Pihkva oblasti talupoegade kivihooned / The Stone Buildings of Pskov County Peasants

Abstract

The aim of the article is to give an overview of the characteristics of graniteboulder and lime-slate buildings in Pskov county in the north-western part of the Russian Federation. When studying the assembled fieldwork information, the author focuses on the different wall patterns connected to the methods used to split the stones and on the technologies used to build the stone walls. Both the master’s and the buyer's aesthetic preferences influence the final outcome. Similar to the rest of this region, the most active period of using local unprocessed stones in buildings was between the 1850s and 1930s. In this article, the decorative details of the buildings' walls, the most obvious qualities of the wall patterns, the types of joints and window frames, and dates on the building the chief objects of the author's attention. Based on the analysis of the collected information and on the study of written sources, he has been able to suggest when the use of boulders in construction increased, and also how the walls and joints might be classified.