"Russian villages" Topic

I just got 5 Russian houses (4 log, 1 plank), made by Pegasus. So what I need now is to know how to arrange them to represent farms (don't have any barns) or a small village. Did the Russians cluster their houses close together and have farmland radiating out from the village? Would they run along the same side of a semi-major road, or on both sides? (I Googled "Russian Village" and got a few pics, but nothing definitive.)

We have to generalise a bit, because Russia is a big place. I assume you actually want the USSR anyway. So keeping mainly to the bits fought over in WWI and WWII.

Northern Russian houses are unpainted. That's your first call, because southern Russian and Polish are generally white. Ukrainian ones are generally smooth faced, so they're out anyway I suppose.

Russian villages are tightly clustered, generally along both sides of a single road. They don't do isolated farms – it's not consistent with their basically collectivist land-holding (dating from before Communism) or the climate.

A lot of yards seem to be surrounded by fences, often fairly high. There may be some regional variation in this, but I haven't worked it out. With each house will often be a barn or stable etc.

Some variations: Latvians and Estonians did not cluster villages, but had individual farms and very widely separated villages. Same basic unpainted buildings though (actually not, but no-one will spot the subtle differences).

Poles had villages, again along a single road, but also some individual farms, especially as you go west. White-washed buildings.

Google Earth can be your friend here. Find the area you are most interested in and zoom down. Also there are period maps for large parts available. I can send you some if you specify the area of most interest.

Thanks, Mark! That pretty much tells me what I need to know and confirms my suspicions. I thought I would need fences but don't have any in this scale (20mm). Any hints on where I could get some would be appreciated.

Don,

The fences are probably just vertical planking and some horizontal stringers. You could make your own out of thin balsa or out of wooden coffee stirrers.

Jim

This is typical, and these are typical fences to keep the critters out of the gardens:

link

Quite often, the "front yard" fence, on the side next to the road, will be a picket fence but with a bit of "gingerbread" carving at the tops of the pickets. I'm not finding a good pic, though…

Here's a plain picket fence:

link

One thing that's very noticeable is that the yards are not "groomed": long grass on the fence lines, around the houses; no lawn as such.

Allen

Well, not to contradict "specialists" here too much – here are my 5 kopecks…
There could be a "Khutor"- hamlet with usually one family living there- main house with multiple additional buildings- barns, outhouse, Banya ( sauna) etc. There should be some small fields next to the house for family personal garden- vegetable, fruit, place for chicken etc.
"Derevnya"- village is a collection of houses of multiple families with their secondary buildings, often arranged along main road ( paved?), possibly with some secondary roads, quite often unpaved. If the village is quite sizable- may have a church with small cemetery adjacent ( pogost) and priests house- in Soviet times usually delapitated… Possibly there will be "Derevenskiy Soviet"- administrative building for village government. Could have an adjacent Kolhoz with multiple agricultural buildings- sometimes mixed within village, often separate.
"Poselok"- settlement- often a sizable village bordering on a small town…
Houses in most of Russia- if log built out of round logs are left unpainted, but with painted window frames and roof eves sometimes in vivid colors. Roofs if metal- usually painted green or rust red. Wood shingle roofs are left unpainted. Corrugated cement board used for roofing are left natural gray. If the house is of frame construction with vertical plank boards- it would be painted- in all sorts of colors. Ukrainian, Moldovan and some Belorussian houses- if traditional are called "mazanka"- painted house.
It is usually finished with a coat of clay stucco, painted bright white, often with some bright details, either freehand painted or stenciled.
Hope that helped.

link

Sergei is of course right to add the Kolkhoz, often separate but near the village. I tend to forget those because my main interest is 1919-1920.

Post-war maps often have a new "Kolony" near the old village and they have a tendency to be square, rather than linear. Was this a WWII phenomenon, anyone, or only later?

Also looking at that excellent link of Sergei reminds me that if there is a stream the village will more or less run alongside it, but not right on it from what I can tell.

There has been a discussion about roofing materials on TMP before IIRC. The consensus seemed to be that roofing iron was very rare pre-WWII on dwellings, and corrugated cement board not started yet. Many would still be thatched, so don't worry if your models are.

The rate of individual farms was always very sensitive to the local area (higher in Cossack and thinly populated areas, for example). I realise Wikipedia is not always totally accurate on this, but this is what it says about isolated farms. By 1910 the share of khutors and otrubs among all rural households in the European part of Russia was estimated at 10.5%. These were practically eliminated during the collectivisation in the USSR.

As you want WWII, I would keep the number of isolated farms very low unless doing the Baltic.

Great description, sergeis!

I wish I still had the photos of villages around Borodino that I took back in '92. I had intended to use them for modelling, which never transpired, and then the early digital format I used became obsolete!

Allen

As I said, I have only 5 houses, of various sizes, and no barns, etc., so I guess I could make a Khutor of an extended family or a small Derevnya. The buildings (or at least the boxes they come in -- with illustrated covers) can be seen here:
link
Click on the "details" buttons for larger views. The pictures give me good ideas on how to paint them. I'm guessing these are northern Russian (or Byelorussian?) types. The larger of the two small houses in the "Russian Farm House" set looks to be made of planks or squared-off logs, while all the others are of rounded logs. The two medium-sized houses in the "Russian Log Houses" set have thatched roofs on the front and what looks like vertical board roofs on the back -- any idea why?

Check out houses for sale pics- ones with fancy window work are possibly old ones- corrugated roofs are modern- replace those with likely shingled roofs or metal ( maybe) and you will have same houses circa WWII.
link

Ah, the Hobby Bunker- store where one can ALWAYS find some cool things to buy. And of course the Vietnamese restaurant next door is great for welcome breaks in frenzied shopping!
It appears I own some of the same houses by Pegasus. As you can see the "srub"- round log cabins are almost always unpainted, However "Brussoviy srub"- squared logs cabin could be painted, especially if finished with "vagonka"- planks with t-lock sides… Window and door frames are almost always painted- nicely…

search on YouTube for "Come and See" (or better still buy it) there are views of a typical Belorus village towards the start,also the attack at the end but that village may have been built for the film.

How do the Pegasus 1:72 structures actually scale? Would they be too oversized for 15mm?

(Yes, I'm too lazy to drive an hour and drop by the shop…)

Allen

Well, doors are right at 1" high. You be the judge.

I do have them for FoW- I just cut down the bottoms of the walls to be of more appropriate height- so now they blend very well. Good point about these- they are CHEAP, so with a little elbow grease they work fine for 15mm…
@AECurtis- if you are only an hour away from Hobby Bunker- roughly how far I am- it is very much worth it to go there- if only wtice a year…

Allen lives out in the middle of nowhere -- I don't think he's within an hour of anything! :)

"How do the Pegasus 1:72 structures actually scale? Would they be too oversized for 15mm?"

I just bought one of the prepainted Ukrainian Houses and although 1/72 it will work well with 28mm.

About all I can tell you is what I said above: doors are right at 1" high. You be the judge.

From the looks of the pics linked here the Perry ACW house might well fit in for 28mm, any thoughts on that? i am keen to make my own but that is a good cheap kit which might provide a useful quick build supplement to home made buildings.

Maybe the porch is not too authentic…..?

picture

but it does come with some useful fencing which seems to fit in with the above images.