Etnographic outdoors Museum in Kozmodemyansk
Kozmodemyansk, an administrative centre of Gorno-Mari region in
the Mari El republic is situated on the right high bank of the
Volga river. In the summer of 1993 the town celebrated its 410th
anniversary. The river has influenced the town and its history
greatly.
WOOD PAVEMENT
Almost all the roads in the
Man land were natural soil, but very important high
roads were wood pavements. For building a wood
pavement a trench 70 sm. deep was dug, sand was
rammed 10 or 15 sm.high and wooden blocks 45-50
high were put on the sand. The surface was ajusted
and packed with sand. The Man used lime and aspen,
which were easily processed for wood pavements.
According to the legend the foundation of Kozmodemyansk is
connected with Tsar Ivan the Terrible. In 1552 having conquered
Kazan the Tsar was on his way to Moscow. In a quiet September
evening when his ship was sailing along the Volga, he saw majestic
slopes covered with forests. A sudden idea came to his mind that a
fortress in this place could safely defend Russian borders from the
tatars' encroach-ments. The Tsar said: "A town shall be in this
place". It was on the eve of the holiday of saints Kozma and
Domian, so the town was called Kozmodemyansk. It was so tiny that
it wasn't considered a town, and only in 1583 Kozmode-myansk came
into the history of Russian State.
For many centuries there have been hard fightings, has been
heard barge haulers' moan, Kozmodemyansk used to be one of the
centres of barge haulers in Russia.
Since the end of the 16th century Kozmo-demyansk has been on the
way from the centre of Russia to the Urals and Siberia. A. N.
Rad-ishchev, A. S. Pushkin, T. G. Shevchenko, A. Dyuma, V. G.
Korolenko, A. I. Hertsen and many others passed through it. In 1899
A. M. Gorkey stayed in Kozmodemyansk. At that time he was working
at the novel "Foma Gordeyev". Pre-revolutionary Kozmodemyansk was a
typical town of petty bourgeois and merchants. It was a noisy town
from spring till the middle of summer, when tradesmen from the most
remote parts of Russia came here to take part in forest fairs.
Fine, relief, sawn through carving, made by skilled craftsmen has
remained on the former merchant private residences. Nowadays it is
still being admired by the citizens and guests of the town.
For the years of the Soviet Power Kozmo-demyansk became an
industrial and cultural centre of the region. New branches of
industry appeared in the town parallel with conventional floating
and processing of wood. Different houses and offices were built
here.
A WETTLE-FENCE
A wettle-fence was used for fencing bee-gardens,
haystacks in the meadows and ravines. Aspen,
willow, bird-cherry tree and sometimes fir-tree
branches were used for a wettle-fence. Some stakes
were driven in the earth. They were made of hard
wood and were put at a distance of 1 - 1,5 mts from
each other. Some things twined around them.
The population grew with the growth of production and the
development of social sphere. By the 1st of January 1993, 33,1
thou-sand people had lived in the region and 25 thou-sand people in
Kozmodemyansk. In the region and the town there is a special
secondary school of electronic devices, vocational schools,
sec-ondary and elementary schools, libraries, the Palace of Culture
named after J. Eshpai for 600 places, a cinema and rural houses of
culture and clubs.
In September 1919 a district museum of regional studies was
opened in Kozmodemyansk. The public took an active part in it. The
Chairman of Kozmodemyansk district committee of RCP(b), painter A.
V. Grigoryev played a great role in its organization.
The gallery contains masterpieces painted by Russian and foreign
painters. There are pictures painted by such Russian masters as A.
E. Arkhipov, I. K. Aivazovski, K. P. Bryullov, I. I. Levitan, V. I.
Surikov, N. I. Pheshin.
The pictures by A. V. Grigoryev, the first Mari painter, one of
the organizers of associa-tion of painters in revolutionary Russia,
are of great interest. Thousands of visitors are greatly impressed
by the pictures.
On 2, September, 1977 representatives of the meeting of
commissioners from collective farms resolved to create a regional
museum of a farmer in order to preserve for the future gen-erations
samples of ancient implements of la-bour and life, used in
pre-revolutionary and pre-war farmer's household of the Mari Volga
region. Collective and state farms, enterprises of Koz-modemyansk
and Gorno-Mari region gave their money for the creation of this
museum.
