An ancient settlement. Primitive communal settlements of the ancient Slavs

The Lyubytinsky Museum of Local Lore is open to visitors:

May – September

Every day from 09:00 to 18:00, closed on Monday. Sanitary day is the last Friday of the month (Who comes up with this? Visitors never calculate this, so it turns out that their efforts to visit are in vain. Choose one date, it will be more convenient and honest).

October – April

Every day from 10:00 to 17:00, closed on Monday and Sunday. Sanitary day is the last Friday of the month.

During the tour: “I really enjoyed visiting this place, despite the fact that they promised much more events there than actually happened.

According to the guide, the Slavic village of the 10th century is located at the excavation site X century. But the Slavic village X century, not only is it located in the place where our distant ancestors lived, it is also restored exactly as our distant ancestors lived in it.

The village described here is designed for an ancient Slavic family of 20 - 22 people. It has houses for living, common buildings such as a barn, a cellar, a place for storing grain, as well as an armory, a forge, and so on and so forth.

On the territory of the 10th century Slavic village there is also a burial place of ancient Slavs. They used mounds, which are now nothing more than hills, as a cemetery. As one of the guides said, such embankments were made in layers, which is why the hill grew. Thus, they buried not the entire deceased distant ancestor, but his ashes obtained after the burning of the deceased. This is how the hills and embankments grew. Burials were carried out in 10–12 urns at a time. Until the required number of urns was collected, the urns were stored on the territory of a settlement, where exactly I do not know. It turns out that the burials were massive.

There are a lot of such burials in the Novgorod region.

I really liked the idea of ​​such a museum. It’s all the more gratifying that it was not just restored, but restored on the site of former excavations and is located exactly as it was more than 1,000 years ago.

Those tours that are organized by various tourism organizations are a mockery of tourists. It looks like this: I arrived, listened to a lecture for about 1 hour, or even more, then at high speed tourists are dragged through all the buildings and that’s it, free. Neither you can climb, nor you can participate.

To visit this place you need at least 5 hours. At the same time, either on the territory or nearby, there should be places where you can have a snack. And for large groups it would not hurt to increase the number of toilets. And now, what is called a toilet there is a mockery of visitors. A village toilet, located far from the museum itself, despite the fact that the “aromas” of a village toilet are unbearable even in winter. I think in the summer it’s impossible to go there without a gas mask.

So, there is something else for the organizers to work on.

The building of the Lyubytinsky Museum of Local Lore.

The territory of the Slavic village of the 10th century and the buildings and structures located on it.

A house for living, with a stove, a table, shelves and a place to sleep. Our distant ancestors ate and slept in such houses; they spent the rest of their time outside these houses, organizing their lives...

Another one of the houses for overnight stay; there are several such houses in the 10th century Slavic village. The required amount to accommodate the whole family, of which from 20 to 22 people.

Stove for winter heating during the night. In such houses there are no windows and the doors are very small. The small size of the doors serves 2 purposes. The first is that our ancestors were pagans, and to get home we had to bend down. A kind of nod to housing. The second is banal - so that in winter the warmth is retained when people go to bed in the evening.

A mound that serves as a burial place for the dead. Real.

The structure is a cellar where the ancient Slavs stored their food supplies. To keep it cooler longer in the summer, in the winter they carried ice from the river inside.

View of the cellar from the inside.

The building where the ancient Slavs stored grain. The grains were freed from the chaff and dried.

Forge.

Kitchen, common kitchen, where food was prepared for an increasingly large family.

A barn where grain was stored. In this regard, this structure is not located on the ground, but not on supports.

Armory.

Village area. So to speak, the border of the settlement, exactly on a hill, at the foot of this hill a river flows.

Although determining the exact age of ancient settlements is not as simple a task for science as it seems at first glance, today there are a number of cities known that scientists call the oldest on the planet.

The history of the ancient city of Jericho begins in the 9th millennium BC. e., when traces of the first human habitation were discovered here. Located 30 km from Jerusalem, Jericho was mentioned more than once in gospel events. The mention in the Bible brought Jericho religious fame and later attracted crowds of scholars who wanted to document the biblical chronology. According to some archaeologists, Jericho is the oldest excavated city in the world, dating back some 6,000 years of almost continuous occupation. The signs at the entrance to the city, which read: “The most ancient city in the world,” are also in a hurry to declare this. In addition, the city is more than 200 m below sea level, making it one of the lowest in the world.

