concept
Lapti (bast shoes)
bast shoes
also: лапти, lapti
Simple sandal-like shoes woven from strips of linden or birch bark, the standard footwear of the poorest Russian peasantry; worn by every raftsman on the timber raft as a visible mark of the destitution that sets raft labor apart from that of the better-off peasantry.
Reading notes
- On the River §11 All in bast shoes
Lapti, woven bark sandals, mark the raft crew as drawn from the very poorest peasantry -- Chekhov states outright that a well-fed, properly-clothed peasant does not take raft work.