DWELLING

DWELLING, a traditional building adapted by man for life and various types of activities, built in accordance with the functional, constructive, and aesthetic requirements of a society.

The Bashkirs differentiate between temporary and permanent D. The traditional Bashkir D. is a yurt. Bashkirs erected temporary structures at nomad camps, which began to be used as household buildings after the transition to sedentism. The houses were built with a frame structure (the roof rested on the pillars of the frame, voids between the pillars were filled with wood, wicker, earth, clay, straw, straw brick) or with load bearing walls (the roof rested on a log, clay, stone or brick walls). Bashkirs used larch, pine, aspen, and birch to construct their houses; they used lags, wooden lath, and bark to cover the roofs. Traditionally, they built 4 walled houses with double pitch or hip roofs. The foundation was built from logs, stones or stone slabs. The floor was either made of planks, less often packed earth and mud. Floor beams in the log houses were inserted into the 2–3rd timber sets; in the N. and in the mountain forest areas – into the 3–4th timber sets. The roofing rested on the ledgers laid on log pediments or rafters. The basic form of log houses was a 4 wall house with anteroom; sometimes another house was attached to it. Since the end of the 19th century, 5 walled houses with hip roofs became popular. The most common method of connecting the logs into the log structure was the cutting “in the cup”; also the methods of cutting “in the groove”, “in the lock”, “in the paw”, “in the swallow tail” are known. In the arrangement of the internal space of D., there is a division into 2 halves (male, female); the honourable place was arranged on the far side opposite the entrance, the furnace was located near the entrance (ordinarily on the right hand side). The ethnic originality of the interior design is visible in the utilization of mats, woven and felt rugs, carpets, napless woven woolen carpets, etc. Bedding, pillows and featherbeds were usually placed on a chest in the female half of the house. Ref. Aul, Traditional Interior Design, Implements.