On 27, February, 1979 the Executive Committee of Gorno-Mari
regional Soviet of deputies passed a resolution to begin the
con-struction of ethnographic museum in the open air in
Kozmodemyansk. The first secretary of the regional Committee of the
CPSU V. I. Romanov supported this decision.
The Ethnographic museum in the open air was opened in
summer1983. This event was timed to the 400th anniversary of
Kozmode-myansk. It became the main depository of relics of
architecture, objects of life, labour and cul-ture, used by farmers
and handicraftsmen of Gorno-Mari region. Reanimated exhibits help
to understand history better, make us proud of glorious deeds of
our ancestors. The creators of the museum tried to recreate
original details of architecture and life of Gorno-Mary
population.
The square of the museum is more than 5 hectars. More than 60
different buildings and constructions were built on its territory,
more than 2000 ancient exhibits, objects of labour and life of the
gornomari were collected.
The territory of the museum is fenced with different kinds of
fence which are partially pre-served in the villages nowadays. The
most beautiful kind of fence is paling. It was made by putting
branches of a purple willow or a nut-tree 2 or 2, 5 metres long
vertically behind the 3 parallel poles fastened between 2 pickets.
In the past fir-tree boughs cut from green fir-trees were the main
raw material for making a paling.
Bee-gardens, haystacks in the meadows were fenced with
wattle-fence; fields, pastures and enclosures - with other kinds of
fencing. A fence made of boards came into use only at the end of
the 19th century in the households of prosperous peasants. Zaplot
(a fence made of narrow boards) is one of the oldest types of
fencing. It was used to fence a house, a kitchen-garden, especially
in forest villages. A palisade was made of lathes, which were
pointed at the top and decorated with numerous carved pat-terns
One can get on the territory of the mu-seum through the gates.
There are 9 kinds of them: folding gates with a roof and a
wicket-gate, apiary, panel gates without a roof, etc.
A BARN FOR STORING GRAIN
It's the most ancient building in this
ethnographic museum.
A wood pavement from southern gates to a peasant yard attracts
visitors' attention. In ancient times ground roads prevailed in our
re-gion. Wood pavements were used in marsh-lands and lowlands. Wood
pavements were paved with soft leaf-bearing wood by hand.
A five minute walk along the wood pave-ment will lead you to a
Mari homestead. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th
centu-ries the planning of buildings in a Mari village differed
little from that used in a Russian village. A mari homestead had a
right-angled form and consisted of a dwelling house and household
buildings. The yard was covered with terf grass and was kept in
order. The Mari kept the cattle in cattle-sheds and let it out in
to the streets but not in the yards.
Coming into the yard through folding gates with a wicket, you'll
see a dwelling house consisting of two four-walled parts separated
with a passage. You'll find yourself in a dwelling of "a peasant
house + a passage + a store-room" type. The fore-house is used for
living there in winter conditions and a storehouse is a summer
dwelling. . You can come in either of them through a porch made of
planks and a passage. Above them there is a garret to dry clothes
and to store utensils in. Under a winter peasant house there is a
cellar for storing vegetables and under a store-house there is a
place for storing grain, forage and large uten-siles.
PALING
Paling ( tsetsen pitchi ) is considered to be
the most beautiful kind of fencing. It was made by
putting branches of a purple willow or a nut tree 2
or 2,5 metres long vertically behind the 3 parallel
poles fastened between 2 pickets. Fir-tree boughs
cut from green fir-trees were the main raw material
for making a paling. Such fences have been used for
centuries.
In front of a peasant house there is a building for cooking
meals, kvas or bear, milk products. It is called "kidi" - a summer
kitchen. Meals were cooked in a cast-iron boiler which was hung on
a long cogged iron or wooden hook in the fire. There is neither
floor nor ceiling in this kitchen. Along the walls of it there are
wooden benches and a table in the corner. The walls of this summer
kitchen are smooth. Every spring they are washed with ashes and
sand. Smoke of the fire is raising upwards and going through a
special hole in the roof.
Under the same roof with the summer kitchen there is a building
called "mutirepkudi". There is a cellar under its floor (3 metres
deep) for keeping meat and milk products, bear, kvas and salted
things in summer. In spring the cellar is filled with snow and ice
which is preserved till autumn.
The upper part of the cellar is used for keeping implements,
harness, chaff and hunting things.
