Ancient Rus: crafts, their kinds, development

The destruction of community-tribal relations and the emergence of specialists in narrow branches-it is precisely these changes that the Ancient Rus characterizes in the eighth-ninth centuries. Crafts lead to the emergence of cities, separating part of the population from work on the ground. This is due to the emergence of the first specialists - masters In certain types of crafts, which were concentrated in tribal centers-cities.

Cities - Craft Centers

To build a city tried so that its geographical position allowed as much as possible to carry out trade and at the same time successfully defend itself from enemies. For example, in a place where two rivers merge, or around a hill. Representatives of the authorities also settled in the cities. Therefore they were well guarded. Gradually, with the development of craft, cities began to represent not just military fortifications, but turned into shopping centers.

In the center of the city was located the Kremlin, in which the prince settled. This part was renewed by a fortress wall and surrounded by an earthen rampart. In addition, around the dig deep dig, which filled with water. All these precautions were needed to protect them from enemies. Outside the Kremlin were settlements of artisans, so-called settlements. This part of the city was called a land. In many settlements this part was also surrounded by a defensive wall.

Life in cities boiled, artisans created their goods, craft and trade of Ancient Russia actively developed. By the twelfth century, there were more than sixty crafts specialties. The masters specialized in making articles of clothing, utensils, tools, which ancient Rus needed. Crafts of Ancient Rus developed rapidly and swiftly. In the settlements lived and worked talented professionals of various fields: masters of forge, jewelry, pottery, shoemakers, tailors, weavers, stone cutters, representatives of other crafts. The hands of these craftsmen created economic wealth and strength of the ancient Russian state, its high material and spiritual culture.

Without iron - nowhere

The discoverers-professionals were blacksmiths. Their business became one of the most important directions, into which the crafts of Ancient Rus were divided in the 9th and 12th centuries. This work is mentioned in the folk epic and folklore: epics, legends and fairy tales, where the smith is always a model of strength, courage and good. At that time iron was produced by smelting from bog ore. They extracted it in the off-season, dried and then delivered to the workshops, where they used special furnaces to smelt. So it was metal. Modern archeologists at the excavations of ancient Russian cities often found slags, which are the scraps of the smelting process of metals, and vigorously forged pieces of iron masses. The remnants of the forge workshops found preserved parts of the furnaces and furnaces, near which artisans worked in their time.

There is a business for the blacksmith: goods for soldiers and farmers

With the mastery of the production of metals, a new round of development of trade begins, which the country, which was not previously known as a subsistence farm, had started to develop. Crafts of Ancient Rus, in particular blacksmithing, had a pronounced practical orientation. Products produced by blacksmiths were required by all. They needed warriors who ordered weapons - arrowheads, battle axes, sabers, spears, swords - and protective attire - mail armor and helmets. The production of weapons has reached a special level of skill in Ancient Rus, which can be called real art. Unique armor was found in the burials and necropolises of Kiev, Chernigov and other cities.

Forged tools of labor were necessary to farmers: without iron braids, sickles, openers, shovels it was impossible to imagine the cultivation of lands. In any economy, needles, knives, saws, locks, keys and other household items, manufactured in the smithy by talented craftsmen, were required. Findings in the form of burial masters of blacksmithing showed that even in the graves with their blacksmiths sent their tools - hammers and anvils, chisels and mites.

Historians believe that more than 150 types of metal products were known in the eleventh century by Ancient Rus. Crafts of Ancient Rus played an important role in the development of trade between settlements.

Craftsmanship of creating ornaments

Forge masters sometimes engaged in small-scale work, creating small masterpieces - ornaments. Gradually the goldsmithing business was separated into a separate branch. So there was a jewelry craft in Ancient Russia. Russian masters knew the technique of making jewelry so well that they could only wonder how they managed to do it. Reached to our time skilful things - amulets made of bronze, pendants, buckles, earrings and necklaces - amaze with the fineness of the workmanship. Jewelry was created in the technique of grains, while on top of them was soldered a pattern, the basis of which was a lot of metal balls. Another way of making jewelry was filigree. This technique is characterized by the fact that the drawing was created by a thin wire, which was soldered to the surface of the metal, the resulting gaps filled with enamel of different colors. They mastered the jewelers and figured casting, as well as the technically demanded mobile art, when a pattern of silver plates was placed on a black background. To our days, fine products with inlays with gold and silver in iron and copper have come down. Such complex techniques show how high the level of craftsmanship in ancient Russia has reached. So, hands of ancient Russian craftsmen created high-value jewelry made in the technique of cloisonne enamel. This was a kind of brand of Russian goldsmithing craft. The craftsmanship of Russian jewelers was a very complex technique, and their works were distributed around the world and at the same time were highly valued and in high demand.

And bricks and dishes were molded everywhere

Pottery craft of Ancient Rus was separated into an independent industry a little later than the blacksmith. The potter's wheel appeared in our ancestors in the eleventh century. This allowed ancient craftsmen to create beautiful products. The machine was uncomplicated, it was rotated with the help of a foot-operated drive, but the utensils that the potters of that time managed to create are striking with the mastery of creation and the variety of shapes. Initially, making pottery was a woman's business. However, in literary manuscript monuments of Kievan Rus there are mentions only about male potters.

