Linden bast shoes. What are bast shoes in Ancient Rus'? What were bast shoes made from?

We went to the Icebreaker yesterday.
The impression is not bad - not a masterpiece, of course, but quite a strong domestic work.
Filmed based on a real expedition - the Antarctic drift of "Mikhail Somov" in 1985.

The plot keeps you in suspense and doesn't let you get too bored. There are fewer technical horrors than psychological twists in the relationships of the crew, which is rare for an adventure-geographical film. The pinochet captain sent from Leningrad to replace the old one who had failed is shown quite convincingly. The crested boatswain is very colorful, as is the slippery careerist first mate.

Special effects and catastrophic moments are a B minus, but an A can be given for the scene when Captain 1 falls into the iceberg cavity and ends up in the den of a Navy SEAL, who crawls out of it and screams, trying to get the uninvited guest out. fur hat and a sheepskin coat.

The 1985 era, in general, was reproduced quite well, with a B grade.
Of the (small) mistakes, we managed to catch three:

1) The wife of the first captain lands on the deck of an icebreaker (in Antarctica, yikes!) from a helicopter in full Leningrad parade and in a light, stylish outfit worthy of Nevsky Prospect - without any Antarctic bells and whistles,

2) The same journalist wife has a typewriter. At this moment the director depicts the horrors of rocking, as essentially a small icebreaker passes through the “roaring forties” of the southern latitudes. And in this rolling motion everyone is thrown from side to side, everyone vomits and falls together, but the machine stands calmly in place, rooted to the spot. At the same time, it is not visually visible that it is somehow secured,

3) After the rescue, when they were already at the equator, mail was dropped from a helicopter. The boatswain is given a fresh newspaper - after all, while drifting, they did not know what was going on in the world (according to the script), and were surprised to learn that there was a new secretary general in the USSR, acceleration and other perestroika. He unfolds Pravda - and there is a photo of Gorby on the front page... with a spot on his forehead. He asks - “Oh, what does he have here???” - and points his finger at his bald spot. Despite the fact that Gorbaty’s spot was retouched in newspapers until 1989, and his bald spot was not marked, as in real life. It was visible on TV, but it was covered up in photographs for the first three years.

The interior of the icebreaker reminded me extremely strongly of something that I had seen myself. The entire film could not get rid of this strange feeling. I walked out of the session and thought intensely - where could I see these lampshades, these ladders, this decoration of the cabins? Why do they seem so familiar to me? And in the morning I remembered - the same! In Murmansk 2010! :)

There was only one anti-Soviet insert - a vile KGB officer who was on the Novorossiysk to rescue an icebreaker captive in the ice, and who harassed the wife of the first captain. No, of course, the bastards must definitely include a member of the NKVD with a pestle in his hand and a cap with a blue band of a KGB officer! This is such a strong template for our creators :)

The rest is more or less normal.
Of course, sailors will most likely find many more inconsistencies.
But the film is still being made for the general public, so this is all understandable.

Summary. Overall, a must watch. Not a bad film.

The peasant population in Rus' has always been very poor, and villagers had to get out of difficult situations by any means necessary. Therefore, until the beginning of the twentieth century, bast shoes remained the most popular here. This even led to the fact that Russia began to be called “bast shoes”. This nickname emphasized the poverty and backwardness of the common people of the state.

The meaning of the word "bast shoes"

They have always been the shoes of the poorest population, including the peasantry, so it is not surprising that bast shoes became a kind of symbol that was often mentioned in folklore, in various fairy tales and proverbs. These shoes were worn by almost all residents of the country, regardless of age and gender, except for the Cossacks.

It is difficult to explain what bast shoes are without mentioning the material from which they are made. Most often they were made from bast and bast taken from trees such as linden, willow, birch or elm. Sometimes they even used straw or horsehair, since this is a very practical, affordable and manageable material, and shoes can be made from it various forms and sizes that are suitable for both adults and children.

What were bast shoes made from?

Due to the fact that these shoes were not durable and wore out very quickly, it was necessary to constantly make new ones, up to several pairs per week. The stronger the material, the better the quality of the shoes, so the craftsmen were very careful in choosing it. The best bast was considered to be obtained from trees no younger than 4 years old. About three trees had to be stripped to get enough material for one pair. This was a lengthy process that took a lot of time, and the result was shoes that would soon become unusable in any case. This is what bast shoes are in Rus'.