JOINER'S WORK
In a peasant's homestead everything was made by
village handicraftsmen. Different species of wood
were widely used. Cups, spoons scoops and
salt-cellars were hollowed by them. Salt always
remained dry in such a salt-cellar. To everyone's
pleasure everything was made with a chisel, a plane
and a saw. Jointer's benches were made by masters
themselves.
In front of the summer kitchen there is a snaggy tree for drying
pots. Not far away there are penthouses on the poles to keep
joiner's, carpenter's, cooper's tools on, a joiner's bench,
grindstones of different types, machines for producing spindles,
cutting straw. Here you can see all kinds of adzes, screw-clamps,
stamps, tools for measuring ground and rulers.
If you go further, you'll see sheds for neat cattle (horses and
cows) and small cattle. On the walls there are all sorts of
harness, devices made of wood, leather and iron. The shed has a
hayloft for keeping hay and straw.
Attached to the shed there is a penthouse with a gable roof. It
is used for keeping vehicles. Here you can see a tarantass (a light
summer vehicle), peasant carts, sledges of different types:
drags(drovni), kosheva, podsanki. On the garret of the penthouse
there are different wooden half-finished products for producing
vehicles, bast. Cart chairs and ropes hang on the walls.
HARROWS, WOODEN PLOUGHS AND PLOUGHS
Visitors of the museum see tools for processing
soil with great interest : a harrow, wooden ploughs
and different ploughs, hillers and all kinds of
labour -saving devices necessary for peasants.
There is a special penthouse for storing implements and tools,
rakes, wooden and iron pitchforks, axes, beetles, barrows of
different types for earring hay, straw and ground. Behind the
homestead there is a kitchen-garden with a bath-house and a garden.
All the farmstead is paled with paling.
A bee-garden is very popular with the tourists. Its territory is
paled with wattle-fence. There is a bee-keeper's house, a
storehouse for implements, a device for melting and pressing wax,
for giving bees water. In the bee-garden there are borts and
beehives. All the territory is lined with lime-trees, cedars and
melliferous herbs.
There was built a log barn where it was possible to dry more
than 2000 sheaves, which were put into 2 layers. There is a store
in the pit. The roof is covered with shingle. A threshing-floor
with a shed on oak poles is attached to the barn. The roof is
covered with straw put in dif-ferent ways: "into a hairdo", "like a
brush", "like a foot" tied together. The pediment of the
threshing-floor is covered with sheaves. Near the log barn there
was built a barn "shits" - a primitive form for drying sheaves.
PLOUGHING WITH A WOODEN PLOUGH
A wooden plough was widely used in peasants'
homesteads. Its name originates From a forked pole,
which is called a wooden plough.Two-cogged wooden
ploughs, having two wide ploughshares and a
cross-beam which could be moved from one
ploughshare to another were the most spread in our
region. Iron ploughshares were used for horisontal
cutting of the earth layer and looked like an
oblong spade narrowed at the bottom. Ploughshares
and cross-beams were made in different ways. The
main part of a wooden plough was made of a root and
stump part of a fir-tree, a birch-bark and some
other trees by peasants themselves.
Along the fence there is a special place for drying mown peas.
It is corn-shaped, made of fir-tree branches (8m high) with cut
twigs. This method of drying was used in the collective farms in
the 30-s and later. Here you can see haystacks and ricks into which
straw and sheaves are put. All the implements for thresh-ing, a
horse-drawn threshing machine, a sorter, a screening machine, a
peeling mill, a horse-drawn mower, a seeding machine of an old
type, frails for hand threshing, wooden pitchforks, ploughs and
some other implements are gathered under the roof of the
shed near the threshing floor.
The museum is proud of its tent-like mill with a number of
millstones. Passangers sailing up and down the Volga can see it
from the dis-tance of 10 kilometres. It stands on the highest place
of the territory of the museum. The mill has a tent-shaped roof, a
brick foundation, its frame work is made of wood and walls are
cov-ered with boards. The mill has four wings moving under the
force of wind.
A WHEEL-SHAPED WELL
A wheel-shaped well is a deep one. Water was
lifted with the help of a wheel with teats which
were used for lifting and dropping a tub.
Metal processing played a great role on the whole territory of
the region.
A smithery is built of wood in a form of a small frame work. Its
roof is covered with chips. There, are some machines for shoeing
horses and smithing wheels for tarantasses and carts. The mill
works, there are hand bellows, a forge and all the necessary tools.
