25 września 2013


Rubakha, Sorochka or just Eastern Dress…

In early middle ages there was a division between under and upper clothes. Rubakha was considered as an undergarment, loose shirt. Mostly it was made of linen, but not always.
All Russians were wearing it, it was the basic piece of clothing. In upper social class underwear was made of bleached linen, whereas the lower social class was using unbleached linen. Sometimes it could be made of thin wool or even for the wealthy people of silk.

Rubakha in cut was tunik-shaped, wedges widened the shirt and were sewn in just under the arm. The sleeves were narrow and long, even longer than the arm, in case of cooler weather to pull them down for warmth. If not, they were put in proper place with brancelets of metal, glass, wood. Later, sleeves were finished with zarukavya – narrow cuffs, which were rather lavishly decorated. Another case when the sleeves were pulled down (because of decorative reasons) were some rituals, like the rusalka dance. They could also be used as some kind of pockets.
The shirt was usually very long to the foot, but could also be shorter (to the calf)

The opening was rahter round (sometimes quadrangular) with a slit in the middle of the chest (more rarely on the right/left side). It had no collar, the neckline was cut close to the neck, it could be smooth or gathered. The cut was fastened by button, fibula, cord.

Very interesting thing is that in women graves were not found metal buckles. On the one hand it could be interpret that the shit was not belted. But on the other hand it was considered indecent to wear rubakha without belt. The interesting example can be Ivan the Terrible, who seeing that the daughter-in-law was wearing shirt beltless, killed his son (who wanted only defend his wife). I think the explanation of the absence of buckles in the graves can be that women were wearing woolen belts. They should be belted to block evil spirits, it was taken from pagan beliefs. That’s why people were decorating all of the openings with some embrionery, lacy, stripes of fabric.

Below you can see my rubakha, which was made on the basis of information I have.