Peculiarities

Some craftsmen managed to make bast shoes using several materials at once. Sometimes they were of different colors and with different patterns. It is noteworthy that both bast shoes were absolutely the same; there was no difference between the right and left.

Despite the fact that the process of making such shoes was not complicated, people still had to make a lot of bast shoes. This was often done by men winter period when was less work housework. “bast shoes” simply means wicker shoes, but this absolutely does not reflect all of its features. So, to put them on, you first had to use special canvas foot wraps, and then tie them with special leather garters.

Boots

A more durable type of footwear at this time were boots, which were much more durable, beautiful and, in addition, comfortable. However, not everyone could afford such a luxury; they were available only to wealthy people who had never experienced what bast shoes are. Boots were made of leather or fabric; holiday boots were decorated with embroidery, silk, and even various beautiful stones. They were much more elegant than usual, in Everyday life people were more likely to wear simple boots without any decoration, as this is a much more practical solution.

Bottom line

IN modern world It is very difficult to judge the hardships of life in a village in the 19th century in Rus', but realizing what bast shoes are and how many problems peasants had to overcome just to make shoes can show people how difficult life was before. They were quite impractical and wore out very quickly, but the poor stratum of the population had no choice; on cold winter evenings they had to gather around the stove and make bast shoes for the whole family, and sometimes even for sale.

Today we will talk about how to learn how to weave real bast shoes with your own hands at home. We will also consider the ancient technologies of weaving bast shoes with visual diagrams, illustrations and photos

Various materials for making bast shoes were always at hand if there was a forest nearby. Usually bast shoes were woven from linden, elm, broom, and heather (lychniki), less often - from willow bark (willow bark), and also from birch bark (birch bark). Sometimes they were made from thin roots (korenniki), broken old ropes (kurpa, krutsy, chuni, sheptuny), from horse manes and tails (volosyaniki) and even from straw (solomeniks).

The best is the bast from the bark of young, sticky trees without a single knot, 3-4 meters high and with a diameter at the butt* of about 5 centimeters. Such trees usually grow in thickets - densely, like reeds. You cut them down at the root with a small hatchet, bite a narrow ribbon with your teeth right at the butt and tear it off with a sharp movement.

The resulting narrow groove along the tree allows you to separate the bast tube from the core*. Bast shoes made from linden bast are the most durable and wearable in any weather; bast from elm is beautiful, but only for dry weather; they were woven, as a rule, for women. Souvenir bast shoes are made from willow bast; they are not suitable for wearing.

Bast tubes were prepared in the spring, during the period of sap flow, in large quantities, so that there would be enough to weave bast shoes for the whole family for a year. “Without stocking up on bast, you walk around in scraps.” True, in winter you can also prepare bast if you put freshly cut sticky in the free spirit of a well-heated Russian oven, but this was an exception.

Bunches of bast tubes were stored in a dry place, as a rule, on blades*, right under the ridge, and before weaving they were soaked in a log* with water or in a river and rolled out into gurneys. Ribbons 2.5-3 meters long and width corresponding to the shoe size were cut from the gurneys. Typically, for women's bast shoes in sizes 36-38, the width of the ribbons was 16-18 millimeters, for children's - smaller, for men's - larger. Each ribbon was sharpened at the ends.

Bast shoes were woven in 5-12 rows (or ends) on a block with a kochedyk *. Each strip of bast in a lapta was called a line. From the phrase “not every bast fits a line,” which meant that not every bast is suitable for weaving bast shoes, came the saying “every bast fits a line” (that is, any mistake is blamed).

Bast shoes from five ends were called fives, from seven - sevens, from nine - nines. For a five-piece bast shoe, I took five ends of the bast (for a couple - twice as many), tapped them, that is, removed the bark, leaving the bast clean*. It was enough to simply scrape the young bast with a housekeeper knife. The weaving itself did not take much time. It took the craftsman three to four hours, no more, to make a pair of bast shoes.

Finished, still wet bast shoes were scorched over the fire in order to remove fibers from them and to give them a specific campfire aroma. In the old days, this was done over a small fire built on a fire*, right in front of the oven entrance, or simply over a burning torch. The fibers quickly dried out and burned.