If you wish you can shoe a horse here. A machine for shoeing horses
is also inside.
SOFTENING OF UNBLEACHED LINEN
At the end of April - the beginning of May girls
and women were indulged in beating the linen. 4-6
women beat it on the log, standing in pairs. To
make the linen soft and smooth they used wooden
beetles, made of a resonant fir-tree. For this
purpose they used two pairs of thin poles, tied at
the top with a rope, and a cross-beam on which the
log was hung. The linen was put on the log and
pressed in the middle of a cross-beam with a rope.
At the ends of the rope there were two sticks, both
sides of which were held with the feet.
In the penthouse they keep iron, hand drilling and grindstone
machines, vice and an anvil.
Wells of such types as, "shadoof", "windlass-shaped",
"wheel-shaped" have been widely spread in Mari villages for a long
time. On the territory of the museum a shadoof and a wheel-shaped
well have been built. Near the well there is a bench for keeping
buckets and a trough. As a rule a shadoof was dug out when a
water-bearing layer was not very deep, and a wheel-shaped well-when
the layer was rather deep. When a water-bearing layer was too close
to the surface the wells were not very deep and water was supplied
with a bucket attached to the hook at the end of the pole. Such
wells were dug out in the kitchen-gardens near bath-houses and were
used to water vegetables, to wash clothes, to wash in the
bath-house. There are two types of bath-houses in the mu-seum:
"shim momotsa" and "momotsa".
In shim momotsa the stove is made with-out a chimney to its
fire-place. When the fire is burning in the stove the smoke is
dissipating through a half-open door. Water is heated in cast-iron
pots put into the stove or in wooden tubs. A red-hot brick is
thrown into the tub and makes water mild. There is a sweating shelf
on which one can steam.
Water is sprinkled to the red hot bricks and birch, silver-fir
or oak besoms are used to intensify the steaming effect. People
wash themselves sitting on small wooden benches, using wide
wash-tubs. Water is poured with a wooden ladle. A bath-house is
also used for washing up clothes or drying hemp.
A typical feature of a momotsa is a stove with a chimney. Water
is sprinkled inside the stove to intensify steam. There is a
special door for it which is opened to make more steam. In-side the
stove there is a stone which becomes red hot with heating.
An ancient dwelling of the Mari (the end of the 18th-first half
of the 19th centuries) is a hut without a chimney. It is a log
framework with a ceiling and a roof covered with shingle. The hut
consists of one room. Its fire-place has a wooden foundation and is
made of bricks. A smoke outlet in the ceiling is stopped up with a
plug covered with a piece of cloth.
SHOEING OF HORSES
There was a special stall near the smithery for
shoeing horses. Horse-shoes are made of iron. A
horse is put into this stall and is hung a little
with the help of traps. Then every hoof is
processed and a blacksmith tries a hot horse-shoe
on. After cooling it he begins to shoe every leg
one by one. Special tools are necessary for
shoeing: (cutters, hammers, pair of tongs,
graters).
The stove was considered to be an espe-cially respected place in
the house like the front corner. All the rites performed during
religeous holidays were connected with the stove. Cat-tarhal
diseases were treated on the stove. The floor was earthen. On the
holidays it was cov-ered with silver fir branches to make the air
balmy
Almost up to the end of the 19th century the huts were lit with
birch, aspen and lime splinters. They were put into a wooden
upright with 3 or 4 iron fingers. The upright was fas-tened to a
small wooden trough on high legs. The trough was filled with water
for putting out charred ends of a splinter falling into it. All the
utensils in the hut were wooden and home-made. Even a
wash-hand-stand was made of bark. Hand mills-millstones for
grinding grain into flour was the simplest device. Benches were put
along the walls of the hut. Near the stove there were wooden
plank-beds which were cov-ered with birch-tree mats. Sheep skins or
bast mats were put to the plank-beds. Pots made of birch-bark and
wooden hollowed plates and dishes were used for keeping milk
products, kvas and beer. In the forest parts of the region antler's
and elk's horns were nailed to the wall to dry overcoats and to
hang things used for hunt-ing. A staircase made of logs is leading
to the garret. Clothes, wool and hop were kept there.
The second summer kitchen "Kudi" was built in the museum to
demonstrate the proc-esses of brewing, salting and processing
vegetables, washing clothes, dying woolen home-made cloth better.
