Which washcloth is best, and how to decide on its choice? Bask sponge Products made from bast sponge

22.08.2020

Type of occupation: housekeeping Purpose: bath sponges, ropes, floor rags, brushes for whitewashing stoves, brushes for tarring boats, washcloths for washing dishes and kitchen rags Time: summer until the end of July Traditionally occupied by: women

What is linden bast? This is probably one of the first types of plant fiber, the use of which was mastered by man at the dawn of civilization. We will tell the story not about deep antiquity, but about the harvesting and use of linden bast by the residents of Zaonezhye at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries. In those years, linden bast was widely used in Everyday life the entire Russian peasantry and residents of Zaonezh in particular. In Zaonezhye at that time they almost didn’t wear bast shoes, neither linden nor birch bark - everyday and, even more so, festive shoes were leather. Weaving from bast - making matting - was also not common here; but, for example, many, many hundreds of arshins (arshine - 71.12 cm) of ropes for fishing tackle were “bast” - made from linden bast. Nets were attached to bast ropes because these ropes are abrasion-resistant, strong and lightweight - because they float in water.

This is what the brother of the famous foreman of Kizhi carpenters Nikolai Ivanovich Stepanov, Dmitry Ivanovich Stepanov, born in 1924, told the employee of the Kizhi Museum I. I. Nabokova about the twisting and use of bast ropes. Posad, Volkostrov: “... this carrier (he worked on transporting people in a boat from Kizhi to Volkostrov and to Eglov Island), Grigory Petrovich Bosarev, an old man, he was always at the window, in the wall there was a big vault and forked ropes from the bast. ... He twisted the ropes. These ropes were very popular back then. ... People took them, which means they were tied to nets. She doesn’t sink, firstly, she didn’t need enough float, but the float was usually made from birch bark, made from birch bark. You know, they put floats like that in the nets, which means they bought these chickadees from him. He worked and weaved a rope like this - it’s just like all silk! And the bast picked out something so white, so good...”

To understand what a linden bast is, we need to briefly talk about the structure of a tree trunk. The trunk of a tree is formed by wood growing in annual rings. The middle of the trunk is stronger, this is the heartwood or kernel; Towards the edge lies sapwood - living, softer wood. The outside of the trunk is protected by bark. Between the bark and sapwood there is a thin layer of producing cells, which during the warm season lay layers of wood inside the trunk, and bark cells outside. It is precisely this most important layer of cells for a tree and its surroundings that is called bast or bast. Both willow and elm (elm) bast were peeled (harvested), but only linden, the only one of all local tree species, is endowed with such a luxurious multi-layered and thick bast. The layers of linden bast closest to the wood are the lightest, thinnest and softest; those lying immediately under the bark are brownish and rough. Hence various uses in the economy of these layers of bast, differing in their properties: the whitest, softest went to bath washcloths, “to the white body”; the middle layers - yellowish and more durable - were used for weaving ropes; the uppermost - brownish, rough layers of bast - were used as floor rags. Fabric was very valuable at that time and was not used for rags - families were large, clothes were altered, patched, worn and worn to the last. And when the clothes became completely ribush (decrepit), they wove rugs from them, tearing them into strips. So the floors (and even the walls and ceiling of the hut - on holidays) were washed with bast rags and birch brooms (brooms without leaves, “naked”).

But let’s start talking about the preparation of linden bast in order, using the example of the Nikonov peasant family from the Kizhi village of Boyarshchina, located on the shore of Lake Onego. In the vicinity of Kizhi, two large linden forests were known where peasants went to pick bast: on Dolgy Island in Uyma (Uyma is the Novgorod name for the Kizhi skerries archipelago) and on the western shore of Vozhmarikha Bay. Linden grew in clumps on many other islands. According to the memoirs of Antonina Ivanovna Nikonova (1935 - 2006), a resident of Boyarshchina, she and her grandmother Ekaterina Ivanovna Nikonova (Ryabinina) (1881 - 1957) together went on a kizhan boat to the linden forest on Dolgiy Island - “to Uyma”. From Boyarshchina it is about eight kilometers by water. “We went sailing, for the whole day, in the middle of summer. We waited for the wind to pick up (side wind) so that we would not row with oars, but sail in both directions. There, in Uymy, they caught a large perch for lunch, cooked “green soup” - from only large perches, without onions, without potatoes, and so much fish that the fish soup turned green.”

The bast easily comes off from the linden tree from spring until the end of July, when the active flow of sap along the trunk stops (and bast fibers are also the conductive tissue of the tree); but in the spring they didn’t tear the bast, they waited for it to grow thicker by mid-summer.

They looked for linden trees that were not old, starting with those that were as thick as an arm and up to a span about the thickness (1 span - 4 inches - 17.78 cm). If the tree was older and its bark was thick, then first, with a scraper (a plane with a narrow blade and two handles) or an ax, its top layer (“growths”) was cut off, otherwise, when the bark is rolled into “lumps” (skeins), it will break and the bast will break into short pieces. They felled the linden with an ax and “teared the bast” with their hands - they cut the bark at the butt (the thick end of the trunk), grabbed the easily separated edges and tore off long strips of bark along with the bast from the tree. In ripe season, the bast is thick and easily comes off along with the bark. It happened that when removing a bast they used a pointed wooden spatula made from a spruce branch.

We tried to prepare as long a bast as possible, especially for twisting ropes. The branches were chopped off, carefully stripping off the sticky tissue, the trunk was cut up and taken with them - ladles, scoops for grain, spoons were cut from soft white wood; carvers made carved icon cases from linden wood and applied carvings on furniture. Nothing was abandoned at the felling site; the forest was kept clean and not littered.

