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Culture and life of our ancestors

Types of Belarusian court

Wreath yard

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     The complex of wreath building residential and commercial buildings formed a square or oblong quadrangle. All buildings are connected. End to the street put the house, which is almost always attached to the canopy, to the hay-jam or pantry. Attached to the storeroom was a shed with a separate entrance from the yard. Parallel to the first line was placed the second row, opposite the  house necessarily located barn (crate).

    The wreath court is more ancient (it began to form in the iron age) and has a pronounced defensive character. It is more common in the Northern part of Belarus, where natural conditions are less suitable for agriculture. There are various variations of the wreath court.

Yard with unrelated buildings

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It Is relatively recent. The transition to this type of yard is due to the transition to a collective form of management and fire safety requirements. With the formation of collective farms, there was no need for a number of buildings (premises for grain, horses or oxen). Reducing the number of pobodrey allowed to carry the barn from the house and place it at 10-15 meters from the housing. The space between them was planted with garden trees. The arrangement of the buildings is free, but resembles a wreath or the letter «Г».

The most common type of yard in modern Belarus.

Linear yard with a single row arrangement of buildings

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Housing and outbuildings form a series (shoulder straps) length of several tens of meters. In most cases, all outbuildings were tightly adjacent to the house and were covered with a solid roof. Less common were running yards with a dominant position of the residential link. In this case, the floor of the common roof stood only the hut, canopy and jam, and farm buildings, though adjacent to them, but had their own architecture, a little lower.

The transition from the wreath to the running yard is associated with the Volochnaya reform of 1557, which required the placement of the yard on the width of the land plot. The most widespread in Polesie, Grodno and Brest regions.

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Linear yard with two-row arrangement of buildings

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All the buildings were built in two parallel councils, between which was a narrow courtyard. In the first row was a house with the same width, but much shorter vestibule, part of which was separated by a partition under the pantry.  To Senec is adjacent to a village or crate. In the first building could be located other outbuildings.

The second row consisted of other outbuildings: a crate, a barn (pigsty, cowshed, calf).

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