Статья о башкирских народных костюмах
статья по английскому языку (7 класс) на тему

The Bashkort Traditional Clothes

     The Bashkort  traditional costume differs from costumes of other peoples, though it has borrowed various elements for a long time of its development.

  Its specific character is conditioned by many factors: historical, economic, climatic, world outlook, etc.

  The Bashkorts, as well as other ethnoses, hadn’t a unified traditional costume for all ethnographic groups. For example, the costume of the Bashkorts of the Silabe and Kurgan regions differed from those of the Perm or Hamar and Harytau Bashkorts. The population of the mountain and wood places dressed not as those who lived in steppes, etc. So, inhabitants of each region had their own costumes.

  There were seven complexes in the Bashkort costume: north-western, north-eastern, south-western, south-eastern, central,  east and hamar-yrghyth. Any costume has its peculiar element. For example, for the central complex such an element was a kata-leather low-heeled galoshes with felt bootlegs, for south-eastern one it was a kashmau, an original headgear, covered by silver, etc.

      The  men’s clothes consisted of wide and long shirts with a direct cut of a collar, baggy trousers, easy bell-bottomed caftans, sleeveless jackets and sheepskins.    Men’s headgears were tubatais, round furcaps  ,malakhais ,hats. A turban was also popular among the Bashkort people as well as among other Muslim peoples. Only old men, when visiting a mosque, and also mullahs wore it. There were other kinds of headgear in the past , for example, Western Europe remembered the Bashkort riders, who participated in the Patriotic War of 1812, by their cone-shaped caps with fur trim.

   Items of the national woman’s costume were the following: a dress with flounces, an apron, a camisole. Young women had a plastron made of corals and coins(seltar, hakal).

   The Bashkort women had a variety of headgears.

   One of the most beautiful ancient adornments of the Bashkort woman was a headgear called kashmau. It was a slinky little cap made of red cloth with a round opening on the top; on each side there were stripes of cloth, buttoned at the chin, and a piece of red fringed cloth at the back. It was decorated with silver coins, pendants, and strings of coral.

   The headgear of a maiden girl was takiya, a cap in the shape of a helmet, covered by silver coins and fringed by strings of corals. Usually the Bashkort girls did not wear headgears, but adult girls and women always wore cotton shawls.

   Kushyaulyk is also considered an ancient headgear, it is a double headscarf of young girls. The old Bashkort women tied a kerchief called tathtar round their head, and then wear a fur-cap.

   There was  a time when the woman’s costume consisted of a harawys-an embroidery, its true purpose has been already forgotten. It is believed, that once it was a part of a wedding gift. Fillets with headrests decorated with beads were also spread.

   Footwear were leather boots, shoe covers, bast sabata. Both men and women wore leather boots. They were worn with foot bindings, less often, with woolen stockings. Also low footwear like leather shoes-saryks were widely spread.

   So, the following devices of decorative art: patterned weaving, embroidery, appliqué work, jeweller items, patterns made of corals, beads, silver, embossingwere used for creation of dresses, shirtsleeves, headgears, outer clothing, and footwear.

   The national costume of the Bashkorts, despite of its local versions, represents a unified ethnocultural complex having local features.

                                                       Carpets

  During many centuries semi-nomadic cattle breeding was giving wool and leather.                    

Due to its softness, elasticity and lightness, ability to keep warmth for a long time, wool was a universal raw material for manufacturing felt and carpets; it is impossible to imagine the life of a cattle- breeder in severe steppes. Due to its universality felt was considered the most widespread among all the subjects of nomadic household.   It was used to cover dwellings, floor, trellised walls. It was used as furniture: to work,  to take a rest, to eat, to pray, to receive guests. Footwear, clothes, parts of horse harness(felt for a collar, a saddle) were made of it. Felt was used to decorate the dwelling. Felt mats piled with woollen carpets, feather-beds, cushions and blankets on chests or painted wooden stand and drawn by a decorative tapes created a special interior and cosiness in the felt tirmah, later --- in wooden houses.

It was also widely used  in folk medicine. Until now cuts, wounds quite often are treated by burned felt. Felt was also a subject of  arms of nomads. Instead of expensive all-metal arms, arms a steppe warrior had easy felt arms, equal to the chain mail.

There were two kinds of  Bashkort carpets: fleecy and pileless. The most plain pileless carpets  (bui balath) were carpets made mainly from goat’s wool, less often              

---from sheep’s wool. Goat’s wool was preferable to sheep’s wool, because it was    

stronger and brighter. As a rule, two or three colours prevailed in their carpet patterns, and the preference was given to soft colours. Carpet- makers skillfully used            

vegetable colours of home southern part of Bashkortostan.

Decorated homespun pileless  carpets were called athaly balath, kelam. The patterns on such carpets represent a whole composition consisting of a central part and stripes along its edges. The main thing in such a design is the centre of the carpet.