The theme of the Russian village attracts the attention of many modern people. In different eras, these settlements looked completely different. If you go back to the times of the Russian Empire and even the first half of the last century, you can find one distinguishing feature - in the villages, at least in many of them, it was impossible to find any grass on the streets or near houses, or trees. All this can be seen in old photographs, if not from home archives, then on the Internet.
Why did this happen?
Quite an interesting fact, but not so surprising. Even today, in some regions of Russia, you can see similar villages, for example, in the Vologda Oblast. Almost all plots in the village are empty. That is, they do not have flower beds with a variety of flowers and gardens. And wild trees widespread in this area can rarely be seen within a settlement. Almost everywhere you can see low grass and vegetable gardens plowed up for the same potatoes.
But it is worth moving a little away from the village and a forest with lush vegetation begins - walk, admire, rest, enjoy the beauties of nature.
In the southern part of the country, the situation may have always been somewhat different. There, with a high probability, wild and fruit trees, gardens laid out right next to houses, could grow, because the climate and soil allow this to be done. But as for Siberia and the North, the conditions here are not so favorable.
Russia is a huge country with many territories with a difficult and even harsh climate. It was in such an area that the villagers devoted all their attention to the cultivation of vegetables and cereals in the fields located near their village. There was simply no room for bushes and flowers in their areas.
As for the trees that could once grow near buildings, they presumably were immediately used for firewood or for the needs of the economy. The grass was eaten by cattle, sheep, goats, which were necessarily kept by the peasants.
And in the most difficult times, when there was no harvest, even the straw was removed from the roofs so that there was something to feed the domestic animals. There are also such old photographs on the World Wide Web, where all this is clearly shown.
Therefore, all the grass growing near the houses was also immediately mowed and went to feed the cattle. Well, if vegetation remained on the street or between houses, then it was very quickly trampled by the inhabitants themselves. Indeed, in those distant times, in general, there was a very large overcrowding in every village.
It is also believed that the grass was not allowed to grow much, since this is the habitat of annoying flies and mosquitoes. However, the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire solved this problem in a different way. Read, why do the Chinese massively breed mosquitoes at a special plant.