Many city dwellers can hardly imagine life without gas, spoiled by central heating, we are frightened by stoves and do not very well imagine how to use it.
In fact, the stove is closer to us than we think. Long since the stove in the house was his hot and loving heart.
Our ancestors in the stove were not only preparing, they were washing, treating, wearing babies, preparing brides for the wedding and giving peace to the elderly.
Up to five people were placed on the stove bench - the whole family could easily have been accommodated there, although this cozy place was usually provided for the old and the small. Soft stove heat treats both cold and rheumatism well. Weak healer's babies were put on a shovel in the middle of a warm stove for "dopek". Perhaps that is why the word "bake" is not only culinary sense.
Love for a stove bench on the stove is connected with another feature of the Russian stove - it warms only from the pole (the shelf in front of the stove mouth), because of this the floor remains always cold. Therefore, in the winter in the house they walked in felt boots, and were put to sleep higher from the floor.
A well-known saying is connected with the sixth furnace: "every cricket know your hearth". That said that the cricket who lives in the bunk under the sheskom - this is correct and decent, but if the cricket crawled higher, he was waiting for a harsh punishment.
Because the furnace of the Russian stove is large, it is often used as a bath. A warm oven was cleaned of ash and soot, lined with straw and climbed inside. They made liquor out of the ash — soapy water, and bathed it.
Washing in a stove is a rare treat, although it looks like a picture from a fairy tale - children were put in a stove on a wooden shovel, just like Baba Yaga did. Moreover, if there was a choice - to wash in the bath or in the stove, the choice was behind the stove - after all, the stove in the house is always already heated.
We all know the expression: "Let's dance from the stove." He has an interesting story - the settlers who came to the new lands of the vast expanses of Russia, often did not enjoy the love of old-timers. They built their houses, but the newcomers were not welcome, their houses were destroyed in retaliation. There was one rule that gave the right to join the existing community - to build a house and flood the furnace in 24 hours.
Construction of the house began with a stove and all subsequent measurements of the house were made from it. These movements from the stove to the side and were a kind of "dance". Often, the stove was flooded in 24 hours, when the house around it was built very “conditionally”.
But this was enough - in the new people not only hard work was appreciated, but also ingenuity. Therefore, if you are facing an unbearable challenge that you definitely need to perform - dance from the stove.
Modern stoves are equipped not only with convenient stoves and ovens, but have built-in water tanks, which serve as the basis of the heating system for the house.
Often, the oven doors are made of heat-resistant glass, which allows you to admire the live fire.
The old masters did every stove as a hostess - after all, she would have to work at the stove all day. Determined the size of the furnace dimensions of the hostess.
So the height of the furnace vault was calculated so - the hostess was sat on a chair and the distance from the seat to the top button of her blouse was the right size. The height of the stove's mouth should be equal to the width of the hostess's shoulders, and the width of the mouth should be 10 cm larger.
The height of the furnace is equal to the height of the hostess, plus two matchboxes. The width of the pole is equal to the size from the elbow to the tip of the outstretched fingers.
Not only the brickwork itself, but also the “shop-stoves” enters the stove. The biggest extension was a golbets, it was actually a wardrobe with all sorts of shelves. The surface of the ceiling together with the flooring of the golbets formed a spacious stove bench.
"It is good to lie on the stove - legs in a cushy little place." The owner, who had frozen himself for the day, could quickly bring the bones in order on the stove, and it was not in vain that the people said: "There is a hot summer on the stove in winter."
"At least three days do not feed, but do not drive from the furnace." A healthy man lying on the stove deserved the condemnation "If the man hadn’t been lying on the stove, he would have equipped the ships overseas."
What could a man drive away from such a destructive furnace? "Happiness will come, and it will drive you away from the furnace."
If you are interested in how to make a stove with your own hands, then you can use ready-made drawings of the masonry stoves, which are made by experienced stove-makers and correspond to SNiPs.
The furnace in the house is a symbol of vitality, healing and unifying energy of the genus. In the evening, from the fire in the furnace, the hostess lit candles in the house with a prayer - it was an important moment at that time it was impossible to cry, swear, kiss and sing.
The living fire in the furnace, according to our ancestors, is a living being who needs to be respected and cared for. It was blasphemous to pour fire into the furnace with water or, God forbid, spit in the furnace.
The fire did not allow the owners to thoughtlessly share coals from the furnace - the happy owners do not go for coals. Especially this ban acted on the first day of spring plowing, when the harvest and the well-being of the family were laid for a whole year.
Experienced housewives tried to appease the fire in the oven, always offering the first spoonful of fire or throwing the first pancake into the oven.
Any dream in which a fire or furnace dreamed foreshadowed a joyful event and the ability to hold one's fate in hand.
Wedding ceremonies are also closely connected with the stove, at the end of the wedding the guests were served a pot of porridge, and when the pot became empty, one of the guests broke it about the stove with the words: "How many shards, so many children."
It was believed that the way the fire behaved in the furnace could predict the future.
If you hit a poker on a coal from a furnace, then a large number of sparks foreshadow wealth, if few sparks, then your luck does not depend on material wealth.
Housewives wondered not only for the fire, but also for bread baked on cabbage leaves. After the bread was taken out of the oven and the sheet was removed, the imagination could draw its own magical paintings on the imprint on the bottom of the loaf.
“You will not leave the forest, and you will freeze on the stove” - a good host has stored firewood for 2-3 years. During this time, the firewood as followed dry out and is hot without soot burning in the furnace. Less thrifty owners were forced to drown with freshly chopped raw wood, which did not flare up, smoked and spoiled the furnace with dampness.
Whatever design you choose for your home, much will depend on your wit, diligence and curiosity - because most stoves are laid out by ordinary ordinary people who did not have wide access to information like in modern times.
Share with us, if you know the traditions associated with the stove in the house, we all will be interested.