On the Lebanese coast of the Mediterranean Sea, from the ancient state of Phenicia, the center of which is located in modern Lebanon, the ancient city of Byblos has survived to this day, which is often referred to as the oldest city on the planet. In ancient times, Byblos was known as one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean, through which papyrus was exported from Egypt to Greece. During the era of wars, the city was not spared by any of the conquerors of the ancient world, leaving fortress walls, amphitheaters, temples and colonnades in memory of themselves. Today Byblos is a small fishing town in northern Lebanon with a population of 20,000 people, which preserves an ancient harbor with stone walls and towers, a Roman amphitheater, stone wells with sarcophagi of rulers and the ruins of Hellenic temples. The central square of the city is decorated with the ancient Egyptian Temple of the Obelisks, built almost 4,000 years ago.

A number of cities in neighboring Syria also vie for the title of the oldest on the planet. The country's largest city by population, Aleppo, was first mentioned in the 3rd millennium BC. e. as the capital of the ancient Semitic state of Ebla. Over the course of its history, more than a dozen conquerors from Alexander the Great to Tamerlane passed through the city, leaving their traces on the appearance of Aleppo. Due to its strategic location on the Silk Road, Aleppo attracted many traders from all over Asia. The Al Madina covered market in the old city has survived to this day, which is the world's largest historical market with a length of almost 13 km. The market, together with the territory of the old city and the famous Aleppo Citadel - a medieval fortress of the 10th century - is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The city of Susa in southwestern Iran is another contender for the title of the oldest in the world. It gained fame as the capital of the ancient state of Elam, which existed on the territory of Iran from the 3rd millennium BC. After the fall of Elam, the city became first the residence of the Assyrian and then the Persian kings. Currently, Susa is a small city with a population of 60,000 people. Despite its significant cultural and historical heritage, the city is famous not for the ruins of the ancient palace of the Elamite kings, but for the fortress built by French archaeologists in the late 1890s, which ensured their safety and the safety of their finds.

Settlements of the Eastern Slavs

The types and forms of settlements depend on the conditions of the geographic environment, on the level of development and nature of the productive forces, on the economic structure of society (especially on the forms of land ownership), and on population density. Along with the growth of productive forces and changes in the economy, the type and form of settlements change. However, the role of ethnic tradition is also important, which sometimes delays the change in the types of settlements of a given people.

Settlements are studied and classified from different points of view. Of great interest are the types of settlement, i.e. the distribution of settlements on the earth's surface, its grouping in relation to the landscape: this includes valley, lakeside, high-mountain and other types of settlement. Further, the types of settlements are distinguished: single-yard and multi-yard with varieties of each of them (city, town, town, village, village, village, village, farmstead, etc.). Finally, in ethnography it is especially customary to study and classify settlements from the point of view of their shape: thus, for rural multi-yard settlements, cumulus, linear, circular and other forms are established.

Villages of the first half of the 1st millennium AD. e. (belonging to the “burial fields” culture), located in the forest-steppe zone, were mostly unfortified villages. They were usually located on sunny slopes, near rivers and streams, sometimes on river terraces above the floodplain. The Antes who lived in these villages did not know fortified settlements: the tribes, which easily moved from place to place, all of whose men were warriors (which, as is known, is typical for tribes of the era of military democracy), did not need fortifications; They were protected by dense forests that descended along the banks of the rivers to the water itself.

A number of historical and archaeological data indicate that during this period there was a breakdown of the primitive communal system.

During the VI-VIII centuries. property stratification gradually increased, the ruling elite emerged and a regular military organization appeared - the squad. In the 7th century associations of Ant tribes disintegrated, the Ant pre-feudal period in the history of the Eastern Slavs was gradually replaced by a transition period, the process of formation began

Kievan Rus, the era of feudalism began. By this time, open, unfortified settlements in the forest-steppe began to give way to fortified settlements, the appearance of which serves as an indicator of the increasing frequency of wars. They tried to build fortifications in hard-to-reach places - high capes - outcrops, steeply plunging towards the river; on the ground side the fortification was fenced with a ditch and an earthen rampart. The vast majority of the Romensk-Borshev settlements are located on the high capes of the river bank. Often an open, unfortified settlement adjoined a fortified settlement. Like the settlements of the people of the “burial fields,” in other words, the Antes, the Romny-Borshev settlements were always located among barely passable forest thickets and were protected, in addition to ravines and cliffs of the high bank, also by swampy lowlands, lakes and swamps of the floodplain part of the valley. As a rule, settlements are not found in treeless areas.

