Ordinary Russian bast shoes - a wonderful souvenir with a Slavic spirit. They can become an original decor item, have a functional purpose as a convenient pocket for small things or household items, be an element of the interior in the Russian style, and also become the basis of a children's costume at a festive matinee.
According to tradition, specially prepared, processed linden bast or birch bark was used for weaving, and in every family, from childhood, they instilled skills in how to make bast shoes with their own hands. Today, such shoes can only be seen in historical museums, at costumed performances, in films, theatrical productions, in interiors designed in the old Russian style, in costumes for dolls.
A bit of history
Along with many household items (furniture, toys, baskets and bast baskets), weaving shoes is one of the oldest forms of Slavic needlework. In ancient times, this type of activity still had a sacred meaning. It was believed that any thing made with their own hands and with love serves as a talisman. Moms embroidered, knitted, wove children toys.
The most common items actively used in everyday life in Ancient Russia were wicker things, and everyone knew how to make a bast shoe. The first mention of this shoe in a literary source dates back to the 12th century (The Tale of Bygone Years), although their history is much older.
These are light, simple shoes, though not durable. On average, each of the family members wore about 5-6 dozen bast pairs over the course of a year. Families in those days were usually large, parents cared about how to make bast shoes for the child, and basting bast, birch bark were engaged in old and young. It was in those days that the saying appeared: "A bast does not knit." Then she belonged to those who could not perform elementary actions.
Product Description
Many historians, local historians argue that the bast shoe industry has more than one millennium. This is confirmed by archaeological finds related to different time periods. The bast shoes were simple and public.
Weaved shoes from materials of plant origin, which began to be harvested in early spring during the sap flow of trees and continued until mid-summer. The bast shoes were called birch bark, lipovik, broom, oak, depending on which tree the bast was extracted from (thin long stripes of bark).
Elm bast shoes were recognized as the most valuable - they served longer. An interesting fact is that for girls and women shoes were woven in different ways. Girl's holiday bast shoes were neater and were made of narrow bast.
Shoes were fastened with a linen fiber rope, similar to Greek sandals: they were wound around their feet over footcloths. In case of getting wet in the spring and autumn, special wooden blocks were hemmed, and for strength, the sole was braided with a vine, rarely hemmed with leather.
Materials and manufacturing specifics
To make it required a large amount of wood bark. But our ancestors knew how to collect it carefully from young trees without damaging the trunk itself. Before weaving, the bark was pre-soaked, crumpled on a crumple, processed, removing the upper brown layer, rolled up with a bagel and tied. If the bark was removed closer to the top of the tree, the brown layer was not removed, since it was much thinner on top. Eliminated only irregularities.
The technology for making bast shoes is identical for different materials. But in different parts of the country, shoes differed in appearance. Therefore, according to the style of the bast shoes, one could say where its owner came from. They wove along the same pattern, differed in the number of strips involved in the manufacture (5, 6, 7, etc.), shape. Each master knew the schemes by heart.
Weaving bast shoes until the 30s of the XX century was considered prestigious craftsmanship. At present, these shoes can only be worn by folklore lovers and participants in costumed activities.
Tools and tools
Before making a bast shoe, you should choose the most suitable material and prepare the necessary tools:
- Knife.
- Kochedyk is a tool with a metal rod and a wooden handle with a flat horizontal end, somewhat reminiscent of a screwdriver, but curved in the horizontal plane. Intended in order to lift the loops of the woven part and poke the free bast end into them.
- A block (if the bast shoes are versatile, then two pads - right and left), made of wood, foam.
You can perform decorative models or make bast shoes on a matinee for a child using improvised materials. For this, pages of old newspapers and magazines twisted and glued into tubes, plain paper, sheets of old notebooks, and posters are perfect.
How to make a bast shoe - job description
Manufacturing technologies are different from each other. Start work with both toe and heel. Traditionally weave from the heel, initially using only 5-6 bast bands, you can 7-8. The technique is quite simple.
Stripes of bast tape cross each other like pigtails. Each bast tape alternately first presses the adjacent one and remains on top, then presses on the next one, remaining already below. So along the entire length. All technology, in addition to preparatory, includes several stages. This is weaving:
- soles;
- heels;
- wear;
- side parts;
- tops for lace (shit).
It is important that the interwoven strips fit tightly against each other, without gaps, but do not pull together.
The main stages of weaving
For weaving, it is necessary to take two bast in each hand and cross them exactly in the middle of the length. Then bend so that all eight ends are at the bottom, four on each hand, and weave, like an ordinary pigtail, alternately grabbing only the extreme stripes on the right and left. So continue working until the insoles of the desired length are formed. The sole length is always 5-6 mm larger than the pad size.
For further weaving of the toe and heel, we place the sole on the block: four bast strips are obtained on the right and left. We begin to form the front part. Now weaving begins not from the extreme, but from the central stripes - we cross them together. The first four "cells" - the designation of the sock. Then we continue the work according to the same pattern until all eight ends are intertwined, pulling the bast evenly and tightly.
Having made a sock, we pass to the heel. All eight strips must be collected in a handful at the site of the proposed heel. One by one we separate the upper right and left bast and weave them exactly in the center of the heel with the help of a kochedyka. Weave further like a sock, crossing the middle strips. Further all other stripes are woven. Just as with the weaving of the sock, it is necessary to take the middle four bast and twist with each other, followed by the rest.
Now go to the side parts. We rotate the upper extreme bast strip 90 degrees and intertwine with the other three, weaving a kochedyk on the insole. She should lie down next to the strip that went to the other side of the backdrop and is also ready to intertwine with the other three and go to the insole. Similarly, the second strip is intertwined, only between the two remaining ones, and goes to the insole next door to the first.
It is important to ensure that the strips take their place, because the third is interwoven with the fourth, also stretched from the toe to the side and goes into the insole. The last bast strip will be intertwined with a heap already stretched from toe to heel, and not with loose ones. Having finished from one side, we pass to another.
A second layer gradually appears on the sole. The toe and back are ready. On the sides, stretched stripes may not be obliquely oblique. To finish, you need to weave another 3-4 bast. If the bast tape ends prematurely, you need to instruct it. A few steps before the end we push the new end. So that he hides inside the cage. Then the build-up will be imperceptible.
When all the ends are bound from edge to edge, they go into the insole and can be intertwined there in a second layer. For greater durability, a small backdrop is braided from where the shoe has a heel. You need to choose places that intersect at the edge in the center of the heel.
At the final stage, an eye is made for threading the rope to secure the footcloths. To do this, a thin narrow bast strip is threaded along the top of the backdrop and extends to half the length. After that, it is twisted into a rope, and both ends are threaded in different directions for 3-4 steps with the designation of the ears, into which then inserts are inserted to support and fix the footcloths.
To get smooth, not skewed shoes, before you make bast shoes with your own hands for a child (or adult), it is better to try to make a trial version of paper, paying attention to the subtleties and features of the work.