Women, going out for bast without men, used to not cut down the tree, but tore the bast from the standing sticky tree, making notches at the root and above the head, as far as their hands could reach; or they tore strips from below and right up to the branches of the crown. At the same time, the tree remained standing, and the bast and wood that were not taken were wasted without use. This is how they prepared bast for themselves already on collective farms after the war, when mainly women and children worked on the land, with a shortage of men - dead husbands and fathers.

The harvested bark was rolled into “balls” (skeins) - strips of bark were twisted with the bast side outward and the bark inward. The lumps were tied in thin strips of the same bast and placed together with the linden blanks in the boat. Having arrived home under sail in the Boyar region, they soaked the lumps in the water near the shore, in a shallow, calm place, pressing them down with stones. The length of time the bark was soaked until ready depended on the water temperature - in cold summers it was soaked longer, in warm summers it was soaked shorter. Usually they drenched in the lake for at least a week. As with the soaking of flax, hemp, and in ancient times, nettles, the effect of soaking is to allow the fibers needed in the household to acidify and separate from the coarse, unusable part of the workpiece or stem, so that it becomes possible to separate the good fibers from the bark or, in the case of flax , from the bone. At the same time, you cannot keep the lumps and, especially, sheaves of flax in water, because then the necessary fiber itself will begin to rot.

When you see this soaked bast - soaked, covered with mucus, silt, smelling of rot - you can’t believe that you just put your hands on it and soon the foul-smelling lumps will turn into a “sunny” fragrant bast. How did they achieve this? The lumps were pulled ashore, untied, and strips of bark were hung on hangers (devices made of poles for drying, repairing nets, etc.) along the skodni (wooden walkways for mooring a boat). A well-soaked bast is easily separated from the bark; usually the strips of bast were separated from the bark with bare hands, without any tools. In case of difficulty, a knife was used to remove the last, coarse fibers. Immediately, thick and wide multi-layer strands of bast were divided into strips of approximately equal thickness and width and the bast was laid out in different bundles, dividing it according to the quality and length of the fiber.

The long washcloth was used, as already mentioned, for making bath washcloths, twisting ropes and making floor rags - that is, it was laid out into three bundles; from short pieces of fiber, also depending on its softness, brushes were made for whitewashing stoves, brushes for tarring boats, washcloths for washing dishes and kitchen rags used to wipe the table. What does “they made washcloths” mean? As Antonina Ivanovna said: “they rolled the bun in their hand and washed themselves” - there was no weaving.

Then the bast, disassembled into bundles, was thoroughly washed in water. First, the putrid mucus was washed off, then the washcloth was literally washed by hand, using its natural “soapiness.” Finally, they were taken out of the water, hung on the same hangers and dried in the breeze. Having dried, the washcloth acquired a fragrant smell, with a hint of honey aroma. Used it as needed; they were stored in bunches in the economic part of the house, which in Zaonezhsky houses was under the same roof with the living part, as they said - “in the barn”; or “on the tower,” that is, in the attic.

Probably, matting weaving was not noticeably widespread in Zaonezhye because there were still few linden trees compared to the central provinces of Russia; but on the other hand, ropes for fishing gear (nets, keragodas, seines, stays, tops, snares, longitudinals, etc.) and for everyday use (for tying carts, for equipping boats, for construction work, for horse harness, etc.) often twisted from linden bast. Flax was grown, as a rule, only for the production of “tochiv” (fabric) and threads for knitting nets; flax areas (flax areas) were small and flax fiber was not used for weaving ropes. If there were no lime trees nearby, then ropes were made from otraps and izgrebs - coarse short strips of flax, from which rugs and burlap were usually woven. Families engaged in industrial fishing used to grow hemp, which produces a very long, strong fiber, for knitting nets; but the “strings” (top and bottom ropes) of the nets were still, as a rule, bast.

There was only one method of twisting ropes - both from bast and from all other materials. Although there were many different tools and mechanisms for performing this work - from simple wooden hooks to various devices of viewweeds with auxiliary devices. The essence is that first the strands are twisted from the fiber in one direction, and then the rope is twisted from the strands by rotation, and it is always twisted in the opposite direction. As they say, “God gave the hands, but he made the ropes.” And without a rope, it was impossible to navigate a boat, or build a house, and in general, it was impossible to manage any farm.

In conclusion, it must be said that these “vikovic” linden trees - on Dolgy Island and in Vozhmarikha Bay - are still blooming and growing to this day. Peasant users have not worn them out over many centuries of harvesting bast, although no one on the farm could do without bast. Linden is a coppice tree that regenerates easily and quickly; and the world used the lime trees wisely, not predatorily, leaving the lime tree to both children and grandchildren. Now these linden forests have turned into dense, overmature linden forests; the peasant owners disappeared, disappeared from our folk life and “honey” bast is a wonderful natural material...

Quote by: Skobelev O.A. The linden bast is zaonezhan: a tug, a rope, and a washcloth. Petrozavodsk: Publishing Center of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve, 2008

Resistant to water.

Many folk dolls are made on the basis of bast. They say that large paint brushes made from bast are sometimes sold in construction stores, but I have never seen them. Make the sponge yourself - it’s a pity for the linden tree only if you’re lucky enough to find the fallen one, but so far you haven’t come across it.

Bast can be bought in brushes - it can be used not only as a brush, but also for crafts; bast in brushes is of excellent quality.

Bast is not only good for dolls, it is also a real washcloth, for baths and more, it is also perfect for an ordinary city bath.

