The biggest and hardest task of our farmers: this is the processing of land. Even in my own memory, these works were only performed with bulls. After some time, horses began to be used, but not all farmers were able to keep them.

All of the agricultural implements were very primitive, wooden. Plow, till, and cart sat on a wooden carriage.

Household appliances were also very primitive: clay dishes, wooden spoons, buckets and other items.

Wooden dishware was also used for the long-term storage of grain, flour, and cereals. Sometimes these dishes were straw, the so-called Kuzub and Korobka.

All of the clothing of our peasants was homespun: such was everything from underwear to outerwear. For men: a cloth jacket in the summer, sheepskin jacket in the winter, and red belt. Headwear for men was a cap or a straw hat in the summer and sheepskin hat in the winter. For women: long woolen dresses, red patterned belts, scarves and shoes – bast sandals. Such clothing and shoes were used by all of our Belarusian people, men and women everywhere. Such clothing was worn by all: from schoolchildren to old-timers, every day, in work and on the holidays. Ceremonial clothing was different from the everyday only in that it was kept in its cleanest form.

In each Diviner family all of the members began to work early on: from seven years old, girls and boys were designated to do some type of work. From the early spring to the late fall (before the snow) teenage boys and girls served as herders of the sheep and cattle. Each owner herded their animals on their own, {36} but if the family did not have children, they hired a shepherd. This is why the children began to attend school, not at the beginning of the school year, but with the onset of winter, when the snow began to fall. Not every family could send their boy to school, because they may not have had warm shoes and clothing.

Not many boys completed the three-grade schooling. The student, who studied during the short winter, forgot everything during the long summer. Therefore, we had few educated people. Everyone, without exception, was illiterate.

Starting in 1900, peasants began to use the iron plow and horses in the processing of their fields.

For Diviners, winter evenings went as follows: neighbors gathered in someone’s house for a party, chatted, remembered the past of their fathers and grandfathers, discussing their farm work and affairs, shared news that they had heard. Here they smoked their pipes for the whole evening, sitting in a fog of tobacco smoke.

The life of women was hopeless compared with that of men. Women spent their long working days from the early morning to the late evening on the affairs and chores of the household: pigs, sheep, cows, housework – all of this was in their hands. The whole family had to be washed and sheathed, the house to be tidied up and cleaned. In addition, in the late evenings, the women spun yarn by hand. With the onset of spring and summer there were even more affairs. Women did not know what to undertake first: all of these things were in their hands. The only thing they were not engaged in was haymaking, but the gathering of dry hay was also their job. Women aged rapidly from this harsh and perpetual work. While they lived in their father's house, under their mother’s back, they became prettier and flourished. After this, once married, very soon it was hard to recognize them.

In the past, the whole life and future of our sons and daughters was completely dependent on the will of their parents. The men spend their free time among themselves, and the women were familiar with each other spend their free time only in the company of women. The concept of love, a woman understood as she was taught to understand: it is necessary to get married under the law, to live with her husband, to obey her husband, to please him, have children and raise them. The wife thought that she was her husband’s parasite, that she could not do anything without her husband, that she has no rights. She really considered herself her husband’s slave, as she had been taught by Holy Scriptures.

Parents married off a lad and lady through their own discretion and choice, with little regard for their opinion and consent. What is more, in most cases, the bride and groom did not see each other until they started down the aisle in the church. There are even cases when two men meet by chance in a tavern: one has a son at home, and the other a daughter. They would drink a glass of wine and decide the fate of their children, agree among themselves to marry the children, to become matchmakers. After this they would do just that, even though the boy may not like this girl, since he has not seen her and did not personally know her, and conversely, the girl may not like the guy. But after the decision of their parents, no one asked them. Therefore, they had to agree, get married, become husband and wife. Such was the order of their {37} parents, and love would follow later. Later children appear and life will becomes a mixture of joy and sorrow.

Climatic conditions in our towns are difficult, as the climate is very humid. Harvesting of roughage for livestock during the course of the summer was not possible due to heavy and frequent rain. Our grasslands are located on marshy ground. After heavy rains, it was difficult to cut the grass in such places. It was even harder to dry hay, because grass clippings immediately fall into the water. In such cases, they discovered the following method. Birch trees were cut down in a nearby forest, the cut grass was laid out on the felled birch and they were dragged to higher places. There the grass dried up, and only then the grass was stockpiled. In such rainy and difficult years, the peasants had a big problem in the winter: livestock often went hungry in the winter, there was no feed. In these cases peasants were forced to remove some straw from the roof of their homes, and feed the cattle this rotten straw. In the spring the hungry cattle were so exhausted that they could not stand on their feet. They were often hung up on strings. This led to a lot of cattle perishing.

Our population was dark and downtrodden, they lived poorly and sloppily. People were contracting a hair disease – Koltun, malaria, and annually –in the spring– people contracted an eye disease, the so-called "night blindness”, or simply “chicken’s”.

Harvests were small. There were times when there were large crop failures, which led to deaths in our population. Often one could see hushed children sitting quietly in the houses, with hungry eyes, exhausted to their limit. The mortality rate was terrible.

Older people sincerely prayed for the coming of a welcome death.

This was the picture of our Diviners life, and in general the peasant life at large in those times. Peasant life was dull and sad. Memories of that past and difficult time shake the soul of each real observer.

Our Diviners feared above all the terrible calamities of [accidental] fires and loss of their livestock from starvation.

Fires occurred in our Divin particularly often. Peasant huts were pathetic, low to the dirt floor and had small windows. These houses did not even have chimneys, did not have a [stove] pipe. The smoke from the stove went straight into the house, rose up to the ceiling and exhausted through an opening made for it in the ceiling, or the smoke went out through the open door. Against this opening, a fixture was attached in which splinters burned in the evening to illuminate the house. After the splinters were put out and the stove no longer fed, the opening in the ceiling was closed with something. If some smoke remained in the house, the door was opened. Then it was cold at the bottom of the house, and hot at the top.

Our peasants did not live peacefully among themselves. Frequent quarrels occurred for various reasons. They arose during the partitioning of grasslands and other land-related division. Each small piece of land transferred to a neighbor, invited a storm of indignation. Even if the fence between neighbors leaned towards someone's side, there was a cause for quarrel. And such small things, such as the shadow of a tree {38} growing on the border of two neighboring plots, could beckon an argument. A chicken or piglet, straying accidentally onto a neighbor's land, caused yelling and quarrel. Peasant discords and curses were terrible.

They had always been a source of bad effects and troubles, revenge, and even cause for murder. Such feuds between peasants could last for decades, and there were cases that this passed on to descendants.