The settlements are very different in the size of the area they occupy (Monastyrische - 500 m, Novotroitsk settlement - 3500 m 2, etc.). Essentially, they were rural-type settlements characteristic of the feudal system.

In the North, in the forest belt, early settlements were somewhat different. The ancient settlement in the Upper Volga region, already discussed above, existed in the 3rd-5th centuries. n. e. (Bereznyaki settlement), was a nest in which residential buildings stood separately, while outbuildings were located around a large public house and served as places of community production. The collective burial house indicates that the population of the village consisted of blood relatives. This was a patriarchal clan group, numbering 50-60 people, who ran their own household on a communal basis and had common supplies.

By the end of the 1st millennium, the arrangement of settlements in compact clan groups gradually disappeared. A territorial rural community was formed, and the role of labor of each individual family increased. Settlements increased in size, the layout of the villages and their general appearance changed.

Villages of the Ilmen Slavs and Krivichi of the 7th-9th centuries. They were usually located on relatively low, level and comfortable places for life along the banks of rivers; Log huts were often placed in a row along the shore, facing the lake or river. Thus, “at the end of the 1st millennium,” writes P. N. Tretyakov, “the main features inherent in the Old Russian northern village had already begun to take shape. Villages of this nature had finally replaced by this time the more ancient form of the village - the patriarchal nest, the village of the patriarchal community, very small and differently planned, going back to the type of settlement near the village. Birch forests".

Often, when studied, ancient settlements turn out to be “multi-layered”: under the deposits of the “grand-ducal period” of the 10th-13th centuries. a village of the Romny-Borshev type is discovered, i.e., 8th-9th centuries, under it are found the remains of the “burial fields” culture (first half of the 1st millennium), which in turn arose on the site of a fortified settlement of the Scythian era.

Even in the “Antian period” (i.e., in the 2nd-7th centuries AD), pottery, weaving, and metal processing gradually developed. Little by little, crafts began to emerge from agriculture into an independent industry, trade connections emerged, and economic prerequisites were created for the emergence of cities. It can be assumed that the Antes already had urban settlements, i.e. concentrations of artisans and market places; at least Ptolemy (2nd century AD) speaks of six cities on the Dniester. But already in the second half of the 1st millennium, on the basis of large settlements of the pre-feudal period, as a result of a long process, numerous Slavic cities began to emerge, representing by the 9th-10th centuries. the center of many and varied crafts.

Situated on an elevated site and surrounded by ditches, ramparts and a wooden tine, the Slavic town has now become an integral feature of the landscape not only of the Middle Dnieper region, but also of the northern East Slavic lands. And it’s not for nothing that the Scandinavian sagas called the country of the Eastern Slavs “The Country of Cities.”

Cities served as places of refuge for the surrounding population in case of military danger. The well-known chronicle story about the siege by Princess Olga of the Drevlyan city of Iskorosten reports that the Drevlyans had numerous “cities” in which the population of the earth “shut up” during the invasion of Olga’s troops. From Olga’s words that the Drevlyans besieged in Iskorosten are in danger of starvation, since they cannot “make their own fields and their own land,” it is clear that the entire surrounding agricultural population took refuge inside the Iskorosten fortifications. These “cities” of the Drevlyansky land, i.e. the region east of the river. Teterev and south of Pripyat, left behind numerous, as yet little-studied settlements.

In a city where the collapse of old social forms was accomplished much faster, starting from the 9th century, and, possibly, from an earlier time, no traces of a patriarchal large-family structure could be found. For example, Ladoga in the 9th and 10th centuries. consisted partly of separate courtyards, representing peasant economic nests, i.e., combinations of a hut, cage, stable, granary, etc., adapted to the tasks of agriculture; in another part of the city, residential buildings were located in two regular parallel rows, completely consistent with each other, and with strict orientation to the cardinal points. However, this is not yet a street, because the huts of each row face the huts of the other row not with their front, but with their rear facades and extensions to them. The buildings are crowded in rows. Between them there are only narrow passages, nooks and backyards. In some areas, courtyards between buildings with collapsed woodpiles and even special stumps for chopping wood were found.