Everyday bast shoes were woven taking into account the time of year. In a respectable family, they hung in pairs in the entryway on a perch in constant readiness. So, for example, when going to mowing, peasants put on bast shoes of rare weave, in one or two traces. During the spring and autumn thaw, pads were attached to bast shoes, especially children's ones, with bast pads

We will need: a block of the appropriate size, a jamb knife, a poker, a whetstone for sharpening a knife and, of course, pre-prepared bast rollers.

From well-soaked bast in water, we cut ten ends, clean them of burrs and irregularities, sharpen them on both sides and zinc them.

The bast shoe consists of the following main parts: soles (wattle) with a border, heads with hens, eyes (ears, earhooks, temples) and heels with a heel (Fig. 4).

The process of weaving bast shoes, like any object, begins with the foundation (a house is laid, a garden is laid...). To lay a five-piece bast shoe, you need to take five ends of the bast and lay them out with the bast side up on a work table or just on your knee so that, mutually intertwined in the middle of the length at an angle of 90 degrees, they form the basis of the future bast shoe (Fig. 5).

We unfold the workpiece so that the ends are located away from you 3 x 2 and towards you 2 x 3. (For the second bast shoe, we place the workpiece in a mirror image in relation to the workpiece for the first bast shoe.) Next, the right of the three upper ends (in the figure it is numbered 3 ) we bend it towards ourselves and intertwine it with two adjacent ends. Now we have the arrangement of the ends away from us 2 x 2, and towards ourselves 3 x 3 (Fig. 6).

To form the corners of the heel, we bend the outermost of the three ends on the left and right at a right angle, alternately inward and weave them: the right one to the left (Fig. 7), the left one to the right. As a result, a heel with one heel in the middle is formed (Fig. 8). We bend the ends right and left away from us (the right ones away from us, the left ones toward ourselves), we intertwine them with the rest (Fig. 9). This is how the heel with five heels along the edge is completely formed. All ends are now arranged in fives on the left and right (Fig. 10). To align the edge, we put the heel on the block and tighten the ends one by one.

We continue laying the bast shoes, bending the ends first to the left, then to the right and weaving them with the rest: left ones to the right, right ones to the left. To differentiate the bast shoes into right and left ones, bend the right ends of the first bast shoe to the outer side, and the left ends to the inner side of the sole (Fig. 11), and vice versa for the second one. The location of the chickens on the head also depends on this.

After five heel urts, we count them along the edge of the sole. Usually there are seven or eight kurts in the sole. In the process of laying the bast shoes, we constantly tighten the ends, compacting the wattle fence, and check the length of the sole against the block. We also make sure that the number of ends on the left and right is always five. The more tightly you lay the bast shoe, the more durable and tacky* it will turn out. This means it will last longer. And he will look more noble.

When the sole reaches the desired length (on the last this corresponds to the corners of the head), we begin to form the head, making sure that there are five ends on both sides. The laying of the head is somewhat similar to the laying of the heel. We bend the third end on the right side so that we get an acute angle, and weave it through the two adjacent ones to the left side. We also weave the other two ends on the right side. The result is the right corner of the head (Fig. 12)..

Three of its ends look inside the head, two - out. We make the left corner of the head in the same way: we bend the middle of the five left ends at an acute angle, weave it through two adjacent ends to the right side, then do the same with the other two left ends. As a result, three ends of the left corner look inside the head, two - out. We intertwine three middle ends together. We again got five ends on the left and right (Fig. 13).

We put the bast shoe completely on the block, tighten the ends, compacting the head. We do this with the help of a poker.

Next we decorate the border of the head. We place the bast shoe on our knees with the head facing us. The left of the five right ends, bent away from us, weave to the right through all four ends and pass the fence under the chicken (Fig. 14). We also bend the next end away from ourselves, weave it to the right now through three ends and pass the fence under the next chicken. We weave the third end through the two remaining ends and also pass it under the chicken. After this, on the right side, two ends go along the sole, and three look in the other direction (Fig. 15).

We do the left side of the head border in the same way. But here we bend the far right end towards ourselves and weave it to the left through all four ends. We do the same with the next two ends. Now on the left side the ends are located as on the right. Let's pull them up. The bast shoe is laid. Let's start weaving it.

