A burdei or bordei ( ro, bordei, uk, бурдей) is a type of
pit-house or half-
dugout shelter, somewhat between a
sod house and a
log cabin
A log cabin is a small log house, especially a less finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers.
Eur ...
. This style is native to the
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretches ...
and
forest steppe
A forest steppe is a temperate-climate ecotone and habitat type composed of grassland interspersed with areas of woodland or forest.
Locations
Forest steppe primarily occurs in a belt of forest steppes across northern Eurasia from the eastern ...
s of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
.
History
Neolithic
In the
Cucuteni-Trypillian culture burdei houses were characterized by elliptical shapes. These houses would typically have a wooden floor that was about 1.5 meters (5 feet) below ground, which would place the roof at just above ground level.
Early middle ages
The term used by western historians, for burdei-type housing on the Lower Danube and in the Carpathians during the 6th–7th centuries AD, is ''
Grubenhaus
A pit-house (or ''pit house'', ''pithouse'') is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. Besides providing shelter from the most extreme of weather conditions, these structures may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a larder ...
''. ''
Poluzemlianki'' is used by Russian researchers. The Russian term refers to a structure partially dug into the ground, often less than 1 m deep.
The ''Grubenhaus'' was erected over a rectangular pit, ranging in size from four square meters to twenty-five square meters of floor area. During the 6th and 7th centuries the sunken buildings east and south of the Carpathians, were under 15 square meters in floor surface.
[Florin Curta The Making of Slavs p. 282]
The experiments of the Archeological Open-Air Museum in Březno near Louny have reconstructed the living and temperature conditions in the dug houses.
The building experiment consisted of two houses, which were exact replicas of two sunken buildings excavated on the site, one of the late sixth or early seventh century, the other of the ninth. The sixth- to seventh-century feature was relatively large (4.20 x 4.60 m) and deep (80 cm under the original ground). The excavation of the rectangular pit represented some fifteen cubic meters of earth. The excavation, as well as other, more complex, operations, such as binding horizontal sticks on the truss or felling and transport of trees, required a minimum of two persons. The building of the house took 860 hours, which included the felling of trees for rafters and the overall preparation of the wood. Building the actual house required 2.2 cubic meters of wood (ash, oak, and beech). In itself, the superstructure swallowed two cubic meters of wood. Three to four cubic meters of clay were necessary for daubing the walls and reeds harvested from some 1,000 square meters, for the covering of the superstructure. Assuming sixty to seventy working hours per week and a lot more experience and skills for the early medieval builders, the house may have been built in three to four weeks.59 -Florin Curta.
Eastern Europe
In countries like
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
or
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, the burdei was built to constitute a permanent housing place and could accommodate a whole family. Thus, a burdei could have multiple rooms, typically a fire-room where the stove was installed, a cellar, and a living room.
North America
This type of shelter was created by many of the earliest
Ukrainian Canadian
Ukrainian Canadians ( uk, Українські канадці, Україноканадці, translit=Ukrayins'ki kanadtsi, Ukrayinokanadtsi; french: Canadiens d'origine ukrainienne) are Canadians, Canadian citizens of Ukrainians, Ukrainian desce ...
settlers as their first home in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
at the end of the 19th century. The first step was to peel back and save the sod, then excavate the earth to a depth of approximately a metre. A
poplar roof frame was then created, over which the saved sod would be laid. Then a window, a door, a wood stove, and a bed platform would be installed. A typical burdei measured no more than two by four metres. The burdei was a temporary refuge until a "proper" home of poplar logs and mud/straw plaster could be built.
Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...
s from
Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
settled in the
Hillsboro region of Kansas, and also built burdei housings as temporary shelters. This type of shelter was also called a ''
zemlyanka
Zemlyanka (Russian, Belarusian, uk, землянка. cz, zemljanka, pl, ziemianka, sk, zemľanka) is a North Slavic name for a dugout or ''earth-house'' which was used to provide shelter for humans or domestic animals as well as for food sto ...
'' or a ''saraj'' (a
Low German
:
:
:
:
:
(70,000)
(30,000)
(8,000)
, familycolor = Indo-European
, fam2 = Germanic
, fam3 = West Germanic
, fam4 = North Sea Germanic
, ancestor = Old Saxon
, ancestor2 = Middle L ...
spelling for a Russian word meaning "shed"). The March 20, 1875, issue of the national weekly newspaper ''Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'' described the structures:
See also
*
ASTRA National Museum Complex
"ASTRA" National Museum Complex ( ro, Complexul Naţional Muzeal "ASTRA") is a museum complex in Sibiu, Romania, which gathers under the same authority four ethnology and civilisation museums in the city, a series of laboratories for conservation ...
*
Culture of Romania
The culture of Romania is an umbrella term used to encapsulate the ideas, customs and social behaviours of the people of Romania that developed due to the country's distinct geopolitical history and evolution. It is theorized and speculated that ...
*
Cucuteni-Trypillian culture
*
Dugout (shelter)
A dugout or dug-out, also known as a pit-house or earth lodge, is a shelter for humans or domesticated animals and livestock based on a hole or depression dug into the ground. Dugouts can be fully recessed into the earth, with a flat roof cover ...
*
Earth sheltering
An earth shelter, also called an earth house, earth bermed house, or underground house, is a structure (usually a house) with earth (soil) against the walls, on the roof, or that is entirely buried underground.
Earth acts as thermal mass, making ...
*
Pit-house
*
Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village
The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village ( uk, Село спадщини української культури, Selo spadshchyny ukrains’koi kul’tury) is an open-air museum that uses costumed historical interpreters to recreate pioneer set ...
*
Vernacular architecture of the Carpathians
The vernacular architecture of the Carpathians draws on environmental and cultural sources to create unique designs.
Vernacular architecture refers to non-professional, folk architecture, including that of the peasants. In the Carpathian Mountain ...
*
Village Museum
The Village Museum formally National Museum of the Village "Dimitrie Gusti" (''Muzeul Național al Satului "Dimitrie Gusti"'' in Romanian) is an open-air ethnographic museum located in the King Michael I Park (Bucharest, Romania), showcasing tra ...
*
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. This category encompasses a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, bo ...
*
Zemlyanka
Zemlyanka (Russian, Belarusian, uk, землянка. cz, zemljanka, pl, ziemianka, sk, zemľanka) is a North Slavic name for a dugout or ''earth-house'' which was used to provide shelter for humans or domestic animals as well as for food sto ...
Notes
External links
Shelter from the RainArticle and pictures of Ukrainian burdeis in Canada.
{{Prehistoric technology
House types
Huts
Canadian architectural styles
Housing in Canada
Ukrainian-Canadian culture
Architecture in Ukraine
Architecture in Romania
Mennonitism
Semi-subterranean structures
Vernacular architecture