The shape of villages, lots and homes of the colonist villages of South Russia were extremely similar.
Farm lots in the beginning were quite generous in Krasna as in all of the Bessarabian colonies. The average lot was 1 desjatine (1,092 hectares). The width of the farm (facing the street) was 30-40 meters. The lot was 250 meters long. Later the lots were split lengthwise and by 1940 there were virtually no farms left of the original dimensions. Over the years, these farms were divided into 2, 3, even 4 sections.

Following is a description of a typical Krasna farm from about the turn of the century (1900). Prior to this time, the size and number of the buildings were much more modest. The splitting of the farms also changed the uniformity of segments.

The farms of the farmers were separated from the street by a 1.5-meter high wall, which was finished and whitewashed. One entered the farm by a wide gate in the farm wall. The farm lot was divided into the front and back area.

The flower garden was located right behind the street wall; sometimes there were a few trees. On one side was a long structure containing living and work spaces. In the front were the living areas and the winter kitchen, followed by the stables for horses and cows. Behind these was a shed for the wagon and farm implements. Opposite was the summer kitchen, followed by sheds and stables. The well was usually placed in the center of the yard and finished with mussel chalkstone, so called saw-stones. The top was finished in wood and in front of the wells were troughs of wood or stone to water the livestock The chaff shed, also called Kaffbude was at the end of the work space. A fenced in exercise yard, called Pferch or Harmann, was located in front of the sheep shed. In the winter when it was very cold, the sheep were taken into the stables.

The large threshing area was located in the back. (See 4.1, Agriculture) Surrounding it were the tall straw and hay sheds, the dung heap and the pigsty. The corn stalks were also placed in the straw sheds, as they served as livestock feed in the winter. Behind the buildings was still space for a large fruit and vegetable garden. Often there was a clover patch or corn patch to produce extra greenery to feed to the livestock when it returned from the pasture at night.

Back then in Bessarabia it was extremely difficult to build enough large barns to store the huge amounts of straw. Such buildings would have also been extremely expensive. Straw was placed in large straw sheds and packed very tightly to prevent seepage from rainwater; it took some skill to staple the straw. The sheds were 10 meters long and about eight meters tall. The gables of the buildings faced the street, there were only very few houses facing the street sideways. Traditionally, the buildings stood on the north side of the farm and windows and doors faced south. If windows had to be placed on the north side, a neighbor had to respect them and not obstruct them with buildings or shrubs and trees.

Image 34: Example of a farm plan

Each farm had a crown’s home in the beginning, with a small anteroom and two rooms. The floor plan for crown’s homes was identical for all. See: 2.2.2, Laborious Initial Years (1815-1835) Windows were very small and the doors were simple. Compared to the later homes of the colonists, the crown’s homes were poor. By and by they were replaced by more solid homes. According to Eduard Ruscheinsky, the last house from the time of the founding was demolished in 1911. The community report from 1848 for Alt Elft describes a house from around 1840. Houses are built simply and consist only of two rooms, the kitchen and the hallway. Aside from the parsonage, which is well furnished and roofed with tile, all other houses are roofed with reeds. We can assume that the same held true for Krasna.

This building method changed over the years as prosperity increased and more solid houses were built. Eduard Ruscheinsky describes it thusly: ¹⁾ The second generation already built much larger houses with the gables facing the street. The interior was more comfortable and more hygienic; the big room (called the good room) had a wooden floor in most houses already. Windows were larger, too, and the rooms were brighter.

In most cases the colonist homes continued to be single houses with the same floor plans. ²⁾ Houses were built considering the climate and the peculiarities of the landscape. The main farm building was now the elongated colonist house with its gabled front measuring 8-10 meters and a total length of 25-40 meters. The living area was in the front, followed by stables and sheds.

Image 37: Living part of a colonist house; taken from the town chronicle of Alt-Elft

The living area now contained 4-5 rooms. At the entry was a hallway leading to the kitchen, on both sides were the living and sleeping quarters, the front room (the “good room”) and front chamber (bedroom), as well as the rear room and the rear chamber. The good room was only used for company.

