Entertainment and secular life

The secular life of the princely towns was diverse – folk holidays and various entertainment events, featuring dances, music, and songs, were often accompanied by performances from professional artists, including skomorokhs (wandering minstrels), puppeteers, and folk whistle players. Skomorokhs performed in the princes’ courts and on town squares. The development of musical and theatrical art is evidenced by the frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, one of which depicts an orchestra of seven performers playing the flute, trumpet, lute, gusli, and even the organ.

In particular, a fragment of a wooden gusli from Zvenyhorod is the oldest known sample of a string instrument found in the territory of Ukraine. Gusli consisted of two constructive elements – a deck and a resonator trough. Only a fragment of the upper part of the deck, richly decorated with carved ornament, which has holes for pegs to which the strings were attached, has survived from the Zvenyhorod instrument. A thin wire, made of an alloy of gold, silver, copper, and iron, was used for strings in the Middle Ages. Obviously, it was used here as well. Researchers admire the perfect shape of this form of gusli, which made the instrument vibrant.

It will forever remain a mystery for us, who played the Zvenyhorod gusli. Yet there is no doubt that the sounds of its strings entertained guests at crowded and lavish feasts in these wealthy mansions.

Rare archaeological findings in the territory of chronicle towns include pipes, such as those made of bone and wood.

There are numerous examples of games requiring intellectual or physical prowess. A wooden board from Zvenyhorod, lined with three quadrangles being “one in another”, connected with cross-lines among themselves, is most remarkable. This board was intended for a table game called “Windmill”, similar to checkers. Currently, the finding from Zvenyhorod is the oldest known game board in the territory of Ukraine. The “Windmill” game became especially popular in Europe in the 12th-14th centuries and has survived to this day.

It may be assumed that a favourite entertainment of princely townsfolk was a game of “Mazlo” which resembles golf. A considerable number of discovered wooden balls and bats is associated with this game. No less common was the game of dice, namely “Babka”. This game required the bones of the hind limbs of cloven-hoofed animals. They varied in size; their surface was often polished, sometimes covered with deep grooves, holes drilled in the centre, and made heavier by pouring lead inside them. This is the oldest game of the ancient world (including Egypt and Greece), the roots of which reach as far as the Bronze Age, yet it remains popular even nowadays.

Classic dice, chess pieces, ceramic pysanky (Easter eggs), and other similar archaeological findings are evidence of the multifaceted aspects of life in the princely towns.