A wall built from wood allows you to reduce the load on the foundation by 7 times compared to a wall made of brick, which means that the house can be placed on a lighter foundation, and thereby reduce foundation costs to a minimum.
At the same time, in the North, larch was used to build houses. Larch is a sound breed. The kernel is reddish-brown in color, the sapwood is light and narrow. Its wood has small, few resin ducts, is highly resistant to decay and fungal diseases, and is therefore especially valued in hydraulic structures. An example of this is Venice, which has stood for more than a thousand years on larch stilts. Possessing high hardness and strength, larch is approximately 30% superior in quality to pine. In a number of regions of Siberia, a frame was assembled from durable and dense larch, while all interior decoration was made from Siberian cedar.
And yet, the most common material for housing construction was pine, especially boreal pine or, as it was also called, “condovya”. The log made from it is heavy, straight, almost without knots and, according to the master carpenters, “does not hold dampness.” In one of the contract records for the construction of housing, concluded in the old days between the owner and the carpenters (and the word “decent” comes from the ancient Russian “ryad” - agreement), it was quite definitely emphasized: “... to carve a forest of pine, kind, vigorous, smooth, not bitchy"...
There are ore pine, which grows on deep loose sandstones and light soils. clay soils, in elevated places, has fine-grained dense wood, narrow sapwood, and resinous wood. Another variety of pine - myandova - grows on low-lying clay soils, has less dense spring wood, wide-grained, less resinous than ore pine.
Construction timber was usually harvested in winter or early spring, while “the tree is sleeping and excess water has gone into the ground,” while the logs can still be removed by sleigh. Then the wood is less susceptible to drying out, rotting and warping. Logs for building a house were usually selected with a thickness of about eight vershoks in diameter (35 cm), and for the lower crowns of a log house - thicker ones up to ten vershoks (44 cm). Often the agreement stated: “not to set less than seven vershoks.” The age of such a beauty is 100-200 years, height is up to 20 meters.
A wooden house made from large diameter logs is now very expensive. But the pleasure of living in it is incomparable to anything. The owners of such a house emphasize that the warmth emanating from real large logs is incomparable. It is unusually easy to breathe here, irritation goes away and the eternal bustle of city life leaves: in such a house, health will remain until old age, and thoughts and feelings will be bright. Wood is a pliable material, pure and responsive to beauty. Its warm shine, pattern, color and aroma are unique. As a material it gives extraordinary scope for creativity. It is quite durable, can retain heat for a long time, and can be processed well. And, once in the hands of a master, it seems to acquire a soul and come to life. Let us note in passing that today the recommended diameter of a log for a chopped wall is 22 cm... The logs were taken to the village and placed in “fires”, where they lay until spring.
The beginning of the construction of a dwelling in Rus' was associated with certain deadlines regulated by special rules. It was considered best to start building a house with the Great Prospect ( in early spring) and so that the construction process included the holiday of the Trinity in terms of timing - “Without the Trinity, a house is not built.” It was impossible to start construction on the so-called “hard days” - Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as well as on Sunday. Favorable for The beginning of construction was considered to be the time “when the month is full” - after the new moon...
Not the least important role was played by the fact that wooden buildings could be erected in fairly short time. High-speed construction from wood in Rus' was generally widely developed, which indicates a high level of organization of carpentry. It is known that even churches - the largest buildings in Russian villages - were sometimes erected “in one day,” which is why they were called “ordinary.”
Besides, log houses could be easily disassembled, transported over a considerable distance and re-installed in a new place. In the cities there were special markets where prefabricated log cabins and entire houses made of wood from all over the world were sold “for export.” interior decoration. In winter, such houses were shipped straight off the sleigh in disassembled form, and their assembly and caulking took no more than two days.
The desire of our distant ancestors to decorate their homes and surround themselves with beautiful utensils is an ancient tradition, formed at the call of the inner nature of the Russian person, his genetic desire for beauty and harmony.
Decorative carvings on ancient Russian buildings, preserved in the Russian North, the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, have always attracted the attention of travelers, researchers, and artists with their mesmerizing beauty, craftsmanship and figurative expressiveness.
In our time modern methods wood processing allows you to ensure perfect fit of logs and absolute density of joints. Wood meets all the requirements for comfort level, and also fits perfectly into the “ecological” concept of interior space, so popular in the last decade.
For many centuries, master carpenters have resorted to primordial natural components to “preserve” wood. The use of these components preserved the environmental purity and natural beauty of the tree. Since wood is an element of living nature, it decorative treatment carried out using natural materials, based on natural oils, wax, various plant extracts, capable of leaving pores open, despite the deep processing of wood. Thus, the tree “breathes” excess moisture evaporates from it, wear resistance increases significantly.
Natural glaze that gives light wood silky shine, preserves and emphasizes the natural beauty and texture of wood, provides protection from harmful effects ultraviolet radiation, insects, moisture and wind. The walls of the house - estate at the same time retain the natural tone of pine and always look fresh.
Centuries-old searches and experiments of folk craftsmen of the past had a huge impact on appearance current wooden house. ! A comfortable, warm, cozy and beautiful manor house is able to provide its inhabitants with high level comfort, ensure the harmonious development of all life processes, create the necessary amenities for housekeeping. It is a manor house that can fully and organically connect a person with the surrounding nature, with the landscape, with the earth.
Numerous projects and buildings based on wood in Russia and abroad indisputably prove its modernity and unconditional prospects for use in today's practice of estate construction.
Wooden houses in Europe are very expensive and are considered elite.
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