They used for their products clay, which was specially processed, wetting with water and actively stretching. The greatest demand from all pottery products used pots and other vessels, which were made in different sizes and were used for different purposes, they could be filled with water or stored products, berries. Pots were put in the oven and cooked food. Such dishes have survived to this day.

What famous ancient masters?

Describing the crafts of Ancient Rus of the 9th and 12th centuries, we will briefly note that the Russian Slavs of the pre-Christian period were able to make chasing, produced ceramics, owned the art of fine embroidery, were famous for their mastery in making enamels. The works of Kiev artists have reached the present day. This is a unique specimen of bone carving, blackening, engraving on metal. Old Russian masters of glassmaking and their tiles were famous all over the world.

Various mastered the Ancient Rus handicrafts, but the most adept of them was the processing of the tree. From this material were built farm buildings, dwellings, gates and bridges, fortresses and walls. The boats were wooden, all the household utensils were generously decorated with carvings. It's no secret that the main souvenir that represents the art craft in Ancient Rus is the matryoshka doll - a colorfully painted wooden doll with a void inside. From it, one after another, the same beauties, each slightly smaller in size than the previous one.

Art painting

Decorative and applied crafts of Ancient Rus were famous far beyond its borders. For a long time our ancestors admired the whole world with their art of painting. The variety of patterned motifs in Russian ornament led to the emergence of different schools and directions of this folk craft. For each of them, their colors and lines were characteristic.

Gzhel

Bright blue painting cobalt on a white background of porcelain was called gzhel, which occurred on behalf of a suburb near Moscow, where this direction originated. For the first time it is mentioned in the literacy of Ivan Kalita. First, the masters made dishes and toys, later, with the development of production, the range has significantly expanded. Fireplace tiles were especially popular. Gzhel ceramics became popular all over the world. Other murals of our ancestors also received names from places of their creation and distribution.

Bright paints on a dark background

Zhostovo painting - an art craft in Ancient Rus, came in the eighteenth century from a village near Moscow with the same name. It is an oil painting on trays made of metal. Learn it easily by bright colorful flowers, fruits, birds, located on a dark background. The applied patterns are then covered with a special lacquer, so they have such a brilliant appearance. The technique of this painting is rather complicated, the image is created in several stages.

Very cheerful shades pleasing to the eye, so the trays enjoyed great popularity in Russia and are still a decorative element in many homes and institutions.

Palekh

Palekh miniature came from the district center in the Ivanovo region . This kind of craft is a picture of lacquer ware. Painted on top of a black background, colorful folklore, household, religious themes adorn caskets, caskets and other things. It is believed that the Palekh lacquer miniature appeared in the fifteenth century, when the flowering of cities and trade was distinguished by Ancient Rus. Crafts were born in many ways. For example, the direction of ancient crafts, such as Palekh miniature, was created by ancient Russian icon painters. In Palekha lived skilful artists who received invitations from all Russian regions for painting in churches and churches. It was they who began to paint the boxes with all sorts of fairy-tale and historical subjects. All the images were painted with bright tempera colors over a black background.

The technology of this kind of craft is quite complicated, the process of creating miniatures is time-consuming and multi-stage. It is necessary to study and master it for a long time, but as a result the usual dark box turns into a unique thing in beauty.

Khokhloma

Another kind of hand-painted on wood is Khokhloma, which appeared more than three hundred years ago. Dishes and household items, painted with fiery scarlet flowers, attract attention with their unusualness. Patterns, folding in beautiful ornaments, pleases the eye and in our days. In the creation of Khokhloma products there is a secret, which is that they are several times covered with varnish, after which they are tempered in an oven. As a result of roasting, the coating turns yellow, and products made of wood seem to be gilded with precious utensils. In addition, the cookware as a result of this treatment becomes durable. Its coating allows you to use hohlomskie cups, bowls, spoons for the purpose - to store food, for food.

Bunch of pictures

Lubok - another kind of folk art, representing the crafts of Ancient Rus. This exercise was the creation of an imprint on paper with the help of a wooden cliche. Such popular pictures were common in fair trade as far back as the seventeenth century and until the beginning of the twentieth century were the most widespread and widespread kind of Russian fine arts. Plots displayed by the lubok are very diverse: religious and moralizing themes, folk epics and tales, historical and medical information, which were always accompanied by a small text that could be instructive or humorous and told about the customs and life of their time with the wisdom inherent in the people.

Crafts of Ancient Russia, 18 century: Russian samovar

We are proud of the skill of our Russian craftsmen. Today their work can be seen not only in museums, but also in our own homes. Some kinds of crafts in Ancient Rus were especially popular. For example, throughout our country and to this day meets the Tula samovar. In the eighteenth century, there were more than two hundred different kinds of these products. Nowadays in the city of Tula there is even a museum of samovars.

Who were the first masters with which Ancient Rus was so famous? Crafts, unfortunately, did not preserve the names of their creators. But with us they say things that have come down to us from the depths of centuries. Among them there are unique rare objects and household utensils, but in each product the skill and experience of the ancient Russian craftsman is felt.