When steamed, linden bast becomes soft and silky, just like the skin after peeling with a bast washcloth. When using a washcloth bast fibers emit phytoncides - the best remedy for the prevention of colds.

Bast washcloths are made from the inner layer of linden bark, split and specially processed. After steaming, linden bast becomes soft and helps to perfectly cleanse the skin, this is explained by the fact that the entire surface of the bast is covered with tiny fibers. Among the body washcloths there is another wonderful one: natural material-, they are also suitable for creating crafts, like the loofah.

The thickness of the villi is comparable to the size of human pores, therefore, when we wash ourselves with bast washcloth, it not only scrubs and massages, but also cleanses the pores. In addition, during washing, fibers release phytoncides, which, as you know, are the best weapon against microbes. Such a washcloth will ensure cleanliness, will not harm the skin, and will also help protect against colds.

A bast is a mandatory attribute of a Russian bath. Removes static electricity, improves regeneration skin. When using the washcloth, you first need to steam it with boiling water for 10 minutes, then pour it over with cold water and soap it.

The tradition of making bast bast came to us from time immemorial. Bast sponge was used not only for washing, it has always served as an excellent addition to a bath broom as a tool for massage.

Once upon a time the linden tree covered almost all of Rus'. Bast fibers from linden bark were used to make bast shoes, feet, shoe covers, boots and sandals. One shoe was worn during long journeys, another during commercial hunting and fishing, and the third was simply used as house shoes, similar to modern slippers. For Russian people, wicker bast shoes were as traditional as wooden shoes for the peasants of Western Europe.

Bast for weaving shoes was removed from trees no older than ten years old. Having made longitudinal cuts on the trunk with a knife, the harvesters removed four narrow ribbons. After removing the top crust, the bast ribbons were soaked and weaving began.

Linden wood has a unique smell, this smell is persistent and lasts for many years. It smells nice of loofah and maybe a little linden blossom.

Everyone knows the little rhyme about the “white hare” who picked a bast in the forest and put it under a log. In fact, the hare does not prepare bast, but simply feasts on the sweet and juicy bark.

But squirrels, crows and rooks actually harvest bast. They pluck it from dried branches without causing any harm to the tree. The dry crust covering the bast fibers crumbles, but the flexible soft fibers remain. This is what squirrels and birds line their nests with.

Durable bast fibers of old and young linden trees have found a wide variety of uses in human economic activities. For basting, the bark was removed from large trees. Longitudinal cuts were made on the trunk on both sides. Then, using a wooden wedge, two half-cylinder grooves were separated from the trunk. The bark removed in this way was called bast. Dried bast was used as roofing material for outbuildings, and simple utensils for dry food were made from it. But the main part of the bast was used for the production of bast, the use of which was very diverse. To obtain bast, bast was soaked in mochila - ditches dug in the forest near a stream or lake. Bast harvested in spring or early summer was loaded into soaking ditches. Well-soaked bast was hung out to dry, and in winter it was brought to the village and put into use.

Soaked bast fibers tied into a bundle instantly turned into a bath sponge, which is well known to modern people. They knitted brushes from bast for whitewashing stoves, made brushes and brushes for washing dishes, wove quite strong ropes and even threads for fishing nets. Archaeological excavations confirm that fishing nets were woven from bast back in the Neolithic era. The strength of ropes made from moss can be judged by the fact that they were used to make harnesses and fetters for horses. On simple wooden looms, village craftsmen wove matting, from which they made coolies, capes for horses, and much more. The ancient Germans wove clothes from sponge - mainly cloaks and belts. In Russia in the last century, Ryazan lamplighters made raincoats from bast bags. One corner of the sack-bag was inserted into the other - and the cloak was ready. In the old days, sponge was widely used by carpenters as padding material for upholstered furniture.

The mop was also used for polishing wooden furniture. Moreover, it was used so widely that the polishing process itself began to be called basting.

Oil, caviar and grape juice are well preserved in linden containers. In the Caucasus, huge vats for squeezing grape juice and churns were made from linden trees. In modern cooperage, linden staves are used to make dishes intended for storing and transporting granular caviar.

This personal hygiene item was known to humanity at the very dawn of the bath culture. The ancient Greeks used bronze and crushed marble chips to cleanse the skin, the Romans used pumice, the eastern peoples used sand, our ancestors used wood ash and linden bast. Nowadays, during the triumphant procession of hand-made items, one is just asking for a washcloth made by oneself to be placed on the bath shelf, and not purchased on sale at the nearest household chemicals supermarket. Well? Let's evaluate the possibilities and consider options?

Modern industry, like Greece, has everything. That is, almost any household item can be manufactured according to specified requirements and in sufficient quantity. The only problem is the cost and, as a consequence, the final price for the consumer. A mass-produced inexpensive product does not always and completely meet the aspirations and expectations of the user, and in modern realities it is not profitable to make a product with characteristics slightly higher than disposable ones. Production facilities must be loaded, and the buyer must go to buy new goods like going to work. It is simply not profitable for industrialists to do exclusive things. So, we'll do it ourselves. The question is, from what?

Polypropylene thread

A bath sponge made from it is the closest option to samples made in industrial conditions. This material has:

Low degree of water absorption;
Hypoallergenic;
It has fairly good sanitary properties, since microorganisms do not multiply so actively on such material;
This surface cleanses the skin quite well, having a moderate peeling effect;
Colors, shapes and sections of threads can be very diverse. Choose - I don’t want;
Finally, weaving washcloths from such material can be done in the most primitive way - the weave method.