We still know very little about the type of rural settlements from the 11th to 12th centuries. and up to the 17th century, since archaeological material so far characterizes only individual buildings and, at best, estates for these five hundred years; the type of northern village emerged only for the forest belt. Along with “typical villages”, villages, graveyards, settlements and other types of settlements were already characteristic of the North at that time (see below). As for the southern settlements of this period, when studying this issue, one should not forget about the so-called desolation of the steppe and the ebb of the Russian population from here (in the XIV-XV centuries), caused by the raids of nomads, and that the secondary colonization of the steppe region by Russians began only in the XV-XVI centuries.

“Gods of the ancient Slavs” - Very little information has been preserved about the paganism of the ancient Slavs. Chernobog is the god of vengeance. Perfume. Zimtserla, or Zimsterla, spring. Kors, god of drunkenness. Chur, god of boundaries. Mogosh, earthly fruits. Golden mother, silence, peace. Perun, movement of the ether, thunder. Didilia, childbirth. Belly, saving life Ice, war.

“Life of the Ancient Slavs” - Why were the Slavs strong and hardy? In what part of Europe did the Slavs settle? Mermen and mermaids live in rivers and lakes. What did the women do? Wooden benches and table. Why? The main god Perun is the god of thunder and lightning. For wild boars. Brownie - guards the house. The Slavs inhabited vast areas of Eastern Europe.

“Slavs” - In the Slavic economy there was shifting agriculture. Rings. This farming system required a huge amount of land. There are up to 200 types of different types of pendants. The Slavs were pagans, that is, they believed in natural phenomena and gods. Slavic settlements. Animal husbandry. Beekeeping also became widespread in Ancient Rus'.

“Lesson Ancient Slavs” - Classes of the Slavs. Magi. Lesson about the world around us in 4th grade. Foster a sense of patriotism and pride for your country. Dazhdbog is the sun god. Koschey and Kikimora. Presentation. ppt. Stribog is the god of the wind. Slavic clothing. Tools and weapons of the Slavs. Theologians. Slavic tribes. Geographer. How the Slavs dressed.

“Ancestors of the Slavs” - Another part of the Slavs went further to the north. The Slavs who settled in the fields along the middle reaches of the Dnieper were called glades. The land here produced rich harvests and could feed many people. Flax and hemp were grown. The Slavic tribe had to split up and move to other lands. You just need to get creative, but you could get fur.

"Unions of Eastern Slavs" - White Croats. They believed in many gods. Civil uprising. Krivichi. At the head was a tribal elder who had great power. The Slavs knew family feud and the custom of blood feud. Noble people practiced polygamy. Beliefs. Appearance. Avars. Muroma. All. Tribal unions of the Eastern Slavs:

There are a total of 34 presentations in the topic

In the second half of the 1st millennium AD. e. In the Middle Dnieper region, the Old Russian state was taking shape, the center of which was the city of Kyiv. It was then - in the 7th-9th centuries - that the Slavic tribes of the Dnieper region began to actively settle along the East European Plain, coming into close contact with the Baltec and Finnish peoples, who had lived since ancient times on the banks of the Upper Dnieper and its left-bank tributaries, the Upper Volga, Oka and in the more northern areas. With close communication with other peoples, signs were formed in the culture of the Slavs, which later determined the appearance of the East Slavic tribes from the chronicle of Nestor. At the turn of the 8th-9th centuries, East Slavic tribes settled on the banks of the Don and Voronezh.

Almost four centuries have passed since the last Sarmatian invasions. And judging by the archaeological material known today, the Slavs inhabited a free territory that suited their economic interests (it is possible that in the very near future) settlements and burial grounds of the late IV - early VIII centuries will be discovered, which will fill the existing voids in the history of our the edges). Monuments of this time are known in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. They established their settlements in places difficult to access for uninvited guests. After all, literally a few tens of kilometers away were the lands of the Khazar Kaganate, its castles and fortresses. In the 9th century, the Pechenegs, invading the southern Russian steppes, already made their presence felt.

Along the Voronezh River, on the high right bank, indented by beams and ravines, it is not difficult even now to notice traces of ancient settlements. Round pits are clearly visible - the remains of dwellings and various outbuildings. To protect against the enemy, not only the natural steep slopes of the capes were used, but also fortifications specially constructed on the side of the plateau - ramparts and ditches. They seemed to separate the settlement itself from the adjacent territory.

