Nochva (nochvy, nochovka)

Nochva is a shallow trough made of wood, a vessel with a wide open top. In the farm the nochva was used as any kind of container. It harvested pickles, cabbage, meat for sausages, sifted flour. This small trough was also intended for washing, bathing, cooling beer, feeding livestock and poultry. In winter peasant children at nochva could even ride downhill, as in a sled. The best material for making the night was soft wood - linden or aspen. Half of the split logs were hollowed out with an adze, the walls and the bottom were smoothed with a chisel. From the middle of the 20th century instead of wood metal shelters were increasingly used. Nochva was used even in the national treatment of young children from the "evil eye". For this the child was placed under the trough at the threshold of a shed and pigs were driven through it. Then they washed out of the nochva so that the "evil eye would descend."