Why might such material not suit the user? First of all, it is synthetic, manufactured by the chemical industry for a wide variety of needs of the national economy, from the manufacture of bag containers, plumbing pipes and ending with plastic cups, so well known to regulars of city liqueurs. How appropriate it is in a traditional bathhouse is up to the individual user and owner to decide.

Wool

We have already talked about the properties of this material in the bathhouse when we discussed the topic in detail. Why wool is good:

This is a natural product that has a certain positive potential and energy. It is unlikely that anyone will argue with this postulate;
It is well processed and a person who has even basic knitting or crocheting skills will not have much difficulty solving the problem of how to weave a washcloth with his own hands, or, to be more precise, knit;
It has good cleansing properties, has a gentle effect on the skin, and has a therapeutic effect to improve microcirculation of blood and lymph, both in the superficial layers of the skin and in the deeper ones. Excellent for the regeneration of the epidermis. In the applied aspect, products made from it are convenient to use in the form of a woolen mitten;
Resistant to water and elevated temperatures, has a sufficient reserve of mechanical tensile strength;
Finally, the choice of raw materials is quite large and varied, and the price is not scary.

Attention! Woolen products must be dried well after use, since the ability to retain moisture and the natural origin of the raw material can initiate the proliferation of microflora of various types, which may result in bad smell, as the lesser of evils.

Sackcloth

Referring to the list of materials in which the question of how to weave a washcloth is not necessary in principle, since everything has already been woven before us. Our task is to use burlap to make a bag of a convenient size, usually a square with a side of no more than 180 mm. The edges must be finished with an overlocker, and if it is not available, they must be stitched with a fine double seam. Spontaneous unraveling of the edges of this type of fabric is one of the most serious problems.

You can put a cleaning composition into the cavity of the bag, including one you prepare yourself. It is convenient to use soap based on birch tar, since burlap will successfully hide the appearance of dirty color as a result of washing traces of tar onto the surface. For ease of use of such a hygiene item, it is necessary to attach an elastic band, assembled with an accordion, to one side. Maintenance of such a sponge may involve periodically opening the cavity and replacing detergent composition new.

Important! It should be remembered that this kind of material is inferior to wool in terms of mechanical strength and synthetic fibers in terms of wear resistance.

It is quite obvious that caring for washcloths of this kind also involves periodically drying them. To manifest aromatic qualities, some practitioners fill such pads with finely ground herbal raw materials of mint, lemon balm, wormwood, thyme and oregano separately or in a mixture in equal proportions by volume. Filling ratio: 7 parts detergent to 3 parts fragrance.

By the way! It should be remembered that when using compositions based on tar, no flavoring will interrupt its smell.

Plant fibers

You'll have to tinker with them. There is, of course, an option when nature itself gives us practically ready product, we talked about him at one time in. But it doesn’t grow here, and what we have requires pre-treatment. What do we have available? First of all - bast, a thin fibrous subbark layer of wood or nettle, hemp, flax fiber. In addition to the listed industrial crops, it is also characteristic of many deciduous tree species. But the most applicable is the following:

Oak - has good strength, but is difficult to separate and can rarely be removed in the form of long, uniform fibers. It has a characteristic, very persistent spicy aroma;
Elm - in many ways similar to the previous one, however, it does not have a strong aroma;
Birch - too hard for the production of bast, requires complex subsequent processing or the use of very young trees with a trunk thickness of no more than 60 - 80 mm as raw material;
Linden is the most widely applicable and most honored option;

Remember the expression: “Rip off like a sticky stick”? Let's get started.

Technology of processing bast to obtain bast

Back in the mid-1980s, markets and hardware stores in the USSR had thick paint brushes made of wood fiber, which housewives of that time used to whitewash tree trunks and borders with lime. During communist subbotniks, they were sometimes given out as tools of production, as a result of which they were safely transferred from the national economy to the private economy.

The main technological methods can be distinguished as follows:

Linden can produce raw materials from both mature and young trees.
The main harvesting period falls on the period from the Annunciation to Trinity.
The bark is removed from young trees through longitudinal cuts no more than 100 cm long, in an amount of no more than 4 per trunk. Large trees are debarked on both sides, and the bark is removed using linings - wooden wedges that are driven between the subbark and the tree trunk itself. The separated parts are removed in the form of two gutters.
Very important part preparatory work- soaking. It is carried out in a shallow, up to 0.5 m reservoir with a hard, flat bottom and running water. As a result, the fibers acquire necessary qualities, are primarily plastic and can be easily separated from the supporting substrate. The duration of the procedure is a very uncertain indicator and directly depends on the specific growing conditions and quality of the material. In practice, in most cases, it can range from 2 to 7 weeks. Soaking can be avoided if the work is carried out on very young trees whose subbark has not hardened sufficiently.
After soaking, the fiber is removed, distributed and cleaned by combing with a primitive comb.
Next, drying begins under a canopy with good air flow and constant monitoring of the raw materials, since, like any organic material with a sufficient level of humidity, it is susceptible to rotting.

A word from Experienced! After drying, the traditional technology involved “gilding”, that is, the bast bundles were exposed to direct sun, as a result of which the surface was covered with a rich straw-golden color. Let's face it, this finishing procedure is more typical for the production of bast shoes than washcloths, since exposure to ultraviolet radiation makes the bast harder.

Washcloths were made from ready-made raw materials using a primitive twisting method, when a layer of material approximately 80 - 100 mm thick is intercepted with a rope in two places and pulled together to maintain its shape. In this context, the more correct expression is not how to weave washcloths, but how to knit them.