Such a house was considered a “whole” house. ³⁾ It housed the parents and the oldest married son. The work area was annexed to the house.

The exterior of a colonist home always looked clean and cared for. One has to point out, however, that there were farms with very modest homes and work facilities. The chronicle of Katzbach notes, and this was probably true for Krasna, as well: There are homes built very hygienically. They are spacious and have air and light. But many homes are small and unhealthy. Usually the entire family sleeps in one room.
See 3.6, Building and Heating Material

Most homes had a winter kitchen in the home and a summer kitchen in the yard. In some cases, the shed or barn also contained the summer kitchen and the baking stove (which kept the home cool) and meals were served in the yard. One can say that life took place in the summer kitchen in the summer. The summer kitchen was a handy institution. Here the food was prepared for the winter. (See 5.5, Food and Drink) The wash was done there and large amounts of water were heated for butchering. There were probably also other uses for this room.

A storage room and wine cellar was usually located at one side of the building, usually below the summer kitchen. Full basements were only found in the rectory or in one or two farmhouses. The cellar, whether below the house or in the yard, was almost always domed. Wine was stored there and the vegetable preserves, as well. See 5.5.1, Food

The houses were clean, but simple, furnished sparsely and utilitarian. Local craftsmen made the furniture. They were sturdily constructed and without luxury. In the final years, one could find upholstered furniture in the “good room.”

After World War I, people quit wallpapering the rooms. Instead, the rooms where painted with a mixture of thinned down chalk. One stayed away from wallpapering for health reasons.

People who could afford it had a “good room,” sometimes called the front room. It was especially ornate and only used when company came. The best furniture was located there, such as chest of drawers, sofa and sometimes a musical instrument.

Image 38: Maximilian and Katherina Ternes in their Krasna Living Room

In the bedrooms, pillows were piled high in the beds. Beds had to be built up this way as a sign of prosperity. There were no mattresses, people slept on sacks of straw.

Image 39: Bedroom in a Colonist Home of Krasna

There were no baths in the houses. One washed in a washbasin, bathed in a tub placed somewhere convenient. The toilet was outside of the home in an unused area of the yard. The nightstands had chamber pots made of ceramics or tin. Today, people know chamber pots only from photographs.

The kitchen was spacious, it served as the cooking facitliy and eating space. Although meals were prepared for a large number of people, there were no running water, no sink, no icebox and no electrical gadgets.
A built-in stove was located in the kitchen, often a built-in heater to heat several rooms. The oven for baking was usually in a separate room or in or beside the summer kitchen.

Krasna homes did not have floor coverings until the 20th century, if they had any at all. Normally the floors were compressed clay, spread with a layer of fine sand. From the mddle of the 19th century there were the first wooden floors, but many houses only had them in the good room.

The home had no heaters. People switched from an open chimney to enclosed stoves. These stoves were built to heat several rooms. For the construction of the stoves sun-dried tiles or fired tiles were used made of clay, sand and chalk.
The stoves had to be stoked every morning, but only where people congregated, a fully heated home as we know it today, did not exist.
It was not easy to kep the homes heated in the winter. As soon as the fire went out, the home cooled off quickly. Bedrooms were usually never heated and living rooms only occasionally. Before going to bed, heated tiles were placed in the beds to provide some warmth.

As already mentioned elsewhere, there were no electrical lights. In the first decades, kitchens had a piece of clay with a linen wick and a piece of tallow to provide the lighting. Tallow light was the only source of light even for the most delicate crafting or needlework. Each man of the house knew how to produce tallow lights by either drawing them like candles or making them in a special form of tin.
There were no matches, at first. People used the embers from the stove to light candles. In the final decades there were petroleum lamps. If one wanted to go to a different room or into the yard in the dark, one had to carry a petroleum lamp or a candle.