Such settlements can be found in places known to many Voronezh residents. Above the holiday village of Rybachye there is a fairly large settlement, on the area of ​​which there are several hundred rounded depressions from dwellings; upstream the river on the so-called White Mountain is another settlement. There is also a Slavic fortified settlement near the village of Chertovitskoye; then there is an ancient Slavic settlement near the village of Starozhivotinnoe and so on all the way to Lipetsk, in the center of which on a high mountain in the 10th century there was a Slavic settlement.

If we float downstream from the confluence of the Voronezh River with the Don, our attention will again be drawn to the high right bank of the river with gullies and ravines. Here, on the banks of the Don, the Slavs stopped their advance to the southeast, creating numerous fortified settlements. It must be said that the ancient fortifications and earthworks were quite complex and powerful structures.

Excavation of fortifications is not always rewarding work, since it requires great physical effort and, as a rule, does not bring any effective finds. But the end result provides a lot of interesting information to characterize the socio-political history of the settlement under study. A. N. Moskalenko understood this very well when the archaeological expedition of Voronezh University, led by her, excavated ramparts and ditches at many settlements of the Don Slavs. And it turned out that the more southern settlements, that is, in the immediate vicinity of the world of nomads, from where one could constantly expect a threat, had stronger and more reliable fortifications.

The settlement near the Titchikha farmstead in the Liskinsky district of the Voronezh region, located on a high mountain, which is popularly called “Truden” and from which the vast expanses of the Don left bank open up, is perhaps the southernmost outpost of the Slavs on the Don. To make this place even more inaccessible, the slopes of the cape mountain were trimmed, increasing their steepness. It is almost impossible for a horse warrior like the nomads to climb from the river or along the slopes of the ravines that border the cape to the territory of the settlement at an altitude of almost 90 meters. There was only one vulnerable spot left - where the cape turns into a field and where now there is a rampart along which a ditch stretches. What did the fortifications look like in ancient times, when ancient Russian speech was heard on Mount Truden? Archaeological excavations of the rampart and ditch helped tell the story.

Defensive fortifications of the Titchikhinsky settlement (reconstruction)

It turned out that where the shaft is now located, there were wooden defensive structures encircling the settlement from the side of the plateau. Their remains were found in the earthen rampart. Excavation materials, written sources, discoveries made at other monuments, and, of course, the creative imagination of the archaeologist himself, based on real concrete facts, allow us to imagine what the fortifications were like a thousand years ago.

When in the 9th century the Slavs found themselves on Mount Truden and decided to build their first dwellings here, there was probably no need for powerful wooden defensive walls, and there was not enough strength for this. After all, there were not many first settlers. And the cape on the side of the field was first fenced off with a low earthen rampart, in front of which a shallow ditch was dug. Perhaps a wooden wall was placed on the shaft. Only later, around the beginning of the 10th century, with the growth of external danger (nomadic raids), it was necessary to strengthen the fortifications, and the village itself expanded significantly, crossing the boundaries of the original rampart and ditch.

Before building new wooden fortifications, all vegetation on the rampart - bushes, small trees, as well as old wooden walls were burned, probably to compact the foundation. Then, along the entire length of the shaft (about 130 m), wooden four-walled log houses with a height of more than 3 meters were built, filled inside with earth to the full height. The area of ​​each log house was approximately 2X2 meters. On the outside, the line of log houses was also covered with earth. The upper platform was carefully leveled, and the outer wall, built above the platform, served as a kind of parapet for the defenders of the village, who in times of danger were located on the upper platform of the log house. Through holes made in the outer wall, the defenders watched the enemy. A palisade of massive oak logs was placed in the old ditch along the entire line of log houses, the pointed ends of which protruded from the ground to a considerable height, and in front of the line of the palisade a new, deeper ditch with steep slopes was dug. Thus, the settlement on Mount Truden, turned into a fortress, had every reason to be considered impregnable (Fig.).

The enemy was met not only with arrows, but also with everything that could serve the purpose of defense. The chronicle says that when Kyiv was besieged in 1159, the warriors told the prince: “We can fight them from the city; We have all the weapons: stone, wood, stakes, and pitch.” This is how a large city was defended, and this is how small ancient Russian towns were defended, to which the settlement on Mount Truden belonged.