Leave the two ends running along the sole alone for a while. In the future, they will be used for education and for tightening the lugs. Three right and three left ends, passed under the ends of the sole, look in different directions. We weave them along the sole with the second trace (Fig. 17). Then we bring the lower of the three ends directed towards the head to the center of the head and make a chicken. To do this, we bend the end back, tuck it in, forming a loop, and pass it under the cell of the same trace along which it walked (Fig. 18). The end that has changed direction is used to weave the sole (Fig. 19).

When the ends reach the edge of the sole, we bring each one under its own chicken, bend it, as if repeating the edge, and pass it in the other direction. It does not matter whether the bast side of the bast is directed outward or inward. When weaving the third trace, it is important that the bast side is always outward, since it is stronger than the subcortical side.

Here we make turns at the level of the second cells from the border, without bending the bast when changing direction. When the ends end, we add the basts left during the preparation and weave further. The direction of the ends and the weaving cells themselves tell you where to go. As a result of weaving, the foot becomes denser and becomes more elastic. Bast shoes are considered good quality if they are woven into three tracks.
At the end of weaving the sole, we make eyelets on both sides, for which we alternately twist one of the two ends located along the sole (the one that is stronger and better) into a rope, rotating it inward, towards the last (this required condition for both right and left eyelets). To ensure that the twist is cylindrical and does not curl up while wearing the bast shoe, we insert a narrow strip of bast into it.

Having partially twisted the left ear, we wrap it around the other end, tighten this end, bring it to the center of the head onto the second chicken, then weave it a little along the sole (due to the two ends that formed the chickens, the head is strengthened at the corners, and this is enough for its strength, and the sole requires weaving in no less than two traces).

Approximately in the middle of the distance from the heel to the head, we pierce a hole in the hem with a poker and pass the ear end through it from the inside (please pay attention to this, because when we tie a knot on the heel itself, this end must be threaded not from the inside, but from the outside). They threaded it through, twisted it in a loop, pulled it up, and it became an eyelet. We twist the ear end again and bring it to the corner of the heel. We pull it up, thread it from the outside through the hole made by the poker in the heel border, and tie it with a knot. The result is the left eye. We do the right one in the same way.

After this, we twist both ends of the eyes in one direction (away from ourselves), twist them together two or three times, and a heel, or guard, is formed. We put the ends from the heel, with the bast side facing outwards, onto the weaving of the sole.

We turn all the ends woven along the third trace at the edge of the sole, pass through two or three squares and cut off..

Side weaving
We turn the uppermost bast at an angle of 90 degrees, weave it between the other three and weave it along the insole. Attention during the first horseshoe with a kochedyk: have you brought this bast to its right place?

It should lie next to the bast that went to the other side of the backdrop and is also ready to intertwine with the other three and go onto the insole. The second bast is intertwined in the same way, but between the two remaining ones and goes onto the insole next to the first. And again, attention: in this place the basts are trying to take someone else’s line, jumping one ahead.

The third bast intertwines with the fourth and with more basts stretched from the toe on the sides and goes onto the insole. The last bast is no longer intertwined with loose ones, but with ones stretched from toe to heel. We use a kochedyk. Having gone through all the basts on one side, we move to the other.

We also sort everything out and weave along the insole to opposite sides. A second layer gradually grows on the sole of the shoe cover. The toe and heel are already ready. But on the sides the tusks stretched diagonally remain uninterlaced. To make up for this “underpayment”, it is necessary to weave three or four more basts. The necessary basts themselves came here and are asking to be added to the line. And if they ended prematurely and did not come, then they need to be instructed.

Lyko is being instructed, let's braid a new end. Taking two or three steps back from the place where the short bast ends, a new one is threaded. When pulling the new end, we try not to pull it out completely. We stop so that the tip of the new bast is hidden under the cage. Cut off the tip of the short bast. The new bast will cover it. The increase in length will be completely unnoticeable.

