Development of the Russian national dwelling traditions in the wooden architecture of Yeniseysk

Yeniseysk is one of the most original small historical towns of Siberia. In the 17th - first half of the 18th centuries, this town was situated on the main historical route of development of Asian Russia; the majority of the first Siberian towns founded by Russians were built along this route. Today many unique wooden buildings of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries remain in Ye-niseysk. A complex study of the architectural environment of Yeniseysk is of special importance today, as the town will celebrate its 400 anniversary in 2019. That is why a number of activities for restoration of the architectural heritage of the town are planned. In this article, the authors make an attempt to track the dynamics of ordinary wooden building development in Yeniseysk, and also to distinguish the stages of its changes and by that to prove the unique nature, not evident for the public today, and the historical importance of a number of the buildings that remained. For this research, the authors analyzed the documentary sources of the late 17th and early 18th centuries and compared them with the results of the field studies. The document "The Description of Inns of Yeniseysk of 1704" was taken as the basis giving rich information on the housing development of the town. Based on the analysis of the documentary descriptions, three main stages in the construction of wooden architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries were distinguished. The first stage includes the stockaded town architecture with elementary log huts - winter quarters for the Cossacks (military men), these constructions are well known due to a number of previously published works. The document also gives us a description of the "old" constructions built in the middle of the 17th century; this is the second stage when the first permanent residents appear around the "ostrog" (the stockaded town). Their houses looked like a black shallow log hut connected to a "klet" (an unheated room) through a big outer entrance hall, with small "volokoviye" windows (small holes in the walls to let the smoke away) and heated with a pise-walled stove without a chimney. Household constructions (such as cellars and stalls) were situated under the log hut and the "klet". The inhabited constructions called "new" (which is the third stage) are called "gornitsa" as they were constructed on a "podklet" (a high basement) which was used for housekeeping needs and sometimes for living. The new constructions were heated with white brick stoves, the number of big "kolodniye" windows (high windows cut in three logs) in the houses increased. The field research allowed to connect the described "new constructions" to the preserved buildings which went on developing: instead of log huts and "gorntitsas" constructed on a basement, separately from one another, there appeared integral two-level houses with low ceilings and small outer entrance halls. All the windows in them are "kosyashchaty" (a more complicated construction of a window, cut in four logs with a frame), but without window casing moldings; one house has two "volokoviye" windows, this pattern is a connecting link with the previous stage. Besides the two-level houses, the tradition of building shallow six-walled houses remained. The results of the research testify that in Yeniseysk there remain unique samples of "gornitsas" on a "podklet", which allow us to visually see all the stages of the development of the national wooden architecture in Siberian towns.

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