Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/89

Rh A West Siberian village consists of two rows of unpainted one-story log-honses with A-shaped or pyramidal roofs, standing directly on the street, without front yards or front doors. Between every two houses there is an inclosed side yard, around which stand sheds, granaries, and barns; and from this side yard or court there is an entrance to the house. The court-yard gate is sometimes ornamented with

carved or incised wood-work, as shown in the above illustration; the window- shutters of the houses are almost always elaborately painted, and the projecting edges of the gable roofs are masked with long strips of carved or decorated board; but with these exceptions the dwellings of the peasants are simple log structures of the plainest type, and a large proportion of them are old, weather-beaten, and in bad repair. The wide street has no sidewalks; it is sometimes a sea of liquid mud from the walls of the houses on