The interior of the Chuvash house

The interior of the Chuvash house was simple. First there was no inner porch, just a small store-room. Inside the house along the walls there was a plank bed and above the door, near the oven there was an attic. In the Bulgar period the Bulgar Chuvash produced glass for windows, later after the defeat of the Volga Bulgaria by the Golden Horde and in the epoch of the Kazan Khanate they started to use specially treated bubbles. Chimneys were moved outside, however after overtaxes imposed on foreigners by tsarist Russia in XVII, when taxes were imposed on every window and chimney, the number and sizes of windows decrease, and pise-walled ovens were stoked black (when smoke was kept inside the oven), smoke was let out through a special window in the corner. From the middle of XIX century the Chuvash began to build Russian ovens with a flue. However, the traditional fireplace – “vuchakh” – with a suspended cauldron (Upper Chuvash) and fixed cauldron (Lower Chuvash) remained.
The Chuvash “lasch” (summer kitchen) is a quadrangular wooden or stone house with ground floor, a small window and straw or wooden roofing. In summer it was used for cooking food, eating and beer brewing.
In the second half of XIX century prosperous Chuvash peasants started to erect more spacious and comfortable houses. White or stone houses with glazed windows and warm inner porches appear instead of smoky houses. House interior was enriched with town d?cor furnishing. Splinter and tallow candles are gradually replaced by oil lamps.