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In the Cossack Compound

The Children's Museum Center is always lively: young people and their guests enthusiastically discover the world of Cossack culture participating in a variety of interactive programs and master classes. Here, in the fresh air, on the territory of the Cossack compound, there are interactive areas that tell about the life of the Don Cossacks.

Having visited the playing field "Woodcutter", children and their parents will not only see how the Cossacks prepared firewood for the long, harsh winters, but they will also try how difficult it is. From time immemorial, the Cossacks sawed logs on stands made of four thick crossing poles that firmly held the sawn logs. With the help of such a simple device, the Cossacks sawed wood for heating a home stove in winter or for a summer stove that stood in the yard and was used for cooking in summer. The same home-made crossing poles with a log, a two-handed saw, a stump (deck) with an ax for chopping wood, a pile of logs are presented at the museum compound. Looking at the picturesque lawn, you might think that the owner just left his occupation for a minute. In the meantime, visitors can help him and cut a couple of logs.

The interactive area "Cossack Photo Studio" immediately attracts attention with bright Cossack outfits and makes you want to try them on. Here is a skirt with a large number of widths, trimmed with folds; a complex-cut jacket with a stand-up collar, decorated with a yoke, small buttons, ribbons; silk and woolen shawls with fringe and bright patterns; men's military suit with a cap and boots. The makeshift wardrobe also contains clothes and accessories from the middle of the last century.  Preening themselves by the grandmother's mirror, tourists take a photo in the exterior of the Cossack compound.

There and then, under the shed, a tea table is set. A place of honor is given to a samovar with fancy lace shapes - a symbol of home comfort. To make the hot drink more aromatic the Cossacks brewed steppe herbs - thyme, mint, oregano. They drank a bit of tea with sugar, packaged in a cone shape. They pricked it with special metal forceps.

The compound does not leave anyone indifferent. Thus, a family from the city of St. Petersburg, having attended Cossack master classes, brought and handed over to the museum household items: a two-handed saw, shears for shearing sheep, a saw with a thin blade, planers, a hammer.

Interactive areas of the Children's Museum Center are open to the public until the onset of cold weather. We invite residents and guests of the Sholokhov land to the excursion around the Old House of Mikhail Sholokhov, and then become participants in master classes and take pictures for memory.

Svetlana Usova
Marina Popova