You can see the manufacturing process visually and more clearly in the attached video.

Remember! The service life of such a washcloth rarely exceeds 5 - 8 procedures and it is susceptible to damage by microorganisms, which is quite natural for a natural product.

Correctly deciding how to weave a washcloth for a bath is not everything; what is important is how to use it correctly. Before use, such a product must first be steamed for 5 - 7 minutes at a moderate temperature. hot water, and then rinse thoroughly in a cool place.

Conclusion

Making a washcloth with your own hands is a creative and interesting process. The possibilities of the modern world open up broad prospects for such activities. Abundance various materials, technologies, and implementation methods make it possible to obtain a high-quality product with predetermined properties. Let's be honest. A bast washcloth is not the most practical option. Yes, of course, it has an excellent smell and texture, but its actual service life is very short. In peasant families, the entire extended family usually washed themselves with a pair of washcloths, after which they simply threw it away and replaced it with a new one on the next trip to the bathhouse. The basting industry itself existed as an addition to the main one, when bast shoes and boxes were made, and production waste, substandard material, was used for basting cloths. If you have at your disposal a traditional bathhouse, made according to all the canons of construction art and has a strong, and perhaps unique, spirit, then such a washcloth will undoubtedly be a bright accent and an appropriate addition to the overall bathhouse ensemble. In other cases, a washcloth can be knitted from wool. And what? Natural, affordable, effective and no forest poaching. Try it.

There is a village in Russia where people live in a rare ancient profession - washmen.

I stand on the slippery platform and try not to inhale deeply: it smells like rotting wood. “Just don’t fall,” I think, and, as if on purpose, at that very second I lose my balance and find myself in muddy water. Fortunately, this is a very shallow pond - the locals call it mochische. Alexey, a man of about thirty-five, helps me get out, but he himself remains waist-deep in the water. He takes out bundles of tree bark, submerged under the weight, from the pond, and then spreads them on the ground, like carpets. Photographer Marina Makovetskaya records Alexey's every move. Marina and I are in the Nizhny Novgorod region - in the village of Bukaley with a population of 43 people. Alexey shows us how he earns a living for his family. Here he is, with his hands, tearing off the inner layer of the “carpets” - white wood fibers - and hanging them on the fences to dry. What is he doing? A century ago, any of our compatriots would have immediately answered this question. Bukaleyans are one of the last people, who live by the oldest Russian craft - basting.

“For the sled, you need to tear out two fir trees with roots bent like hooks, tie them and lay bark on them,” says the tutorial for spongers. The author of the manual does not specify how the peasants pulled out the Christmas trees.

The Chinese had silk, the British had wool, and the Russians had bast. This material played such a role in the fate of Russia important role that without exaggeration it could be considered a national symbol on a par with sable fur. But they forgot about the sponge as soon as the need for it disappeared. Today even the meaning of this word is not known to everyone in Russia. Bast was the name given to the inner part of the linden bark soaked in water and dried - bast (also known as bast, or subbark). From it, peasants on an industrial scale made dozens of necessary things: bast shoes, sea ropes, brushes for whitewashing, bath sponges (now it’s clear why they are called that), roofing for the roof, sieves for flour and matting - cheap fabric that was used for clothing and bags. Matting, as the most popular product, was partially exported. Until the beginning of the 20th century, linden bark “fed” at least half of the peasants in Central Russia - mainly residents of the northern Volga region. According to the census of the Imperial Forestry Institute, in 1912 alone, 2.8 million poods were harvested, that is, 44 thousand tons of bast. In Russia it was an irreplaceable material - the same as PVC or polyethylene today.

If it were not for the urinary industry, the residents of the village of Bukaley would be faced with a real subsistence economy: they already eat mainly their own products - meat and vegetables, eggs and milk.

Photo: “Fishing”, “karabat”, “combing”, “knitting” - not just words from Dahl’s Explanatory Dictionary - these are stages of the production process of making bast washcloths and brushes in Bukaleya. Author: Marina Makovetskaya">

“Fishing”, “karabat”, “combing”, “knitting” - not just words from Dahl’s Explanatory Dictionary - these are stages of the production process of making bast washcloths and brushes in Bukaleya.

People who made their living by preparing bast were called bast workers. In 1840, geographer Peter Keppen counted hundreds of thousands of peasants making bast in only eight Volga provinces. The scale of the fishery was so enormous that, concerned about the condition of the linden forests, the Ministry of State Property sent Köppen on a two-year expedition to calculate the damage. “In the forests of Russia there are many lindens, on the extermination of which one of the most remarkable industries is based,” the geographer wrote. “Knowing that this fishery, so national, has not yet been described by anyone, I decided to collect information about it.” The information presented by Köppen in the 60-page report “On the bast industry” is unique: for example, only he has information that in the Crimea bast was made from date tree fibers.

