Residential and outbuildings
The Indigirians lived in small villages, which numbered about 30 by the beginning of the XX century. Many settlements disappeared and then reappeared, some of them still exist today.
The reasons for these disappearances and appearances are quite understandable. Since all settlements were located along the banks of the Indigirka River, and the river often changes its course and erodes its banks, over time, some camps were away from the main channel, others were washed away by water. But the names of the places remained: Khubulino, Orekhino, Linino, Markovo, etc.
A Russian man in the North, not connected with agriculture, changed his place of residence quite easily, trying to build a dwelling closer to places rich in fish and animals. It is known that in Lobaznoye lived Chikhachyovs, in Fedorovskoye - Shkuleovs, in Oskolkovo - Rozhins, Kiselevs, in Kosukhino - Golyzhenskys, Plavshevskys, in Kosovo - Portnyagins, Cheryomkins, in Shanskoe - Strukovs... Some people were called by their place of residence. Thus there appeared persons with double surnames: Kosovsky Petrusha (Portnyagin), Lundinsky Tikhon (Novgorodov), Kuzmichevsky Egor (Chikachyov), Gorlyshkin Semyon (Chikachyov), and so on. And this created even some convenience, as there were many namesakes. Each family lived in a separate hut. The poor, especially in winter, often lived two families in a hut, calling each other by the Yakut word “dyukak”. The administrative and commercial center of the bourgeoisie society was the village of Russkoye Ustye, where the bourgeoisie administration, church, school, fish, flour and salt stands were located. Russkoye Ustye consists of nine dwelling houses and quite a number of small barns. All the houses are chopped houses with flat roofs. There are also a few houses in the settlement built on the Yakut type, but they are abandoned and empty. One of the best houses is the house of the burgher's office, where the expeditions stayed. It consists of two rooms with a kamelek (an yakutian fire place)”.
The majority of Indigirians lived in Russian-type houses with flat roofs. The well-to-do had five-walled houses - “chamber with an anteroom”, with wide benches along the walls. Window frames were held on bolts made of mammoth bone. Mica was inserted into the frames instead of glass; in winter the frames were removed and ice floes were inserted instead. The ice floes were covered with a thick layer of frost on the inside, so every day in the morning the frost was scraped off with a knife (“the windows were parted”), and the outside was swept with a broom (“the windows were plowed”).
Each zaimka consisted of two to seven courtyards. There were often two types of camps: winter (“zimny”) and summer (“letny”). The “Letny” were located on islands or near sandy spits, where non-water fishing took place, as well as along the shallow channels of the Indigirka River.
Winter settlements were located not far from the hunting area, usually on the opposite - high - river bank from the summer ones. Both “zimny” and “letny” often had the same (always Russian) name and belonged to the same households.
Any dwelling of Russian Indigirka natives (hut, balagan, urasa) was always set from west to east. The entrance doors were always on the western side, the front wall on the eastern side, on which a shelf with icons was located. The front (eastern) and right (southern) walls had two windows each and were considered the best, male, half of the house, the left (northern) side had one window.
The kamelyok (a large sack or chuval) was located to the left of the entrance, in the northwest corner. (In Yakuts, on the contrary, the entrance to the house is always on the eastern side, and the kamelyok is to the right of the entrance, in the northeast corner. The base for the chuval was made of a hexagonal bottomless box stuffed with clay. On this base, a wooden pipe made of long and thin poles, enclosed above the roof and below the body of the fireplace in a wooden frame, was slightly inclined.
The inside of the kamelyok was covered with a thick layer of clay mixed with reindeer wool. During firing the clay was burnt and gradually became fireproof. Two or three times a month the kamelyok was renewed by covering it with a thin layer of clay. The condition of the kamelyok was used to judge the neatness and businesslike behavior of the mistress of the house and her adult daughters. The kamelyok was stoked four times a day, wood was stacked in it, and after each stoking the chimney was closed with a special plug (“chimney sweep”) sewn from reindeer skins. It was not uncommon for people to catch fire. The fireplace was a good fan, but it gave heat only during burning.
