Rima Slepenkova talks about different types of cradles

“In the past, our mothers would gather birch bark in the spring – thin birch bark. They would peel it from a good tree using a knife and lay the pieces on top of each other. After rolling them up, the bark was dried in the shade – in a shed, a pantry, or a storage building. This spring birch bark can also be used to light the stove. In winter, they would simply use the bark that had been prepared earlier. Small berry baskets and large backpacks were sewn from it too. Whether it was bird cherries or other berries, you could carry them all in it. During haymaking, people would pack food into a birch bark backpack, strap it on, and go to the fields.

In autumn, the birch bark becomes denser and thicker, and the inner side turns darker. That’s when the days grow shorter – and it’s also the time when grown women sew baby cradles. They make them either for relatives or for their own children. In summer, they prepare cherry branches – they process and peel them once they’re ready to begin. These are dried in a cool place. The edges of the cradle are framed with these bird cherry branches. Along the Ob River, we don’t have reindeer sinew, so they sew around the cradle using synthetic thread.

There are cradles specifically for nighttime. After a child is born, it receives a night cradle. At the head of the cradle, a capercaillie is always carved – because it’s the bird believed to bring peaceful sleep to the infant. The child stays in this cradle until it is about six months old. The bottom of the cradle is lined with birch mulch. Or, when we lived along the meadow side of the Ob, we also used willow mulch. We would take the mulch from the center of the willow branches and clean it of splinters. That mulch was placed in the bottom of the cradle. On top of it, a soft down mattress was laid, filled with duck feathers, and a pillow was placed under the child’s head.

Underneath the feather mattress, while the child still had no teeth, we would place a small pair of scissors or a box of matches. This was to protect the baby’s sleep, day and night. And when the bedding became wet and the mulch was soaked, it was thrown out onto a special place – not near the fence, but into a corner of the vegetable garden. In spring, when the crows arrive, they come to warm their feet on that pile of cradle waste. The crows, you know, they have a kind of song.

When the baby reaches six months and begins to sit up, it is placed in a day cradle. The sides of this day cradle are decorated with carved patterns – I can’t remember exactly what the designs were. An animal is also carved at the head of the cradle, one that is believed to guard the baby’s sleep. Because at that age, the child still has no teeth.

This type of cradle is carried over the mother’s shoulder. She takes the baby with her to the hayfields. She hangs the cradle on a tree branch and mows the grass nearby while keeping an eye on the child. If there were too many mosquitoes, they would stretch a cloth over the cradle so the child wouldn’t get bitten. They would look for a shady, cozy spot under a tree.

Inside the home, a nail was hammered into the ceiling in the middle of the room, and the cradle was hung from it. Some used thick ropes, and in earlier times, people would even carve a chain out of a single piece of wood just for hanging the cradle. The child would hang from it, swaying on its own – and fall asleep that way. Because a crying child doesn’t sleep. A crying baby must be rocked constantly.”

Recorded by Stephan Dudeck, Budapest, 2024.