Folk wooden architecture of the Olkhon coast of Lake Baikal

The purpose of the work is to study the features and typology of monuments of traditional folk wooden architecture in settlements on the shores of Lake Baikal, located in the western part of the lake on Olkhon Island. The study of the folk wooden architectural heritage in the coastal settlements was carried out in preparation for the development of the “Standard for the planning and development of the Baikal settlements”. Based on collected historical descriptions and materials of two historical and architectural surveys by specialists of the Irkutsk State Technical University at the end of the 20th century, an overview of the main characteristics and features of the traditional dwellings of Russian peasants and Buryat families who led a semi-nomadic lifestyle has been made. As a result of the work, the most ancient space-planning types of Russian folk dwellings in settlements on the Olkhon coast of Lake Baikal were identified. The descriptions of the three most common types of traditional Russian dwellings in this area were made –klet houses, link-up houses, and five-walled houses. Information about the rapid change in the traditional Buryat dwelling is presented: the transition from felt yurts to wooden yurts, and then to a winter Buryat dwelling of the Russian type. The importance of summer migrations and, accordingly, summer settlements –letniks– in the organization of pasture cattle breeding, land use, and preservation of the semi-nomadic way of life of the Buryats was revealed. It is concluded that the main types of folk dwellings in the settlements of the Olkhon coast changed during the 18th-19th centuries. The development of the forms of the Buryat folk dwelling proceeded most intensively. The evolution of the forms of traditional dwelling of both Russian peasants and Buryat families in the settlements of the Olkhonsky coast of Lake Baikal was part of the general process of the development of traditional folk dwellings throughout the Upper Angara region, including the Balagan steppe and the traditional settlements of the Upper Lena.

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