The inhabitants of Russkoye Ustye had to strictly conserve fuel in the conditions of forestlessness. “In Russkoye Ustye it has happened many times that the timber is so scarce that it is impossible to think of heating the premises. In such cases, the fire in the fireplace is made in the morning and evening, and for as long as necessary to cook food, and then extinguished, and during severe cold weather they make do with only coats and blankets” [Maydel, 1894, p. 298].
The mouth of the kamelyok was facing the front corner - towards the southeast. In front of the kamelyok, a small wooden grate was hung on ropes, on which shoes were placed for drying out, rays, meat and fish for thawing. Near the chuval there was a hole in the wall for airing the room - “buynitsa”. The left side next to the chuval was called “stagnant”, a kitchen table and a cupboard for dishes were placed there. Next to the cupboard, a bar with a small gap was attached to the wall, where spoons and forks were stuck.
In Russian-type houses there were benches or beds along the walls, and in yurts-balagans orons (“uruns”) were built. The orons were earthen, tied from the outside with planks - “perevodinami”. There were two benches on the right and front sides of the hut, and one on the left. Each oron was separated from the neighboring one by a low partition.
The host's bed was always on the right side of the house in the southeast corner. Family and women's beds were covered with curtains. In the upper part of the curtain was inserted a thin round lath - “curtain corbosok”, to the ends of which were tied laces (by means of which the curtain was hung).
The world's northernmost pro-Orthodox church. Russkoye Ustye. Stanchik village (early 19th century).
The room was illuminated with a “watering can” - a little bowl where fish oil was poured and a wick twisted from rags was lowered. The watering can was placed on a wooden spatula, which was inserted into a post on the front wall by means of a handle. A small cloth lampshade was hung over the watering can to protect the ceiling from soot.
The Russko-Ustiinians huts were quite spacious. At first there were chopped haylofts, as a rule, with two doors - on the south and north sides. This was done in case of frequent drifts. To the northern side of the hayloft was attached a winter room for dogs - a “vyvod”, where animals were sheltered and fed during severe colds and blizzards. Shelves (“patri”) for storing household utensils and foodstuffs were fixed in the hayloft, and wooden hooks for hanging clothes were stuck between the logs. Doors in haylofts and barns had to be opened inward. In case of snow drifting they could always be opened and one could get out. Hay doors were closed with a wooden bolt, which could be easily opened from the outside. This was done so that anyone could freely enter the room without disturbing the owners.
Outside, four poles with crossbars were placed at the corners of the haylofts, on which nets, clothes and skins were hung for drying. One of these poles was long, and a wooden weathervane (“sorochka”) was attached to its upper end. The sorohcka was a wooden frame with a board inserted into it with a through-cut image of a cross or a duck. The frame rotated freely on a pole.
According to the natives' information, winter rooms were kept clean. The hut floors were washed with hot water and soap, sometimes scraped. At least twice a year the walls and ceilings were washed. In summer they lived in “Russian urasas”. Russian urasa, as the Russko-Ustiinians called their dwelling, is a Yakut “dulga”, i.e. a structure of four-sided pyramidal shape. The main four poles (“goats”), to which the walls are leaned on crossbars, protrude far above the whole building. A ceiling was built on top in the form of a plank floor covered with sod. In the middle of the ceiling there was a hole - a pipe. At the bottom on the floor opposite to the pipe a wooden box, stuffed and covered with clay, was installed - a pole.
Windows were cut in the walls, and instead of glass they used burbot skin, which was stretched over the frame. Orons were arranged along the walls of the uras. Doors were made on wooden hinges - “heels”. The handles for opening were leather straps with a knot at the end. The doors were opened outward and due to their inclined position they slammed themselves shut.
Two parallel poles (“gradki”) were fixed in the urasa under the ceiling along the chimney, on which other poles with yukola (sun-dried fish) for smoking were placed across them. A wooden hook was fixed on the hail, by which a kettle or a kettle was suspended. The floor in the urasa was earthen.
