How the Lykovs lived all the years of hermitage is now not so difficult to say, especially for those who know the local conditions well. The Lykovs, like all peasants who have lived on individual farms for centuries, perfectly mastered all types of peasant business. They knew how to do everything that was required for a normal life. But in the conditions in which they found themselves, any work required ingenuity, ingenuity and great effort. And some of the work had to be abandoned altogether. A very limited number of gardening and any other tools, a limited number of utensils for cooking. Several cast iron pans, pans. Cups, bowls, spoons - all made of wood. All containers for storing food supplies for the winter - tues, boxes of various sizes - were made of birch bark. By the way, this is the best container for storage, and this container is used to this day throughout Siberia.
There was absolutely no iron - nails, bolts, screws, staples, etc. The absence of all this did not allow doing much that even in their conditions would have been easy and simple to make. Here I mean carpentry, carpentry and any other work that could significantly improve their life.
Clothing and shoes were a serious problem. Everything that was brought from the "world" in taiga conditions quickly fell into disrepair. There was one opportunity to make clothes ourselves. They only had hemp at their disposal. This large annual bast fiber plant, when properly cared for and processed, produced fairly strong fiber. They managed to preserve and maintain in working order a loom, which in Siberia was called krosna. It was not difficult to make a cross with an instrument. During the war, krosna could be seen in many peasant huts. In our village, as far as I remember, there were three or even four such machines. It was with his help that the Lykovs weaved the simplest canvas of hemp threads - the only fabric from which they sewed clothes, bags and made cords and ropes. I must say that the whole process - from sowing, harvesting to obtaining threads and, finally, fabric - is long and very laborious. The thread spinning was especially tedious.
Shoes were also very difficult. There was practically none of it. It could have always been in the required quantity, but the Lykovs did not have livestock - therefore, there was no main raw material - leather. The first ten to fifteen years of hermitage, Lykov had a small supply of rifle cartridges, and Molokov left either ten or fifteen cartridges back in 1941, when they met. This allowed Lykov to hunt for marals. In any case, when we came to the Lykovs on Erinat in 1947, when we examined the estate, we found the remains of worn-out ichigas of various sizes. All shoes were made of maral leather. According to my assumptions, at the beginning of the fifties, there was already nothing to hunt for marals, except for trapping pits, or to catch up and prick in the ice in winter. And this did not happen often. As for the manufacture of leather, Lykov mastered this craft perfectly. All the necessary components for leather processing are available in the taiga in unlimited quantities.
During the war years, leather was also made in our village. Kazanin and Brylyakov, whom I have repeatedly mentioned, were especially great masters. I remember when a bear lifted up a cow near the village itself, Kazanin made the skin, and I came and looked. And even then he theoretically comprehended this science. When the skin was dressed and wiped off, we spread it out, and I counted all the wounds inflicted by the bear's clawed paws. And Parfentiy Filimonovich, pointing his finger at the slots, told me, in sequential order, how the bear beat and tore the cow with its claws until it knocked it down.
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#the hermit