How many bast shoes a year did a Russian peasant need, and how quickly did his shoes wear out?

  • Apr 08, 2021
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How many bast shoes a year did a Russian peasant need, and how quickly did his shoes wear out?
How many bast shoes a year did a Russian peasant need, and how quickly did his shoes wear out?

Lapti is a very interesting, but far from unique type of footwear. You might think that they were worn only on the territory of Russia and, more broadly, in Russia. However, in reality this is not the case. Lapti were well known among the peasants by their name from Western to Northern Europe. They seem both strange and at the same time quite comfortable. Surely, many are interested in the answer to the main question: how quickly did the shoes, made mainly of tree bark, wear out?

Bast shoes wear out very quickly. / Photo: Yandex. Collections.
Bast shoes wear out very quickly. / Photo: Yandex. Collections.

In short, bark shoes - bast shoes, wore out extremely quickly. The catch phrase "peel as sticky" comes from the peasant environment and reflects the process of making bast shoes. This is because on the territory of Russia, bast shoes were made mainly from linden bark. She was simply needed in colossal quantities, since the primitive woven shoes from her quickly wore out and became unusable. Linden was not the only one, but the most popular, affordable and easy-to-use material.

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Peasants could not knit bast shoes on their own everywhere. / Photo: perunica.ru.

To create one bast shoe, it was necessary to get an average of seven lyk, two meters long. The width of the linden bast had to correspond to the thickness of the middle male finger. It was possible to extract strips of bark only from straight sections of the trunk. It is noteworthy that bast shoes were not produced in all regions of Russia, but only in some. Thus, these shoes were a common commodity among merchants and at fairs.

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Bast shoes were a popular commodity. / Photo: livejournal.com.

Moreover, most of the bast shoes wore out in 10 days, and in winter, the wear rate could increase significantly, as a result of which the bast shoes became unusable after 4 days. According to the calculations of the Russian scientist Ivan Ivanovich Lepekhin, academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts in St. Petersburg, a peasant used to wear from 50 to 60 pairs of bast shoes a year. Soviet scientist Leonid Vasilyevich Milov counted that up to 150 pairs of bast shoes were needed for a family of 4 people a year.

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Children and women most often walked barefoot. / Photo: finobzor.ru.

The numbers seem colossal, but even with such a quantity, the purchase of bast shoes for the peasants was much more profitable than the purchase of leather shoes, which were simply astronomically expensive for them. Suffice it to recall that getting boots and boots for a wedding for the bride and groom back in the early 20th century in the village was akin to acquiring an apartment and a car in our time! Of course, not all family members wore bast shoes. During the warmer months, children and women often walked barefoot. In addition, bast shoes were not worn for work in the field, where the peasants spent a significant part of their time.

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A source:
https://novate.ru/blogs/130920/55996/