07.19.2013
Pictures:
Today was opposite
to yesterday: a village and folk life instead of lord’s world. We went to
Pushkin’s village in Bugrovo where a watermill became a place of the action in
Pushkin’s unfinished poem “Mermaid”. We read this poem again with a great
pleasure during our breakfast. Despite of a heavy raining, we enjoyed our tour
in the village where another wonderful guide plunged into the vivid world of
Russian village of 19th century with its beliefs and wisdoms, its
omens and songs. We hided into a big barn where the guide showed us how men
were threshing (they did about 50 strokes in one minute!) and how women were
dressing seeds using the wind (they opened either two big gated in opposite
sides of a barn or small doors on two other sides: it depended on the wind
direction). She showed us how women were hackling the flax three times: the first
one is for rough fabric for tablecloths and towels, the second one if for
clothes and the third one for a famous “Pskov silk” – delicate muslin which was
used for wedding veils. The interesting fact is that number 3 is used
everywhere: on the watermill there are 3 grades of flour (rough flour for
bread, the softer one for pies and the softest one for pancakes), 3 times we wound
a thread round our dolls that we were making during the workshop in the
village.
Our guide told us
about a bathhouse: why girls were fortunetelling only there and why this place
was considered as the most evil one in the house. The reason is simple – it’s
almost the only one place in the house where is no icons. We also visited two
izbas (Russian historic village house): the “white” one and the “black” one. On
the “black” one nobody needed an alarm clock in the morning: when a hostess
burnt a stove nobody can stay in the house because of the smoke. This house is
heated with a chimneyless stove: that’s why it’s called “black”. So everyone
went to do their business early in the morning. As for the “ white” house it
was the place where girls were needle working and boys were making wooden
tableware. Boys checked how the girls were working and which one is the best in
spinning and put a wax candle from the church (they were very expensive) in
front of the girl they liked most. Some girls had a lot of candles (as well as
a lot of admirers) and some girls didn’t have any. Weddings took place also in
the “white” house. However, the bed for the newlyweds is in the inner porch
because the roof of the house was covered with some soil to make it warmer and
it was a bad omen to start a new life “under the ground”. Another reason was
the fact that usually newlyweds didn’t know each other well enough before the
arranged marriage so the cold forced them to get closer in their first night…
After the houses we
went to the watermill where a charming junior miller told us everything about a
mechanism of a watermill where everything is equipped so that it will work for
a long time without renewing. First of all, it’s hard to change the details of
this mechanism, secondly, as it’s a watermill it could work only when the pond
near isn’t frozen so the local residents had to arrange milling with a miller a
year in advance. We tasted 3 different grades of a flour and even bran. And a
miller played balalaika for us – a great pleasure!
We also sent our
relatives letters written by a quill and ink! First of all, I understood what
“a squeak of a quill” means, and secondly, it’s really hard to write with it. I
can’t imagine how Pushkin and other people at his time were writing with a copybook
hand so smooth lines. Plus, our hands were covered with ink stains. But it was so much fun!
We had lunch in a
café of a hotel “Arina R.” (making fun of this stupid name-reference to a
Pushkin’s nanny) where I tasted cloistral food: “Cloistral Salad” with fresh
cabbage, cucumbers and apples and a buckwheat porridge “Mikhailovskaya” with
mushrooms. It was heavy raining but we managed even to buy souvenirs from
Pushkin Mountains: miniature-books with Pushkin’s poems, ceramic jugs, magnets,
“brownies” (Russian house spirits) and other nice things. At home we were
reading Pushkin’s works aloud, frying potatoes, playing cards and having great
time. Nobody wants to leave…
No comments:
Post a Comment