It is an outbuilding without a ceiling with an earthen floor and an
open hearth faced with bricks in the middle of it. The roof is made
of boards. The walls are rough-hewed for better washing.
Beer has been popular in Gornomari re-gion for a long time.
A WELL OF A "SHADOOF" TYPE
A well of a shadoof type has been widely spread
since ancient times. It was easy to get water from
the depth 10 - 15 m with the help of its lever. As
a rule a frame-work of the well was made of wood :
a fir-tree or an aspen. It was built by hand.
It was brewed in big cast-iron boilers hung on wooden hooks
above the fireplace. It is a tasty drink which slakes thirst very
well, which was good in busy season. It was drunk on patron saint's
day, wedding parties and funeral reparts. The process of brewing
beer is rather difficult, demanding certain skills. Some rye and
barley malt, hop and boiled potatoes are necessary for brewing
beer.
The Mari were good at dying clothes. They used vegetable and
mineral dye-staff: flowers, leaves and roots of grass, trees, black
clay. Most of the dye-staff had a compound composition.
Linen was generally washed in wooden troughs. It was boiled in
coppers. In summer the Mari washed their linen on the bank of the
river or a spring. A copper and all the necessary things for
washing were brought there.
Vegetables were salted in wooden hol-lowed tubs. Natural stones
were used for press-ing. Fennel, garlic, cherry and currant leaves,
mint and horse-raddish were used as spices. The tubs were steamed
with juniper.
During the Great Patriotic War people, liv-ing in the villages
dried potatoes and made starch of them. Different hand devices used
for this purpose, are exhibited in the museum.
The oldest building is a two-storeyed barn. It is used for
storing grain, flour, provi-sions; in winter - meat, which was hung
on the hooks. The bar was built on the poles to pre-vent things
from moisture. The first log at the bottom was usually flat not to
let rodents in. The etrance to the barn is roofed to protect it
from rain and snow. The door is made with a crampon and a wooden
lock cut into it. Besides there is a secret bolt and a hole to let
the cats in. Inside there are special places for storing different
kinds of grain, groats and flour. A lot of ancient things are
gathered in the barn: a piddle, a spring-balance, one-pood weight,
a pike for ramming grain in sacks, scoops, all kinds of weights, a
mouse-trap.
BREWING
The Gornomari brewed beer all the year round.
The main components of it were hop and malt. Not
all the women were trusted to brew beer for a
wedding party, a funeral feast or a festivity,
because it was necessary to be experienced in
brewing beer. People began to store beer in March,
beforehand. In summer it was difficult to brew
beer, standing for long hours at the fire-place and
peasants were pressed for time. There was a saying
"March is famous for its beer and April - For
water". The beer stored for summer was kept in
barrels put on the snow in a cellar.
In a small building attached to the barn there is a staircase
leading to the first floor. Clothes, felt foot-wear, wool and hop
were kept here.
The barn was built in the middle of the 19th century. The
frame-work was built with an axe without a saw. The floor and the
ceiling were squared with an axe. No one nail was used for its
building. The barn looks well and well pre-served
A pent-house with a gable roof was built to demonstrate tools
and implements which are used in agriculture. The main implements
for processing the earth were a wooden plough and a wooden harrow.
Later there appeared iron ploughs and iron harrows with iron teeth.
Here you can see some other implements.
Processing of hemp played a great role in making clothes. As a
rule mari women were good at it. Hemp was sown at the beginning of
June, in the middle of July male plants were pulled out, in August
- female ones. The seeds were threshed with flails. The hemp was
retted in a pond or in a lake and was kept in water for 3 or 4
weeks. Then it was dried, braked, pounded in a mortar with a
pestle. All the implements for processing hemp are represented in
the pent-house ( brakes, mortars, pestles, brushes, bee-tles,
tow)
Domestic crafts are well-represented in the exposition of the
museum: producing of rims, runners for sledges, weels, yokes,
shaft-bows, curved shafts. Here are hand-devices for producing
shingle. The region was rich in forest raw materials: oak, pine,
aspen, lime. A lot of wooden spades were necessary for
house-hold-ing. All the spades were made by skilled
handi-craftsmen. Almost all the wood was floated along small rivers
to the Volga on dug outs, ferry-boats, rafts. A great number of
ropes was necessary for floating and maintaining barges,
ferry-boats and boats. There is a machine for weaving ropes and
cords in the museum. People were busy with domestic craft in their
free time.