Marina Makovetskaya found out about the village of mokalniks when she was filming for another article in the village of Polkh-Maidan, neighboring Bukaley, where nesting dolls are made from linden trees: then they explained to Marina that the Bukaley residents take the bark for themselves. “Mutually beneficial cooperation has been established in the two villages,” the photographer said when she arrived at the editorial office. “The linden makers have no problems with raw materials, and it’s convenient for the nesting doll makers: the neighbors peel the bark from the linden trees for free.” Without thinking twice, we headed to Nizhny Novgorod region, armed with Köppen’s book and the self-instruction manual “How to Prepare Bast” published in 1912. In the preface, the author - a certain Permyak - assured that anyone can master an “easy and profitable craft”. But from the first pages it became obvious that urination was a very extreme activity. The most dangerous stage of the wet business there was a harvest of linden bark. Whole families of peasants left to chop and “pluck linden trees” at the beginning of May: at this time, sap begins to move in the trees, and the bark more easily separates from the wood. The mokalniks, along with their wives and children, lived in the swampy forests for several weeks. The bark of young linden trees was torn off with teeth, according to Köppen, into bast shoes; large trees were felled and peeled with an ax. Sometimes, for the sake of speed, the bark was removed directly from standing trees. In such cases, lykoders climbed the tree without a ladder - with the help of ropes from the same bast. While the forest was being cut down, horses often died, and people died due to dampness and disease. In 1913, Nikolai Filippov, a professor at the Imperial Forestry Institute, called the working conditions of washmen “inhumane and harsh.” However, Peter Keppen wrote about the difficulties of the basting industry with laconic severity: “All this is natural and does not serve as a reason for complaints.” Today in Bukalei, the difficulties of extracting bark have been reduced to almost zero: the bark is stripped off in Polkh-Maidan from already cut down trees. The Bukaleyans could not work in the forest even if they wanted to: almost all the villagers are single women over sixty. There are only two young families in the village. Nina Belova, a pharmacist from Nizhny Novgorod, who long ago left Bukaley to study, helped us get to know the local residents. Nina remembers well how, as a child, she “scratched” the washcloth at night - she helped her mother with work in the artel. According to Belova, in Bukaleya the majority are engaged in urination due to a habit that has been ingrained among people since ancient times. “There used to be an artel in the village. They wove matting from bast, made bags and mattresses from it; there is still a matting machine in every house, I’ll show you,” says our escort on the way to the village.

For those who do not want or cannot study after school, this lifestyle is better than migrant workers in Moscow. You create something from scrap materials, benefit people and preserve the tradition of your ancestors.

We enter the main and only street of Bukaleya: cows are walking along it, but not a soul is visible. Nina jokingly reminds that the name of the village is translated from Chuvash as “valley of bulls.” At first glance at the ancient houses, it is clear that Bukaley is a place where people live in the past, almost cut off from modern civilization. A bus from the regional center comes here once a day, and a grocery store comes here every three days. There is no electricity or running water in the village. We go to the first house - one of the oldest residents of Bukaleya, Evdokia Fedorovna Klimakova, lives here. In the yard I stop for a second: a very strong specific aroma hits my nose - something between the smells of a kennel, rotten eggs and linden flowers. Evdokia Fedorovna, like all the residents of Bukaley, no longer feels this smell - her clothes smell even stronger. The aroma thickens as we approach the barn with the ingredients. As soon as we enter inside, we understand: there is nowhere to go further - the high room is filled to the ceiling with rotting bast and linden bark. “I don’t have time to work,” explains the owner. Bukaleyans produce two types of products from bast.– paint brushes and bath sponges. There are no individual entrepreneurs in the village - women, in the old fashioned way, without any bills or invoices, sell brushes and washcloths to resellers. “People come from Rostov to buy brushes; they are sold in Ukraine,” says Evdokia Fedorovna. “And washcloths are bought from different places, sometimes for beauty salons.” An unexpected phrase in the mouth of an eighty-year-old woman from a remote village, but she knows what she’s talking about: resellers really sell fake washcloths - at a high price, by the way - in elite spa salons. Evdokia Fedorovna has difficulty walking, but deftly snatches a piece from the mountain of undergrowth and shows what it means to scratch a bast. Fifteen times she runs the washcloth along a comb of nails nailed to the floor, and in a few seconds twists the resulting fibers into a figure-of-eight knot. The real Russian washcloth is ready.

Photo: A brush from the Russian hinterland whitewashes a Ukrainian hut - the product has reached the consumer. According to a long-standing tradition, houses in Ukraine are renovated in the spring before Easter. Over the year, the price of a bast brush has doubled: 50 hryvnia (140 rubles) versus 25. Author: Marina Makovetskaya">

A brush from the Russian hinterland whitewashes a Ukrainian hut - the product has reached the consumer. According to a long-standing tradition, houses in Ukraine are renovated in the spring before Easter. Over the year, the price of a bast brush has doubled: 50 hryvnia (140 rubles) versus 25.

Photo: Tatyana Fedorovna Klimakova is called “factory” by her fellow villagers. Since childhood, she has been accustomed to “scratching” brushes - at least twenty a day. This was the norm set by the parents. And now, despite her age and gardening and land work, the woman works every day in the workshop - and so on all year, except for major holidays. Author: Marina Makovetskaya">

Tatyana Fedorovna Klimakova is called “factory” by her fellow villagers. Since childhood, she has been accustomed to “scratching” brushes - at least twenty a day. This was the norm set by the parents. And now, despite her age and gardening and land work, the woman works every day in the workshop - and so on all year, except for major holidays.