Often instead of urasa they built small huts like Yakut balagan, called “yurtushki”.
The use of such dwellings as balagan and urasa by Russians in the Polar region can be explained by the lack of forests. Approximately the same types of dwellings were discovered by M.I. Belov during excavations of the polar town of Mangazei.
Each house-owner also had certain outbuildings.
There were usually at least two barns. One barn was usually built on stanchions (“gorodki”), 30-40 cm high, and was intended for storing clothes and various household utensils. The other was a superstructure over the cellar and served for storing food. Some wealthy owners had a “banya” (a bathhouse) - a small barn with a wooden floor. In the middle of the banya a pole was placed on which stones were laid. Above the hearth there was a hole in the ceiling - a pipe. According to old residents, there were about ten such bathhouses at the end of the XX century.
For storing dog food they built a “kospokh” (the name apparently derived from the Yakut word “khospokh”), which was a hut-like utility room covered with turf. For storing fishing accessories and various household tools, a “rubodel” was used - a small, two-tree log cabin with a floor, mounted on two goats.
An obligatory household building at summer camps was a “shed” - a structure consisting of two parallel goats about 4 meters long and 2 meters high, over which a small turf-covered shed was built. The distance of goats from each other was 2.5-3 meters. Thin smooth poles (“korbosya”) were laid on them to dry yukola. During rain the korbosya together with yukola gave birth to a curtain. In winter, the shed served for storing dog food and various implements.
Each owner had one or two poyas on the main fishing area, in addition, cellars on seasonal grounds: on the lydes, on the main lakes, etc. Cellars were small in size: 2.5-3 m deep, 6-8 square meters. meters. The temperature in them in summer did not exceed minus 2-3 degrees. They descended into the cellar on a log with notched steps.
The location of buildings at the summer camp was approximately as follows. The main dwelling was not far from the water (50-60 m), which was convenient for fishing. A strip of the shore 10-15 m wide was left unbuilt - here boats stood and hangers for drying the seine were located. On the southern side of the urasa was a shed for yukola, and on the northern side were barns and cellars. Further on there was a long wooden goat to which dogs were tied. Next to it stood a dog trough.
Along all the routes of pastures at a distance of 15-20 kilometers from each other there were fishing huts for stops and rest - lodges, cookhouses. It was always possible to find there a small stock of firewood and foodstuffs. Everyone steadfastly observed the unwritten law, according to which it was considered a grave sin to touch, and even more so to take other people's things.
Each had to take care of another hunter who would come after him. These huts are either small Yakut balagans or Russian urasas.
The household buildings and summer dwellings of the Indigirians were very similar to those of the Yakuts. But it should be emphasized that the Indigirka Yakuts lived exclusively in balagans and in conical-type urasas - “golomo”.
The main winter dwelling of the old residents was a Russian-type log hut.
A small wooden chapel (Dmitrievskaya Church) in the village of Stanchik, built in the middle of the XX century, has survived to this day. At first glance it is primitive and unremarkable, but a famous Moscow scientist, doctor of architecture A. V. Opolovnikov dedicated the following lines to it: “In its unpretentious forms and simple proportions so much sincere sincerity and kindness of pure human heart!
"Inconspicuously, unobtrusively makes it remember the eternal human desire for beauty... In the natural simplicity of forms lies the secret of the enchanting charm of the chapel. Its calm and pensive look, devoid of any external effects, reminds of a wise, kind wanderer who stopped after hard roads in the deserted silence of a vast space" - Opolovnikov, Opolovnikova, 1983, p. 94.
There is an old school building in Russkiy Ustye, moved from the village of Polousnoye (from Ozhogino) and in 1931 it was rebuilt from a church into a school. This building is at least 120 years old, as the church was built in Polousnoye not later than 1866.
These structures indicate a fairly high level of carpentry skill on the part of the builders.
Alexei Gavrilovich Chikachyov - writer, local historian, journalist, Soviet, party worker, author of numerous articles and books devoted to the development of the Arctic. Born in Russkoye Ustye.