A TARANTASS
A tarantass was made by local skilled
handicraftsmen - a blacksmith and a specialist in
making wicker twigs. It was used on holidays and
wedding parties.
Near the pent-house under the same roof there is a pavilion for
processing wool. As a rule the Mari beat wool with a stringed bow
above a wooden net. When the string vibrated foreign substance,
waste materials were thrown aside, small particles fell through the
net, and well-beaten wool fell on the apron of a person, beat-ing
wool. The string was made of sheep's gut. Beaten wool was used for
making valenki, hats; thick felt and yarn was used for weaving
home-made cloth, for knitting stockings, socks, and gloves.
Home-made woolen things: mittens, gloves, socks, valenki for
men, women and chil-dren and uppers for valenki are exhibited in
the museum.
Since ancient times the Gornomari have been indulged in making
baskets. According to the statistic data of 1877 making wicker
baskets was popular in 18 villages of Kozmodemyansk region.
Handicraftsmen from the villages of Mari Sundur and Novosyoli were
especially famous for making wicker baskets. They used raw
mate-rials of the region: willow twigs (a purple willow) were
numerous in the flood-lands of the Volga.
Handicraftamen worked with their families. For making wicker
things they used scraped or unscraped twigs. For making more
refined things the twigs were splitted. In a newly open pavilion
"Wicker things" you can see tools for making wicker things and all
kinds of wicker baskets. Wicker things made of bast (lime bark),
birch-bark, straw, implements for making them are demonstrated
here.
DRYING OF POTS
In every household near a summer kitchen there
was a special device for drying pots. As a rule it
was a tree with numerous knots.The tree was dug
into the earth, scorched and tarred. It was used
for a long time. A juniper and an oak with new
twigs were used for this purpose. After washing the
pots were hung on the knots for drying in the
sun.
Huts made of hay are put on the territory of the museum in
summer. A tent made of rough linen is stretched here. Such tents
used to be made during hay-mowing time. There is no better time of
the year than hay-mowing for villagers. People were going to the
meadows as to the holidays. Families went there for 2 - 3 weeks
taking all the necessary home bags and baggage, even a cradle if
there was a baby in the family. The creators of the museum did
their best to reconstruct everything as it had been in the past for
visitors. When the museum was projected the territory bordering on
the north was not provided for usage. In this place the
collaborators of the museum have built some buildings. The
country-side here is very peculiar: slopes, deep ravines, steep
slopes with plane grounds between them.
This place was fenced and was turned into the second part of the
museum. They used an old apple garden and planted some new
apple-trees, plumps, cherry-trees, berry-bushes (currant,
raspberry). A newly -planted garden has born fruits. Going up along
the slope to the main territory of the museum its visitors admire a
blooming garden. They can taste fruit and berries when the crop is
ripening.
On this territory there was built a pavilion for
fishing-tackles. Close to it there is a massive pent-house for
keeping ferry-boats, boats of all kinds.
Visitors of the museum will be able to see a device for
extraction of tar. For this purpose there was built a frame-work
with a special store for the extraction of tar. Tar extraction was
a typical craft of our people living in the forest re-gion
Visitors going to the museum from the lower part of town, open
the Mari gates and along the path come to a newly-built wooden
house, reminding of ancient houses.
The Ethnografic museum in the open air in the town of
Kozmodemyansk is being built with new exhibits. New research
workers have been enlisted into the staff of the museum recently.
It became possible in such a short period of time (1979 - 1993) to
reconstruct an ancient place of our country-side, reflecting labour
and mode of life of the Gornomari.
AT A LATHE
A lathe was used for making turned plates and
dishes and furniture. The things were turned when a
piece of wood fixed in the lathe was rotating.
Different kinds of cutters were used for wood
processing and they were all made by local
blacksmithes. Dried lime was the main raw
material.
Director of the Scientific - Research Insti-tute of Language,
Literature, history and econ-omy of the Chuvash Republic, Doctor of
science, Prof. V. D. Dmitriev gave a good reference to the museum:
"I've seen this wonderful museum of Mari peasant life and
architecture in the open air with great interest and pleasure.
Everything typical of ancient settlements, dwellings, house-holds,
tools and implements of Mari peasants have been collected here. The
museum was planned on a scientific basis with the knowledge of
ethnography. Things and exhibits, repre-sented here give you a full
idea about ocupations, dwellings, buildings, vehicles, utensils of
peasants. Many generations will be thankful for preserving valuable
relics of the past and material culture of people".
