How our ancestors lived and what they ate

Let's remember how our ancestors lived, what they ate and what they wore.
If someone thinks that life was sweet at that time, then they are very mistaken.




Before that, the life of a simple Russian peasant was completely different.
Usually a person lived to be 40-45 years old and died an old man. He was considered an adult man with a family and children at the age of 14-15, and she even earlier. They did not marry for love, the father went to woo the bride to his son.

People had no time for idle rest at all. In summer, absolutely all the time was occupied by work in the field, in winter the preparation of firewood and household work on the manufacture of tools and household utensils, hunting.

Let's take a look at the Russian village of the 10th century, which, however, is not much different from the village of both the 5th century and the 17th century...

We got to the historical and cultural complex "Lyubytino" as part of the rally dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the group of companies "Avtomir". It is not for nothing that it is called "One-Story Russia" - it was very interesting and informative to see how our ancestors lived.
In Lyubytino, on the place of residence of the ancient Slavs, among the burial mounds and burials, a real village of the 10th century was recreated, with all the outbuildings and necessary utensils.



Let's start with an ordinary Slavic hut. The hut is made of logs and covered with birch bark and turf. In some regions, the roofs of the same huts were covered with straw, and somewhere with wood chips. Surprisingly, the service life of such a roof is only slightly less than the service life of the entire house, 25-30 years, and the house itself served for 40 years. Given the time of life at that time, the house was just enough for a person's life.

By the way, in front of the entrance to the house there is a covered area - this is the same porch from the song about "new maple canopy".



The hut is heated in black, that is, the stove does not have a chimney, the smoke comes out through a small window under the roof and through the door. There are no normal windows either, and the door is only about a meter high. This is done in order not to let the heat out of the house.

When the stove is fired, soot settles on the walls and roof. There is one big plus in the "black" furnace - there are no rodents and insects in such a house.



Of course, the house stands on the ground without any foundation, the lower rows are simply supported on a few large stones.



This is how the roof is made



And here is the oven. A stone hearth installed on a pedestal of logs smeared with clay. The stove was heated from early morning. When the stove is heated, it is impossible to be in the hut, only the hostess who cooked the food remained there, everyone else went outside to do business, in any weather. After the stove was heated, the stones gave off heat until the next morning. Food was cooked in the oven.



This is what the hut looks like from the inside. They slept on benches placed along the walls, and sat on them during meals. The children slept on the floors, they are not visible in this photo, they are on top, above their heads. In winter, young cattle were taken to the hut so that they would not die from frost. In the hut they also washed. You can imagine what kind of air was there, how warm and comfortable it was there. It immediately becomes clear why life expectancy was so short.



In order not to heat the hut in the summer, when it was not necessary, there was a separate small building in the village - a bread oven. Bread was baked and cooked there.



Grain was stored in a barn, a building raised on poles from the surface of the ground to protect food from rodents.



In the barn, there were suseks, remember - "scraped on the boughs..."? These are special board boxes in which grain was poured from above, and taken from below. So the grain did not stale.



Also in the village there was a triple glacier - a cellar, in which ice was laid in the spring, poured with hay and lay there almost until the next winter.

Clothes, skins, utensils and weapons that were not needed at the moment were stored in the cage. The cage was also used when a husband and wife needed privacy.





Ovin - this building served for drying sheaves and threshing grain. Heated stones were piled into a hearth, sheaves were placed on poles, and the peasant dried them, constantly turning them over. Then the grains were threshed and winnowed.



Cooking in the oven involves a special temperature regime - simmering. For example, this is how gray cabbage soup is prepared. They are called gray because of their gray color. How to cook them?

To begin with, green cabbage leaves are taken, those that are not included in the head, finely split, salted and placed under pressure for a week, for fermentation. For cabbage soup, you also need pearl barley, meat, onions, carrots. The ingredients are placed in a pot, and it is placed in the oven, where it will spend several hours. By the evening, a very hearty and thick dish will be ready.





This is how our ancestors lived. Life was not easy. Crop failures often occurred, and even more often there were raids by Tatars, Vikings, and simply bandits. The main exports were furs, honey, and hides. Peasants collected mushrooms and berries, all kinds of herbs, and fished.

When defending against the enemy, the main equipment of the warrior was chain mail, clothing, helmet. Weapons include a spear, a hatchet, and a sword. Chain mail is not light, but unlike armor, you can run in it. Well, we ran a little :-)





Source: prosto-vova.livejournal.com