2 JEWISH HOUSES: characteristic architecture of rural Jewish houses.As a rule, Jewish houses, like these two before us, had a high basement.They were well suited for trade and/or home production. The house had not only living quarters, but also storage and utility rooms, almost certainly the basement, which can be seen at the house on the right.The local building stone — limestone was used for foundations, although there were also wooden foundation structures. The cellars, like the building on the right, were covered with stone vaults 2.5 — 3 m high. You might be allowed to go inside.The walls of the houses usually had a frame structure filled with adobe clay, i.e. straw, cow dung, and even sheep's wool – for warmth! You can see it clearly now on the wall on the right, although it will probably be whitewashed and the clay will be hidden. This method of decorating the walls was borrowed from traditional Ukrainian-Moldavian house-building practices.In the early 18th century the roofs were usually covered with straw, in the 19th century tiles were increasingly used for this.In the main streets the basement premises usually housed taverns, and cellars were used to store wine. It was thought that a normal Jew should have a basement and a secret passage in case of a pogrom.Usually the basement room, like the house, had at least one other exit. Sometimes there is talk of an underground Jewish town, but no confirmation has been found.(Note that there were no pogroms in Rashkov except for one in December 1917. It was carried out by Cossack units of the Russian army, and in the course of the pogrom two Jews were killed.)The way the houses were laid out remained unchanged until the early 20th century, when brick ones appeared on the main streets of the townships. Many of them were built on the foundations of earlier buildings, as perhaps in the case of the building on the left.The styling of the facades of the shtetl's row houses has changed with the currents of time. The elements that shape the house often come from different stylistic rows: galleries with balustrade railings and solid stone columns in the spirit of classicism combine with a high triangular roof that brings back memories of Renaissance forms.Symmetry is not to be looked for here. Until the late 19th century, the windows in the facades of the houses were not symmetrical at all, and everything was dictated by function.The upper part of the doors had a glass filling so that you could see what was going on outside. In the building on the right the shutters of the windows are not external, but internal, so that in the evening you can close them without leaving the house.After viewing the houses, come to the alley going up from the building on the left (further in 2 places it is written that it is called Trinity Street) and on it, turning left, we will reach «Little» or «old» Jewish cemetery. We will not take the steeper old stairs on the left, but turn right and climb the new stairs that lead to Shabtai's tomb.