The museum is very dear to all the people of the region. The
younger generation learns much about the past, about occupations
and life of their anthesters. People of the older genera-tion have
an opportunity of remembering the years of their youth
A HOUSE (INTERIOR)
Utensils in a Man household were wooden and
home-made. There were many wicker things. There
were a lot of talented persons among the masters.
We still admire the things made by Ivan
Grigoryevich Kirillov: an armchair, a trunk, an
easter wicker basket, which were made by a special
method. Wicker things made by I.G. Kirillov were
exhibited at the International exhibition in Kazan
and the master was awarded a bronze medal. A
typical feature of all the houses was flowers : a
geranium, an aloe and a ficus. Every hostess did
her best to keep her house clean.
WEAVING OF THE BELTS
Every village had its own specialists in making
belts. They were woven on a small machine of cotton
and silk threads. All the colours of a rainbow were
used there. Belts with letters and phrases on
religeous themes woven by the nuns of the
Verkhne-Sumskoi and Kozmodemyansk nunnery were
especially valued.
A FISHERMAN'S SHED
The Man went in for fishing in the places close
to the Volga and some other rivers and lakes rich
in fish. There were many ways of fishing. When
people fished in the lakes they used sweep-nets,
spoon-baits, drag-nets which were often home-made.
When fishing with nets they used "botalo" - a
wooden, hollowed cone, a narrow end of which was
hafted to a long pole. Fish was frightened with it,
when it sounded like a shot. In early winter fish
was stunned with wooden beetles in the lakes and
small rivers. A group of people usually fished with
sweep-nets and drag-nets. It was a kind of mutual
assis-tance. There were a lot of fishmongers who
sent fish to Kazan, Cheboksari and some other towns
of the Volga area and to the local markets and
fairs.
THE INTERIOR OF THE PAVILION "WICKER THINGS"
Masters making wicker things used local raw
materials : willow twigs, bast, birch-bark and
straw. There was no need in complicated implements
in this domestic craft, but masters should be
skilled and experienced. To make wicker containers
for apples, wicker beer baskets, fishing tackle,
cradles for newly-borns, baskets for keeping large
bottles the masters used unscraped twigs.
Travelling wicker baskets were of 2 kinds : made of
scraped unsplitted twigs and made of scraped
sptitted twigs. Bast-boxes, cases for bars,
scythes, axes and other things were made of
birch-bark. Straw was a raw material for making
comfortable hats for summer wear. Bast was used for
making bags, purses, bast-boxes, hand-made bast
-sandals. Nowadays wicker baskets for mushrooms,
clothes and baby's baskets are made of willow
twigs.
A FIRE SHED WITH A FIRE TOWER
A fire shed wih a fire tower was built in every
village. There was a bell there, telling people
about the fire. In the shed there was a cart with a
barrel of water and a fire-engine for fighting with
the fire. Fire brigade went to the places of fire
in the carts harnessed with horses. In the shed
there was a special cart for fire-fighting tools :
pitchforks, prongs, hooks, high ladders and poles.
Near the shed there was a house for a fireman on
duty and stable for horses.
EXTRACTING OF TAR
Tar was stored up to late autumn. In the middle
of the 19th century there appeared special devices
with brick stoves and coppers. They were numerous
in the places rich in raw materials. The way of
extracting tar was similar to that of extracting
wood tar of birch-bark. Small pieces of tar filled
the copper which was then closed. When the copper
was red hot, the tar flew out into the hole, moving
along a wooden groove into a barrel while the char
coal remained in the copper. When the fire went out
an iron net with charcoal was lifted and put out in
a pit. Wood tar was extracted in the same way from
birch-bark.
FIBRE PROCESSING ON A BRAKE
To separate fibre from stews they were braked on
a special brake called tule. It was an inclined
piece of wood with 2 roots instead of legs and a
slot at the top in which a wooden plate freely
comes in. To get a brake people used a fir-tree
with roots.
TRANSPORT OF SHEAVES ON A HORSE AND THEIR STORING
At the end of the harvest time the sheaves were
usually put into hay-cocks. Having dried them in
the barns people took them to thresh.