“How do you select bark for raw materials?” - I ask. “No way, everything comes into play indiscriminately. We use dark washcloth for brushes, white for washcloths,” the woman answers. A century ago, this technology did not work. The peasants chose the best linden tree in advance, even before the onset of spring. "In winter, a washcloth in free time“I must look for places in the wilderness where linden grows better, so that in the spring I don’t needlessly get lost in the forest,” the self-instruction manual gives clear instructions. The best was considered a middle-aged linden with a diameter of 5 vershok (a little more than 20 centimeters), growing on sandy soil in a spruce or fir forest. The author of the best-selling book How to Harvest Bast explains: “Bat taken from a tree growing in good sandy soil weighs more. Bast is difficult to separate from old trees, and its color is dark.” The bark leaves were collected into bundles (rocks), and everything was ready for the second stage of harvesting - soaking. To look at the lock of the linden bark, Nina and I are heading to Lena and Alexey’s family - in Bukaleya everyone has their own urine. Unlike other, older villagers, this couple produces bast in large quantities. Even Lena and Alexei’s daughter, second grader Ira, is involved in the family business. Immediately after the spring harvest, the linden bark is soaked and left in water until autumn, so that the bast becomes soft and easily separates from the outer bark. Fortunately, modern washers don't have to think about delivering the bark to the washbasins. Previously, transporting raw materials to a river or dam was fraught with many problems. Carts got stuck in swampy forests, and peasants had to come up with creative ways to transport heavy loads. The self-instruction manual for scourers described an extravagant technique that cannot be ignored: making “quick” sleds from spruce. “For the sled, you need to tear out two Christmas trees with roots bent like hooks, tie them and lay bark on them,” the book teaches. The author of the manual does not specify how the peasants pulled out the Christmas trees. But somehow we managed - the mother of our guide Nina Belova, who quit fishing just a few years ago due to health problems, remembers that her grandfather made similar sleds.

We knock on the door of Lena and Alexei’s house, and fifteen minutes later the gates are opened for us. We pass through the yard, the backyard, the vegetable garden and, finally, we find ourselves in front of a wet spot that resembles a pond from the painting “Alyonushka”. (I couldn’t even imagine that in a few minutes I would find myself in it.) The already familiar smell from Evdokia Fedorovna’s barn reaches its climax here. Along the moische there are rows of hangers - wooden hangers for drying moss. The family prepares raw materials all summer: this year’s bark remains in the water until autumn, and in the meantime Alexey takes last year’s bark out of the water. “Why are you doing bast work? You are young people, you have not worked in an artel. Have you ever wanted to do something more modern?” – I ask Elena. “I got married in Bukaley, I do the same thing as my husband,” the woman answers very briefly and without emotion. My interest seems strange to her. “What’s unusual here?” – that’s all she says. According to Alexey, it is profitable to work with bast. This allows you to work only five months a year, and in winter you can find work in the city. The residents of Bukaleya got their own personal water ten years ago, when oil workers working near the village dug ponds for the residents as payment for their stay. Previously, the bark was soaked in rivers or streams in the forest - the same place where it was stripped. Sometimes one stream was dammed every ten meters. The bast needs standing water, a dam, and there are two reasons for this. Firstly, in this case the bast will definitely not be carried away by the current. Secondly, explains the self-instruction manual for bast cloths, “so that the bast does not turn black from the air.” In the fall, the bark is removed from the water and the underbark is separated. Previously, for this purpose in Bukaley they used a Russian instrument with a funny name - kochedyk (it is also called a bast awl - without a kochedyk you can’t weave bast shoes). But over time, all the Kochedyks in the village became lost, and finding new ones in modern Russia It turned out to be difficult. People in Bukaleya still tell how back in Soviet time several village craftsmen went to GUM for kochedyk, but did not find anything like it there and were very upset. Now Alexey can do it without a tool: he separates the sponge with his hands, digging his nails into the bark. “With your hand you can better feel the layer where the subcortex separates from the cortex,” he explains.

A very strong specific aroma hits your nose - something between the smells of a kennel, rotten eggs and linden flowers. It thickens as we approach the barn with the ingredients. As soon as we enter inside, we understand: there is nowhere to go further - the high room is filled to the ceiling with rotting bast and linden bark.

Evdokia Fedorovna gets more than a pound of raw materials from one linden tree. (In Bukaleya they still use this measure of weight - another piece of the past that has become the present here.) In the house of Evdokia Fedorovna’s sister, Tatyana, the bast is weighed on real pound scales from 1903. Two craftsmen in Bukaleya are still weaving bast shoes - but they do it not regularly, but “whenever they want.” According to bast masters, their products are also, although infrequently, purchased for spa salons - bast shoes are used there as massage slippers. But compared to brushes and washcloths, bast shoes are in less demand. Mocha became a large-scale fishery only in Russia, despite the fact that the “raw material” - cordate linden grows throughout Europe. Why this happened - neither ethnographers nor cultural scientists can give an exact answer. But environmentalists have some interesting comments. In 2012, employees of the Institute of Forestry of the Russian Academy of Sciences found that the disappearance of the lykoder craft has at least one huge advantage: after centuries of brutal felling, linden in Russia has finally restored its habitat over the past 70 years. The heart-shaped linden, Tilia cordata, has become an object of national basting fishery due to the specific structure of the trunk. All trees have bast, a sap-conducting tissue between the bark and wood. But it is the linden tree that has the thickest, most durable and softest bast. Especially a lot of linden bast was used to prepare bast shoes - very young trees were cut down for them. According to Koeppen, bast shoes made of birch bark and elm were uncomfortable and quickly turned black. But even without bast shoes, for one matting brush, 5 million linden trees were cut down in 1912 alone! It is no coincidence that Koeppen proposed expanding production different types fabrics and shoes instead of matting and bast shoes. And even earlier, in the 18th century, attempts were made to grow linden in Russia. “Linden is one of the main tree species in Russia, but if the linden fishery had continued for another century on such a scale, the tree would have risked becoming an endangered species,” wrote the prominent forest scientist Lev Rysin several years ago.

