Bast shoes are

shoe A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture ...

s made primarily from bast — fiber taken from the bark of trees such as linden. They are a kind of basket, woven and fitted to the shape of a foot. Bast shoes are a traditional footwear of the forest areas of Northern Europe, formerly worn by poorer members of the

Finnic peoples The Finnic or Fennic peoples, sometimes simply called Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic (now commonly '' Finno-Permic'') language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of ...

Balts The Balts or Baltic peoples ( lt, baltai, lv, balti) are an ethno-linguistic group of peoples who speak the Baltic languages of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. One of the features of Baltic languages is the number ...

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

Ukrainians Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian. The majority of Ukrainians are Eastern Ort ...

and Belarusians. They were easy to manufacture, but not durable. Similar shoes have also been made of strips of

birchbark Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North American birch trees of the genus ''Betula''. The strong and water-resistant cardboard-like bark can be easily cut, bent, and sewn, which has made it a valuable building, craftin ...

in more northern areas where bast is not readily available. Bast shoes have been worn since prehistoric times. Wooden foot-shaped blocks (lasts) for shaping them have been found in

neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

excavations, e.g. 4900 years old. Bast shoes were still worn in the Russian countryside at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today bast shoes are sold as souvenirs and sometimes worn by ethnographic music or dance troupes as part of their costume. MuzhikLapti

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

, they are called lapti (''лапти'', sing. '' лапоть'', lapot); this word is used as a derogatory term for cheap and short-lived footwear and, in the form ''lapotnik'' (''лапотник''), for an uneducated person, notionally one who is too poor to afford good shoes and wears bast shoes instead. Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, ''Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev'', Volume 3, p. 867, Penn State University Press, 2004 . The MiG-105 "Spiral"

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes te ...

was nicknamed ''Lapot'' for the shape of its nose. Bast shoes played an important role in the

founding myth An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have sto ...

Přemyslid dynasty The Přemyslid dynasty or House of Přemyslid ( cs, Přemyslovci, german: Premysliden, pl, Przemyślidzi) was a Bohemian royal dynasty that reigned in the Duchy of Bohemia and later Kingdom of Bohemia and Margraviate of Moravia (9th century–130 ...

, which reigned in Bohemia and

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The m ...

until 1306 AD. Přemysl the Ploughman, its legendary ancestor, was a peasant of humble origin. His bast shoes and bast-bag were kept as relics at

Vyšehrad Vyšehrad ( Czech for "upper castle") is a historic fort in Prague, Czech Republic, just over 3 km southeast of Prague Castle, on the east bank of the Vltava River. It was probably built in the 10th century. Inside the fort are the Basil ...

and Czech kings put them on during their coronations. The relics probably were destroyed when Vyšehrad fell to

Hussites The Hussites ( cs, Husité or ''Kališníci''; "Chalice People") were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation. The Huss ...

in 1420.

References

External links

"Lapti Business in Baksheevo, Malaya Polyana, Rumstikha and Berezniki"
, an 1880s article (И. И. Звездин, «Лапотный промысел в Бакшееве, Малой Поляне, Румстихе и Березниках» «Нижегородский сборник» под редакцией А. С. Гациского, Том 7.) 20th-century fashion Russian folk clothing Shoes Folk footwear {{shoe-stub

See also

References

External links