Evdokiia Nesterova and others use a scraping knife

Evdokia Nesterova, Ekaterina Yaganova, and Vera Yaganova remove the inner pith of the fireweed stalks using a scraping knife.

"Yes, this is how you cut the fireweed stalks. But they’re dry. You can’t cut them properly right now. They break, they’re brittle. Actually, they should be a bit moist – that makes them easier to cut. Right now, they just snap. You have to cut them well, like this. Otherwise, they break. Children love to eat the inner pith because it’s sweet. And by the way, fireweed is a kind of universal medicine. This scraping tool is dull –I need to sharpen it a little so I can scrape out the inner pith properly. Where’s your knife? My grandmother had a different one... well. Here’s another one. So now we have three scraping tools here."

Recorded by Erich Kasten. Lesnaya, 2002.