When we weave all the ends from edge to edge, we will figure out which bast goes where. First of all, let's put into action those ends that are “asking” for unbraided sides. And from them we will first give way to those that are aimed at the toe. Let's let them in one or two at a time, no more. We weave them together over the foot, bending them at a right angle, and drive them down. As a rule, this is enough to completely manufacture the sides. But if suddenly it’s not enough, we skip along the third bast.
All that remains is to make the sock more beautiful and stronger, and for this we add a layer to the heel. The remaining ends will come out on their own. You only need four of them, two on one side and two on the other. If there are not enough ends, we build them up. We bend the ends brought out on the toe and turn them to the right and left so that we get one line. The scar formed in this process gives the shoe cover its beauty. The heel is made stronger with a second braid to a certain place with a turn to the right or left. Usually the main bast is no longer enough for this. New ones are being introduced.

The bast shoe is ready. We remove it from the block by prying it with a poker in the area of ​​the heel. We weave the second bast shoe in the same way, remembering that the chickens on its head should look in the other direction.

Dictionary of tools and materials:

Bast is a young bast, fibrous, fragile underbark from any tree (under the bark is bast, under it is pulp, under it is wood, young wood).

Butt - the lower part of a tree, plant, hair, feather adjacent to the root; the thick end of a log.

Lutokha, lutoshka - sticky, from which the bark has been removed, the bast has been torn off (proverb: “Headless as a lutoshka, barefoot like a goose”; riddle: “I throw a flea off a flea, will it grow as big as a lutoshka?”, answer: hemp). Skinny, dry legs are also called skinny legs.

Lopas - hayloft, hay dryer.

The deck is a large trough of rough finishing.

Kochedyk is a flat curved bast awl. In different localities it was called differently: kochadyk, kodochig, kotochik, kostyg, kochetyg.

Bast - the inner part of the bark of young deciduous trees, as well as a piece, a strip of such bark, bast (used for making ropes, baskets, boxes, weaving matting, etc.). The bast can be removed well in warm, damp, windy weather.

Bend, bend, rot - a depression in the hearth of a Russian stove, usually on the left side, where hot coals are raked.

Onucha is a piece of thick cloth wrapped around the foot when wearing bast shoes or boots.
Frills are ropes woven in a special way, ties on bast shoes.

Obornik is a kind of loop formed by the ends of the eyes on the heel of the bast shoe, into which the frills were threaded.

Mochenets - flax or hemp soaked for processing. Raw hemp fiber after one spool, crushed and peeled, was used for twisting ropes and for hemming bast shoes.

The hen is a decorative element in the form of a corner on the head of the bast shoe.

The bast side is the surface of the bast that is directly adjacent to the tree. Smooth and more durable in contrast to the subcortical, rough one.

Curls are transverse basts, bent along the edges of the fence. There can be up to ten chickens in a fence.

Lapti

Bast shoes (shoe covers)

A man weaves bast shoes. Lubok of the 18th (?) century.

A similar type of footwear was used by North American Indians. 12th century sandals

Bast shoes (units h. - bast shoe) - low shoes, common in Rus' in the old days, and were widely used in rural areas until the 1930s, woven from wood bast (linden, elm and others), birch bark or hemp. For strength, the sole was braided with vines, bast, rope, or hemmed with leather. The bast shoe was tied to the leg with laces twisted from the same bast from which the bast shoes themselves were made.

Lapti, or under another name “Lychak”, were also common among Belarusians, Karelians, Mordovians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Finns, and Chuvash. A similar type of footwear was used by the Japanese, North American Indians, and even Australian aborigines.

Story

One of the first mentions of bast shoes is found in the Tale of Bygone Years (XII century). Describing the victory of the Kyiv prince Vladimir the Red Sun, the chronicler quotes one of the governors: who, looking at the prisoners dressed in boots, allegedly said: “These will not want to be our tributaries; Let’s go, prince, let’s look for better bast shoes.”