The line of defensive log buildings, filled with earth, was adjoined on the inside by wooden structures in the form of log buildings, but without earth backfill, and covered with a wooden roof on top. What was their purpose? They were not permanent dwellings, since neither stoves nor hearths for heating and cooking food were found in them. Perhaps it was in these above-ground log buildings that women, children, and old people took refuge, and the entire adult male population had to stand on top of the log buildings filled with earth and protect the settlement. In peacetime, the buildings served as a place where merchants stopped with their goods from Volga Bulgaria, the Khazar Kaganate, Central Asia and other places far and near. Slavic merchants from ancient Russian cities also visited here, heading to Sarkel or Itil - trade and craft centers of Khazaria.

Behind the defensive walls hid an ordinary Slavic village, of which there were many hundreds scattered across the vast expanses of the East European Plain. How do we imagine the first Slavic settlements on the banks of the Don and Voronezh? Let's try to travel back 1000 years... Residents of the village, merchants and ordinary travelers could only enter the territory of the settlement through specially constructed gates or entrances. They settled on one side of the cape on which the settlement was located. In large cities, although somewhat later, the gates were made of stone, gate churches were built, but in small nameless towns the entrances were much simpler. Bridges were thrown over the ditches, which in case of danger, as the chronicler says, were “swept over” or “cut off” (destroyed), and then restored again.

Many Slavic settlements in the Don basin were large in area and had several dozen dwellings. On the territory of the settlement near the Titchikha farmstead (on Mount Truden), the remains of more than a hundred dwellings are still visible. Of course, not all of them existed at the same time; many were built in connection with population growth and the formation of new families. Some of them, as they were destroyed, were adapted as outbuildings or simply as garbage and waste dumps. They are very interesting for archaeologists: as a rule, they contain many different finds.

Excavations showed that semi-dugout dwellings were rectangular pits, deepened into the ground up to 1.5 meters, and most often less (Fig. 50). Their height was at least 2 meters, part of the building rose above the ground. Area - 12-16, less often up to 25 square meters. The walls of the pit were lined with wood, the wooden structure continued higher, turning into a roof, which most often had a gable roof and was covered with straw, earth, and sometimes coated with clay, which was lightly burned so that it would not get wet in the rain or snow (Fig.).

A mandatory accessory of a Slavic home is a stove, which served both to heat the house and to cook food. The stoves were made from different materials: stone, clay, clay with stone, and sometimes from continental remains, which were preserved when digging the foundation pit for the building. But no matter what the stove was, it was always located in one of the corners of the home. It was possible to enter such a “house” either by steps in the wall of the pit, or by an attached ladder. The entrance to the dwelling was located opposite the stove. The fact is that the semi-dugouts were heated in a black way and the smoke came out through the door. If the stove were close to the entrance, then the heat would escape along with the smoke.

Slavic dwelling (reconstruction).

The Arab writer Ibn da Ruste in his work “The Book of Jewels” wrote: “In the land of the Slavs, the cold is so strong that each of them digs a kind of cellar in the ground, which is covered with a wooden pointed roof, such as we see in Christian churches, and on This roof is laid by the earth. They move into such cellars with the whole family and, taking several firewood and stones, heat them red-hot on the fire, and when the stones are heated to the highest degree, they pour water on them, which causes steam to spread, heating the house until they take off their clothes. They remain in such housing until spring” (News about the Khozars, Burtases, Bulgarians, Magyars, Slavs and Russians by Ibn-Dast. Published, translated and explained by D. A. Khvolson. St. Petersburg, 1869, p. 33).

What did the medieval writer write about? About dwellings? Or maybe about the bath? After all, it’s hard to imagine that hot stones in a residential building would be watered and heated with steam. In this case, stones should be found, if not in all semi-dugouts, then, in any case, in many of them. And they are found only in isolated cases. Probably, the description reflected both the residential building and the bathhouse, which the Eastern Slavs certainly had. And in the minds of the medieval foreign observer, both buildings were combined into one whole. But at the same time, Ibn da Ruste’s information is striking in the accuracy of observation and specificity of description.

Living in a Slavic home was probably not very easy. A low roof, an earthen floor, rarely covered with wood, smoke and soot, cramped conditions: together with people in winter there were young livestock - this was the daily life of the Slavic population. True, in the summer it became easier. Temporary stone stoves were built next to the house under a light canopy, the walls in the house were cleared of soot and soot that had settled in a thick layer over the long winter months, the entrance to the house was open, the inside was dry and light. More than one century will pass until semi-dugouts are replaced by spacious above-ground log houses, chimneys, more convenient stoves and many other improvements to the Slavic home appear. Until then, the half-dugout faithfully served the Slavs for many centuries.