Rutuls - Settlements



Many of the Rutulian settlements are quite old. Their location was determined by many factors common for all the population of Daghestan: economic (scarcity of land fit for plowing), natural-geographic (proximity to water, solar orientation), and political (defensive capacity). The earliest settlements were small tukhum (patrilineally organized villages). These were subsequently consolidated into settlements as patrilineality weakened because of the need to increase defensive capacity. In the nineteenth century the main consideration for locating a settlement was territorial. In each settlement there were several quarters; it appears that each was originally inhabited by one tukhum (clan). The form and layout of the Rutul settlement result from the topographical conditions of the region, with settlements having a layered design. In accordance with the distribution of houses within the settlements, two types of organization are singled out: a horizontal one and a vertical. In the past the center of the settlement was a mosque and a neighboring godekan (teahouse) or kim (a men's club based on the clan). For defensive purposes major roads were laid out in the lower outlying reaches and the cemetery was outside the aul (mountain village). Settlements of the Soviet period are built along the gently sloping sides of the mountains, as it was more convenient to build new houses, schools, and municipal buildings on flatter surfaces; sometimes whole settlements were relocated to the former agricultural areas, or even to the Caspian plain. The center of the modern settlement is formed by a club or by a "house of culture."

Earlier, several types of domestic complexes were common. (1) A two-storied house without a yard and barns, containing living, domestic, and storage areas. The first story is used for keeping cattle and for domestic and storage purposes. (2) A two-storied square house with an inner small yard in the center; the house contains living, domestic, and storage areas. (3) A complex consisting of a dwelling (one- or two-storied) with separate outbuildings. There is a special cattle shed with a hayloft structurally independent of the house. The dwelling has neither a yard nor a fence and is located in a row with other houses. Both stories are used as living areas. (4) One-or two-storied houses with a small open front yard and with out-buildings. The earliest form of dwelling and a prototype for later ones is a one-storied, one-chambered building with an adjoining one-storied outbuilding. Characteristic of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a two-chambered, one- or two-storied stone house without a veranda and without a yard. The basic building materials are crushed stone, clay, and wood. Houses had flat clay roofs. Traditional dwellings had light-holes of different sizes instead of windows, sometimes in the form of a slit; they did not admit much light but in wartime could be used as loopholes. Glass was not used until the Soviet period. Both traditional and modern Rutul homes are decorated with carpets and thick felts, both handmade and machine-made.


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