The description below is based on an article from the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia (early 20th century):

In the 19th century, bast shoes were woven from bast using an iron hook called kadachem, and a wooden block. Sometimes, as, for example, in Polesie, L. consisted of only one soles, in most cases they were given the shape of a shoe, and then the top of the front part of the last was braided with bast and the backs were attached. The free ends of the bast were bent back inward and secured, which made the edges of the hole even and did not rub the legs. At the edges of the hole, ears were attached from the same basts, so that with the help of straps inserted into these ears, tightening the latter could narrow the hole and thereby attach the bast to the leg. The best material for bast shoes, linden bast, torn from young ones, was considered to be no thicker than 1½ inches, sticky and distinguished by its strength. In the northern provinces, for lack of linden trees, they tore bast from birch trees; Such bast is weakly durable, and bast shoes made from it are worn for no more than a week. Vine bast was used only in Polesie. Bast length for the most part 3 arshins; a pair of bast shoes gives 32 bast trees, and one sticky tree gives 3-4 bast trees, so you need 3-4 trees for a pair of bast shoes. Since the majority of residents of northern and eastern Russia wore bast shoes, the consumption of birch and linden bast and the associated destruction of young forests was very high. There was no exact accounting of the production of bast shoes; a significant part of these shoes were made directly by consumers, mostly the oldest members of families, already incapable of other work. Sometimes, however, the production of bast shoes received significant concentration; so in late XIX century, in the village of Smirnov, Ardatovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province, up to 300 people were engaged in this business, and each one prepared up to 400 pairs of bast shoes in the winter. In the village of Semenovskoye, near Kineshma, they produced 100 thousand rubles. bast shoes., distributed throughout Russia. From the village of Myt, Shuisky district (Vladimir province), 500 thousand pairs of bast shoes were sent to Moscow.

Typical types of bast shoes and manufacturing methods

Chuni - bast shoes made of ropes (analogous to hemp ones).

Lapot m. Lapotok; bast shoes, bast shoes m. postsoli south. zap. (German Basteln), short wicker footwear, ankle-length, made from bast (lychniki), mochala (mochalyzhniki, ploshe), less often from the bark of willow, willow (verzki, ivnyaki), tala (shelyuzhnik), elm (elm) , birch (birch bark), oak (oak), from thin roots (korenniki), from young oak chips (dubachi, chrng.), from hemp combs, broken old ropes (kurpa, krutsy, chuna, sheptuny), from horse manes and tails (hairworts), and finally from straw (strawworts, chickens). The bast shoe is woven in 5-12 rows, bunches, on a block, with a kochedyk, a cat (an iron hook, a pile), and consists of a wattle (sole), a head, heads (front), an earpiece, a collar (borders on the sides) and a heel; but the bast shoes are bad, simply woven, without a collar, and fragile; The collar or border meets at the ends of the heel, and when tied together, forms an obornik, a kind of loop into which the frill is threaded. The transverse basts that are bent on the ear guard are called kurts; there are usually ten kurts in the fence. Sometimes they pick up the bast shoes and pass along the fence with bast or tow; and the painted bast shoes are decorated with a patterned undercut. (Dahl's Dictionary)

In Russian folklore and culture

Now bast shoes often occupy a central place in the exhibitions of some museums and are used on stage and in sports. For example, in the city of Suzdal in 2007 the Laptya Sports Festival was successfully held, which in 2008 acquired the status of an international competition. And the famous Kostroma musician and dancer Igor Belov uses bast shoes in one of his spectacular numbers “Tap dancing in bast shoes and with a button accordion.” Weaving bast shoes - as it develops fine motor skills in children - is used in children's educational institutions, and the bast shoes themselves are used in children's and adult folklore ensembles.

see also

• Bryl - a straw hat with straight wide brim. Element of traditional men's clothing in Belarus and Ukraine.
• Strohschuh - Traditional Swiss shoes made of straw.

Weaving Swiss straw “bast shoes”

Notes

Links

• I. I. Zvezdin, “Bastard fishing in Baksheev, Malaya Polyana, Rumstikha and Berezniki” “Nizhny Novgorod collection” edited by A. S. Gatsisky, Volume 7. (1880s). (Modern Dalnekonstantinovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region)
• § 98. Shoes - Chapter VI “Clothing and shoes” of the book by D.K. Zelenin. "East Slavic ethnography"

“Move the pistons!” Have you heard this phrase? I think they heard it, but did not attach any importance to its meaning. The message is clear: you need to speed up your walking or running pace. But where did this expression come from, and what are these pistons?

