Then the heating fire-box is furnished with blazing pine splinters and an armful of pine stove-wood and left alone for about an hour or until all the wood is burnt to a smokeless and gasless mass of hot coals and fine ash. The damper plate is then replaced, which stops all escape of heat up the chimney, and the whole structure of the stove soon begins to radiate a gentle heat. Except in the coldest of weather it is not necessary to renew the fire in such a stove more than once daily, and one armful of wood is the standard fuel consumption at each firing.
Another of the fire-boxes in the main stove is a large smooth-floored and vaulted opening with a little front porch roofed by a hood leading into the chimney. This is the oven, and here on baking days is built a fire which is raked out when the walls and floor are heated and is followed by the loaves and pastry put in place with a flat wooden paddle with a long handle. See the picture of the stove and the pie coming out of the oven in the American convalescent hospital in Archangel. The third fire-box is often in a low section of the stove covered by an iron plate, and is used only for boiling, broiling and frying. As there is not much food broiled or fried, and as soup and other boiled food is often allowed to simmer in stone jars in the oven, the iron-covered fire-box is not infrequently left cold except in summer. The stove-structure itself is variously contrived as to outward architecture so as to leave one or more alcoves, the warm floors of which form comfortable bed-spaces. The outer surface of the stove is smoothly cemented or enameled. So large are these stoves that partition-logs are set in grooves left in the outer stove-wall, and a portion of the wall of each of four or five rooms is often formed by a side or corner of the same stove. And radiation from the warm bricks heats the rooms.
Washing of clothes is done by two processes, soaping and rubbing in hot water at home and rinsing and rubbing in cold water at the river-bank or through a hole cut in the ice in the winter. Although the result may please the eye, it frequently offends the nose because of the common use of “fish-oil soap.” Not only was there dead fish in the soap but also a mixture of petroleum residue. No wonder the soldier-poet doggereled:
“It’s the horns of the cootie and beg-bug,
The herring and mud-colored crows,
My strongest impression of Russia,
Gets into my head through my nose.”
Bathing is a strenuous sport pursued by almost every individual with avidity. It is carried on in special bath-houses of two or more rooms, found in the yard of almost every peasant family. The outer door leads to the entry, the next door to a hot undressing-room, and the inner door to a steaming inferno in which is a small masonry stove, a cauldron of hot water, a barrel of ice-water, a bench, several platforms of various altitudes, several beaten copper or brass basins, a dipper and a lot of aromatic twigs bound in small bunches. With these he flails the dead cuticle much to the same effect as our scouring it off with a rough towel. Such is the grandfather of the “Russian Bath” found in some of our own cities. After scrubbing thoroughly, and steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the higher platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make his will and call the undertaker before following suit. In the summer there is considerable open-air river bathing, and the absence of bathing-suits other than nature’s own is never given a thought.
The people of this north country are shorter and stockier than the average American. The prevailing color of hair is dark brown. Their faces and hands are weather-beaten and wrinkle early. Despite their general cleanliness, they often look greasy and smell to high heaven because of their habit of anointing hair and skin with fats and oils, especially fish-oil. Not all do this, but the practice is prevalent enough so that the fish-oil and old-fur odors are inescapable in any peasant community and cling for a long time to the clothing of any traveler who sojourns there, be it ever so briefly. American soldiers in 1918–1919 became so accustomed to it that they felt something intangible was missing when they left the country and it was some time before a clever Yank thought of the reason.
Before the great world war, a young peasant who was unmarried at twenty-two was a teacher, a nun, or an old maid. The birth-rate is high, and the death-rate among babies not what it is in our proud America. Young families often remain under the grandfather’s rooftree until another house or two becomes absolutely necessary to accommodate the overflow. If through some natural series of events a young woman has a child without having been married by the priest, no great stir is made over it. The fact that she is not thrown out of her family home is not consciously ascribed to charity of spirit, nor are the villagers conscious of anything broad or praiseworthy in their kindly attitude. The result is that the baby is loved and the mother is usually happily wed to the father of her child. The North Russian villager is an assiduous gossip, but an incident of this kind receives no more attention as an item of news that if its chronology had been thoroughly conventional by American standards.
Marriages are occasions of great feasting and rejoicing; funerals likewise stir the whole community, but the noise of the occasion is far more terrifying and nerve-wracking. Births are quiet affairs; but the christening is quite a function, attended with a musical service, and the “name-day” anniversary is often celebrated in preference to the birthday anniversary by the adult Russian peasant. Everybody was born, but not everybody received such a fine name from such a fine family at such a fine service under the leadership of such a fine priest; and not everybody has such fine god-parents. The larger religious festivals are also occasions for enjoyable community gatherings, and especially during the winter the little dances held in a large room of some patient man’s house until the wee small hours are something not to be missed by young or old. Yes, the North Russian peasant plays as well as works, and so keen is his enjoyment that he puts far more energy into the play. Because of his simple mode of existence it is not necessary to overwork in normal times to obtain all the food, clothing, houses and utensils he cares to use. Ordinarily he is a quiet easy-going human.
Perhaps there is more of sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic passivity of the Russian nitchevo than is suspected by those not acquainted with him. There is also a great timidity in it; for the Russian moujik or christianik (peasant farmer) has scarcely been sure his soul is his own, since time immemorable. But his sense of humor has been his salvation, for it has enabled him to be patient and pleasant under conditions beyond his power to change. Courtesy to an extent unknown in America marks his daily life. He is intelligent, and is resourceful to a degree, although not well educated.
The average North Russian is not dishonest in a personal way. That is, he has no personal animus in his deviousness unless someone has directly offended him. He will haul a load of small articles unguarded for many versts and deliver every piece safely, in spite of his own great hunger, because he is in charge of the shipment. But he will charge a commission at both ends of a business deal, and will accept a “gift” almost any time for any purpose and then mayhap not “deliver.” Only a certain small class, however, and that practically confined to Archangel and environs, will admit even most privately that any gift or advantage is payment for a given favor which would not be extended in the ordinary course of business. This class is not the national back-bone, but rather the tinsel trimmings in the national show-window.