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The Club “Horseback Riding around the Upper Don Country” Completed a Cycle of Theoretical Classes

The club “Horseback Riding around the Upper Don Country” of the Children Museum Centre, which tells the schoolchildren about the Don Cossack way of life and about the features of horse care, has completed a cycle of theoretical classes.

During the first lessons the children learned about the Museum, its sites and exhibitions, made a tour around the Old House of M.A.Sholokhov, where the writer worked over the third book of his novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”. Then the club members learned about the way of life of the Don Cossacks, their culture and traditions.

One of the classes was devoted to the history of the Don country. The children learned how the Don steppes called in old times Dikoye Pole became inhabited, how a Cossack settlement of Vyoshki was founded, what was the way of life of the Don Cossacks.

The members of the class carried out several assignments to learn more about hunting, fishing, agriculture and horse breeding in the Don region: they mastered a stamp drawing technique, made a big paper bird, a bustard, which was hunted for by Cossacks in old times; they made a model of a sea vessel on which Cossacks made their marine crusades.

The children learned about different kinds of trade and performed in the roles of merchants and buyers.

In class “The Horse in Cossack Culture” the club members got into the Cossack folklore, remembered proverbs and sayings about friendship of a Cossack and a horse, learned about the features of horse behaviour that were meaningful in old times. The children marked that in legends, parables, epic stories the horse was the main thing to judge about his owner.

Cossack fairy tales often described real historical events. In old Cossack fairy tales the hero wins his foes with the help of his friend – a horse – and thanks to his wit, courage and dexterity.

Finishing the cycle of theoretical classes the club members came to the conclusion, that the horse was a part of a Cossack way of life. During the practical classes at the Stables of the Museum-Reserve the children will contact with the

horses, will learn about horse care and about the main kinds of horseback riding and fancy riding.

Svetlana Usova
Tatyana Shevtsova