THE INSPECTION OF BEE-HIVES IN THE BEE-GARDEN
Bee-keeping was very important in a peasant's
household. Large tracts of forest, meadows and
fields with melliferous herbs were beautiful base
for bee-keeping. Till the middle of the 19th
century bees were kept in bee-hives (koloda). This
new type of bee-keeping was primitive, but much
more better than bortnichestvo. A bee-hive of a
koloda-type was a hollow in a cut tree and brought
to a personal plot. The Man used bee-keeping things
at home or sold them. Honey was used for cooking
national dishes and making different drinks,
candles were made of bee's wax.
HAY-MAKING
Hay-making is a nice time. Well-dressed women in
white linen shirts and smart aprons, neatly-dressed
men are going to the meadqws. They are working
well, singing melodious gornomari songs. During the
hay-making people live in huts, made of branches,
hay or under a tent made of home-spun linen. Food
is cooked in the coppers near the nuts. Tea is made
of aromatic herbs. People usually have dinner just
on the ground or build a table, with some benches
around it. Bed-curtains are stretched in the huts
to prevent from mosquitoes and gad-flies. Dry hay
with scent of flowers is used for beds.
A SAW-MILL
Two pairs of supporters were put in the street.
The supporters were 2,5-3 m high. The logs were
rolled along the sloping poles to the top of the
supporters. The logs were sawn with a crown saw.
One man stood at the top ana the other one at the
bottom.
FIBRE PROCESSING IN A MORTAR
The Man made their clothes of homespun white
hemp linen. It was one of the most important
domestic crafts. After braking of the stems, hemp
was pounded in a mortar by 4 or 5 women
simultaneously. As a rule they had been working for
5 -6 days from early morning till late at
night.
A BARN FOR STORING GRAIN
Inside the barn there are a lot of devices for
storing and processing grain : hollowed barrels, a
riddle for a hand sorting of grain before sowing,
hand millstones, one pood weight for weighing flour
and all kinds of scoops. There appear more and more
ancient things in the Ethnographic museum in the
open air. M.P.Romanov, director of the museum,
Z.V.Krasilnikova (on the left) and A.L.Atkanova
scientific workers are responsible for it.
WEAVING OF BAST ROPES
A device for stranding ropes is very simple. As
a rule sledges with rotary devices for twisting
were used for this purpose. At first strands of
bast were twisted and 3 of them were joined into a
rope. This job was very hard. Both men and women
took part in, stranding ropes.
SWINGS
In the centre of the village or in the outskirts
of it there were places of rest for the youth.
Children used to swing in the day time and in the
evening young people came here to have a rest.
A WINDMILL
An old windmill stands on the hill, open to all
the winds. Once it was undeservedly forgotten and
got its second life in 1980, when it was
transported from the village of Shindiryali to
Kozmodemyansk and put on a high, picturesque bank
of the Volga river. The first windmills appeared
in Kozmode-myansk region in the 19th century. Its
millstones moved under the force of wind.
SHEAVES DRYING AT THE BARN "SHISH"
"Shish" was a primitive wide-spread building for
drying sheaves.At the bottom of it there was a pit
with a pise-walled or brick stove in deepening.
Above the pit there was a stony ceiling with slots
to let the smoke and warm air out. The upper part
of the "Shish" had a cone-shaped fqnn, made of
poles. Some twigs were put at the top not to let
the ears hang. About 300 sheaves were put on the
poles up to the top. In dry weather the number of
sheaves was greater. It took the sheaves 14 - 16
hours to dry in the "Shish".
COOPERAGE
Cooperage was widely used in the region. Staving
was done in winter. Barrels were made in
bath-houses or in the houses in winter and in the
yard under a pent-house in summer. The quality of
these things was very high. Among the masters were
handicraftsmen who could choose the layers of wood.
All the boards were fitted so skilfully, that it
was difficult to see lines of their junction.
Looking at such a cask it was difficult to believe
mat it was made of separate boards. The stave for
casks was made of different species of wood. The
twigs of elms, willows, fir-trees and bird-cherry
trees were used for making hoops.
BORTI
Borti is a hollow of a tree with a swarm of
bees. Beehives attached to a tree were a
transitional form from bortnichestyo to a
bee-keeping in bee-gardens. A white long shirt was
put on when a bee-master worked with bees. A
bee-master took a small wooden spade and a small
hollowed outbarrel which was fastened to the belt
or hung on a knot of a tree. Beehives were made of
different species of trees.
