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Old Irons Collection in Sholokhov Museum

An interesting collection of irons numbering 52 items of storage is kept in the Museum stores and shown at the permanent exhibitions of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov. The collection tells about the life and household of the Upper Don Cossacks late in the XIX – early XX centuries, has a historical and cultural value, antique and museum importance.

The appearance of the modern iron we use in our everyday life is known to everyone. But did many schoolchildren see an iron used by their great-great-great-grandmothers for ironing linen? After all, this familiar object is almost 4 centuries old! The iron's birthday is considered to be February 10, 1636, when it was first mentioned in the historical documents of the royal court list of expenses.

The people in the Upper Don area for a long time used for ironing two devices: a “rolling pin” (a small stick with a smooth circular cross section) and a “rubel” (a rubel is a corrugated wooden board). The dried laundry was wound on a rolling pin and rolled around the table with a rubel. First metal irons were brought by Cossacks to the Don area from the military campaigns, later with the development of trade and economic relations with various regions of the Russian empire, irons appeared on sale in shops. At that time, an iron looked as a heavy and weighty device with a smooth sole, which was put into the stove to be heated.

In their household Cossacks used coal irons and solid cast irons. Inside the body of the coal iron they put hot coals and for better traction holes were made on the sides, or the iron was supplied with a pipe. To ignite the heat embers, they blew into the holes, or waved the iron from side to side. Later, instead of the embers they put a red-hot cast iron pig inside the iron. Solid cast iron irons were heated on an open fire or in a hot stove.

Do you like to see an iron which is over a hundred years old? Come and see the exhibition in the Museum-Reserve! The irons are shown in the Old House of M.A.Sholokhov in Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, in the house of the Sholokhovs in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, in Kruzhilin Village – in the house and in the shop of the writer’s father.

Yelena Kleimenova