Traditional Chuvash homebuilding materials: historical and ethnographic aspects

The study aimed to identify the most common materials used by the Chuvash and their historical ancestors, the Savirs (Suvars), in the construction of residential buildings, as well as to analyze the features of the use of these materials. Archival documents, testimonies of medieval historians, archaeological data, the author’s field materials, scientific research by ethnographers and archaeologists were studied. The research methodology is based on the use of an evolutionary approach that considers the phenomena of traditional material culture (including those related to the process of transforming natural objects into material artifacts) as dynamically developing phenomena. The use of clay, stone and wood in the construction of traditional forms of housing among the Chuvash is consistently considered. The phenomena under study are traced in dynamics using materials from the Caucasian, Saltovo-Mayak, and Middle Volga periods of the history of the ethnos. The mentioned materials were often used precisely because of their prevalence and suitability for use. The author believes that clay was the most suitable raw material for the Savirs’ early medieval Caucasian dwellings, built using the turluch method. The walls with this method of construction were poles dug into the ground, intertwined with vines or brushwood and coated with clay. In the southern regions of Russia, this method of constructing traditional dwellings is still used today. Clay was a connecting material for cladding and leveling the surface of walls. Data from archaeological excavations indicate that residential buildings of the historical ancestors of the Chuvash at the beginning of the 6th century were also made of wood. In Volga Bulgaria, the Savirs and the Chuvash continued the tradition of building adobe and wooden houses. Natural stone began to be used already in the late Middle Ages, but only wealthy families could afford it. The author emphasizes that there were no stone buildings in the pre-Golden Horde Volga Bulgaria; they appeared only in the middle of the 14th century; the main construction material in the 10th-13th centuries was wood. The author separately considers the “middle” wooden column near the stove in the traditional Chuvash house, which initially had no practical purpose. The study shows that changes in the use of materials for the construction of traditional dwellings were largely explained by socio-political transformations, migrations, the evolution of everyday life, and the desire of representatives of the Chuvash ethnic group to adapt to the environment