In fact, pistons are one of the types of shoes that our ancestors wore. They were popular among the people: no special skills were required to make them, and they could be made without the involvement of craftsmen. It was enough to take a piece of leather with the simplest processing or a skin from a small animal, pass a leather strip along the edges and pull it off. The size was regulated by the tension force of the strip. Most likely, pistons were the first shoes that the young Slav wore, since the name could have been formed from the word “fluffy” (soft, loose). Some peasants strengthened the pistons with leather inserts on the toe and instep, and decorated them with embroidery and fringe. Such shoes were fastened with lacing, which gave them a resemblance to bast shoes. It is believed that the oldest pistons were found in the Novgorod region: archaeologists date their age to the 10th-11th centuries.

The famous bast shoes were almost equally popular with pistons. Contrary to popular belief, they were woven not only from bast: birch bark strips and even leather were used. The fastening is the simplest: a rope or leather cord was passed from the heel of the bast shoes, and they were tied to the shins with it, in this way holding the bast shoes on the leg. To increase service life, the sole was hemmed with hemp rope. By the way, bast shoes lasted very little: from 3 to 10 days, depending on the season. In the summer, wicker shoes wore out in 3 days, so for a long journey we always took several pairs in reserve. The Swedes even called a certain distance that can be covered without changing shoes the “bast mile.” Bast for weaving was harvested in the spring, until the leaves bloomed. For one pair of bast shoes for an adult, it was necessary to peel 3 young trees. Oblique or straight weaving of bast shoes was considered a task that any self-respecting man could do in the intervals between more important activities. And, most likely, this is where the expression “The bast does not knit” came from, that is, a person is in a state where he is unsuitable even for easy work. It remains a mystery how the pagans, who treated nature with reverent awe, and subsequently baptized people, did not completely destroy the trees while collecting raw materials. Apparently, there was some way to remove the top layer of bark with minimal damage to the tree. This is roughly what the Indians did in America: they knew how to remove the bark from one tree every few years. Historians believe that ancient knowledge was lost, or, more likely, the people simply preferred to walk barefoot. But the Old Believers, Kerzhaks, did not wear bast shoes, but they buried their deceased comrades in these shoes. A minute for archeology: the age of the kochedyk (a device for weaving bast shoes) dates back to the Stone Age! You can imagine from what time people wore wicker shoes; and bast shoes were popular until the beginning of the 20th century.

The boots of our ancestors had soft soles: hard ones appeared around the 14th century. A low boot slanted at the back, a blunt or, conversely, pointed toe and a complete absence of a heel - this is an approximate description of the boots of that time. The heel on them began to be made closer to XVII century. In the fairy tales I read as a child, princes often wore morocco boots. I have always associated this material with something like suede, but while preparing this article, I decided to find out exactly what kind of unknown animal this was and what it looked like. It turns out that the highest grade of morocco is goatskin that has been tanned in a certain way and dyed in bright colors (red, yellow, blue, white and green). Less quality material is produced by the same method of dressing, but veal or sheep skin. Leather dyeing became a separate profession much later; at first it was done by shoemakers. Morocco boots, decorated with embossing, embroidery and tassels, were considered festive footwear. For everyday wear, a wealthy peasant bought ordinary black leather boots. Definitely wealthy, because they were quite expensive - for comparison, if at the end of the 19th century a pair of bast shoes cost 3-5 kopecks, then the price of boots rose to several rubles. They wore them with foot wraps, and winter time Instead of a linen wrap, they insulated the leg with a piece of fur.

Another type of footwear that is part of the integral image of a Russian person for a foreigner is felt boots. Products made from felt were found during the excavations of Pompeii; in our country, short felted chuni were found in the 8th century, but they consisted of two parts sewn together, and a single, seamless product appeared only in the 18th century. To create medium-sized felt boots, craftsmen manually mixed almost a kilogram sheep wool, soap, soda and a weak solution of sulfuric acid. The secrets of heavy handcraft were sacredly kept in the master’s family, passed on from father to son. Felt boots were considered a very valuable gift, and the bride's parents could well assess the groom's well-being based on their presence. In a poor family, these shoes were worn in turn, or, more often, according to seniority. If we take a later time period, then felt boots have a special place here: warm, light shoes made of natural wool more than once saved our soldiers from frostbite during wars, and allowed us to develop the north of the country.

Out of curiosity, I tried to find out if such things are produced in our time. And I learned: craftsmanship has not been lost over the centuries; now there are craftsmen who can make beautiful, comfortable pistons or weave festive bast shoes. Truly, he who seeks will always find.