Rubel

Rubel is a wooden board with cut-out transverse grooves for rolling underwear, rolling leather.

This household item was used for knocking out (washing) and ironing clothes. The hand-wrung laundry was wound on a roller or rolling pin and rolled out with a rubel.

The rubel is a plate made of solid wood with a handle at one end. On one side of the plate, transverse rounded scars are cut, the second side is smooth. In different regions, this subject of Slavic ethnography could differ either by the features of the form, or by a peculiar decor.

So, in the Vladimir province, rubels decorated with geometric carvings were distinguished by an extraordinary length, on the Mezen River they were made wide, slightly expanding towards the end, and in the Yaroslavl province, in addition to geometric carving, the rubel was sometimes decorated with a three-dimensional sculpture, which, protruding above the carved surface, served at the same time as a very convenient second handle.

Sometimes the handle of the rubel was made hollow and peas or other small objects were placed inside so that they rattled when rolling out.