Today, it is not the linden tree that is threatened with extinction, but the craft. Tatyana Fedorovna remembers with gratitude even the seemingly recent Soviet times, when there was a stable demand for linden bast. “In our region, every schoolchild going to camp had to have a washcloth with him. In the summer we sold them for the whole year,” says the woman. Nobody talks about the future in Bukaleya - it seems indecent to ask questions on this topic here. Older women remember the past, while young families prefer to live in the present. “If necessary, we will move,” says Elena. On the way back from Bukaley, Nina Belova convinces us that bast is a very profitable occupation for her fellow countrymen: “There is a demand for bast, and no one would bother with bast if it did not pay off with interest.” Our guide thinks for a few minutes and continues: “For those who do not want or cannot study after school, this way of life is better than migrant workers in Moscow. You create something from scrap materials, bring benefits to people and preserve the tradition of your ancestors.” For the hundredth time these days, lines from childhood flash through my head: “There was a stake in the yard, on the stake there was a washcloth; start over!” Now I understand their meaning and significance.

Many folk dolls are made on the basis of washcloth. Bast is not only good for dolls, it is also a real washcloth, for baths and more. (jcomments on)

Bast- a mandatory attribute of a Russian bath. Removes static electricity, improves skin regeneration. When using the washcloth, you first need to steam it with boiling water for 10 minutes, then pour it over with cold water and soap it.

The tradition of making bast bast came to us from time immemorial. Bast sponge was used not only for washing, it has always served as an excellent addition to a bath broom as a tool for massage.

Once upon a time the linden tree covered almost all of Rus'. From bast fibers of linden bark weaved bast shoes, feet, shoe covers, boots and barefoot shoes. One shoe was worn during long journeys, another during commercial hunting and fishing, and the third was simply used as house shoes, similar to modern slippers. For Russian people, wicker bast shoes were as traditional as wooden shoes for the peasants of Western Europe.

Bast for weaving shoes were taken from trees no older than ten years old. After making longitudinal cuts on the trunk with a knife, the harvesters removed four narrow strips from each tree. After removing the top crust, the bast ribbons were soaked and weaving began.

Linden wood has a unique smell, this smell is persistent and lasts for many years. It smells nice of loofah and maybe a little linden blossom.

To obtain bast, bast was soaked in mochila - ditches dug in the forest near a stream or lake. Bast harvested in spring or early summer was loaded into soaking ditches. Well-soaked bast was hung out to dry, and in winter it was brought to the village and put into use.

Soaked bast fibers tied into a bundle instantly turned into a bath sponge, which is familiar to modern people. Knitted from sponge brushes for whitewashing stoves, made brushes and ruffs for washing dishes, vili quite strong ropes and even threads for fishing nets.

Archaeological excavations confirm that fishing nets were woven from bast back in the Neolithic era. The strength of ropes made from moss can be judged by the fact that they were used to make harnesses and fetters for horses. Village craftsmen use simple wooden machines weaved matting, from which coolies, capes for horses and much more were sewn. Ancient Germans weaved clothes from bast- mostly cloaks and belts. In Russia in the last century, Ryazan lamplighters made raincoats made from bast bags. One corner of the sack-bag was inserted into the other - and the cloak was ready. In the old days, sponge was widely used by carpenters as padding material for upholstered furniture.

The mop was also used for polishing wooden furniture.. Moreover, it was used so widely that the polishing process itself began to be called basting.

Oil, caviar and grape juice are well preserved in linden containers. In the Caucasus, huge vats for squeezing grape juice and churns were made from linden trees. In modern cooperage, linden staves are used to make dishes intended for storing and transporting granular caviar.

Horse. Master Class.

Making toys from natural materials(reed, straw, bast) is a tradition rooted in the deep past. Once upon a time, these figurines also had sacred meaning. Today you can join this fascinating view folk art by making a traditional Russian toy with your own hands. Our detailed instructions you can use it when teaching children at home, in arts and crafts clubs and studios, as a teaching aid in Sunday school or in art classes.

The horse served as a symbol of the Sun God among the Slavs. And straw was the most convenient and accessible material when the season of suffering passed and on long winter evenings the family gathered in the hut for needlework, repairing gear and other household chores.

When making horses, several different (more or less complex) solutions are used, but in general the principle of weaving is similar. When you master the basic techniques and basic structural units, you will be able to add or remove some elements, change the shape, and come up with new solutions.

To make a horse we use ordinary bast bast(You can buy it at a hardware store or at the market). Bast bast is the bast of a young linden tree, soaked in water and divided into thin fibers.

Using the same scheme, you can work with treated straw or reeds.

You will also need: scissors, colored woolen threads, natural linen thread “for needlework”, a piece of fabric for a “blanket”, beads or seed beads for decoration.

1. We untie the broom from bast bast and divide it into four parts, three large and one smaller - one will be used to make the head and front legs, the second for the body, the third for the hind legs, and from the rest we will make the mane.

2. Let's start with the head. We tie the end of the bun, about 2.5-3 cm. Then (see picture) we “turn it inside out” onto the bun and wrap it around the outside, so that we get a solid head for the future horse.

3. Now we use a thread to mark the fold of the neck behind our “secret” bun. We tie the neck.

4. We mark the base of the neck with a thread (the torso will be attached here) and use the same thread to separate the legs, tying the bundle in half.

Having retreated the same distance from the tie, we mark the base of the legs with a colored thread.

5. Take the second bun and bend it around the base of the neck. This will be the body of the horse. We tightly wrap the thread around the “withers” and secure the breast by tying it crosswise.

6. Now it's time for the third beam. We measure the horse’s tail and “dress” the hind legs, wrapping a strip of bast around the body. We wrap the base and divide it into a bunch.